Y Garcia to S. Wells Williams, October 25, 1873

Señor Garcia to Mr. Williams.

My Dear Sir: In accordance with what I had the honor of stating to you in my last official dispatch, dated the 10th instant, I left Shanghai on the 14th, but arrived here only on the 23d, on account of delays caused by unfavorable weather suffered at Che-foo and the Taku Bar.

At the same time that I received your note of September 22, communicating to me Prince Kung’s second dispatch to your legation about my mission in his empire, I received your polite private letter of September 18. Thanking you for it, now please allow me to address you the present one of the same nature, and to inform you of the steps I have taken since my arrival at Tien-tsin in connection with the object for which my government has sent me to China.

As an act of courtesy, and following the custom established by other foreign ministers, on the 23d I wrote a note to his excellency Ti-Hung-chang, announcing my arrival, and informing him that I would have the honor of presenting to him personally my respects on the next day (24th) if that time would suit him. He at once answered courteously, showing his readiness to receive me on that day, and “have a conversation with me,” but fixing the hour of 4 o’clock, as he was engaged at 2 o’clock.

I made my call, accompanied by my secretary of legation and by Mr. John A. T. Meadows, as interpreter, both of whom I announced in my note to the viceroy. His excellency received me with sufficient external courtesy.* * * * The interview lasted just an hour and a half, as the viceroy after a few minutes initiated a conversation on the emigration (“carrying away,” as he called it) of Chinese to Peru, and the wrongs they suffered there, which was in toto the repetition of Prince Kung’s statements in his note of July 6, to Mr. Low, to whose communications to the Tsungli Yamun he also referred.

As you are in possession of the prince’s notes, and of my dispatches to your legation in regard to them, I shall not repeat here the arguments I employed against Ti-Hung-chang’s observations; the final tendency of those arguments being to make him comprehend that he was mistaken on many points; that there was untruth and exaggeration in the reports he had heard; and that, if there is a misunderstanding between our two governments, I am on the spot, representing my own, with full powers to enter into any honorable agreement with the government of China. But he said again that no treaty could be made until Peru returned all the coolies that had gone there, of whom “nine-tenths,” he said, had died there; paying no attention to my replies that those assertions were destroyed by the fact of there existing in Peru about one hundred thousand Chinese; and that besides, my government could not send away against their will peaceful inhabitants who were contented with their lot, as by Peruvian law that would be deportation, a punishment only to be inflicted on criminals in virtue of the sentence of a court of justice. And when I added that such a deportation, if it were possible, would hurt the Chinese more than anybody else, as thousands of them have set up trades that give them lucrative results, the abandonment of which would make them lose the capital they have accumulated by their labor; that they are satisfied with that life, as is proved by the fact of their not leaving the country, although they possess the means of doing so, and nobody hinders them; and that when official relations are established between both countries, those facts could be observed by the proper Chinese officers, who would be enabled to make their representations to the competent authorities, in case complaints did exist; then Mr. Ti-Hung-chang answers with great assurance, that if foreigners went to Peru their statements could not be believed; that if Chinese commissioners went, they would be detained there by the Peruvians and prevented from corning back; and that no Chinese mandarin would go. Finally, the viceroy ended as he began, by doubting all I said.

He suddenly changed the conversation by asking we whether I had visited the customs Taotai. I replied that I had not, and that as I had just announced officially my arrival to him, (the viceroy,) I expected the Taotai’s first visit. On this point also there was a disagreeable discussion; and on his direct question, whether I proposed to visit the Taotai, I replied, “No; not until he visits me.”

Afterward, Ti-Hung-chang asked me at what house I was stopping, and then for how long I had taken it; to which I answered I had not taken it for any fixed time He next told me that he would return my visit to-morrow (26th) at 10 o’clock; and the conversation ended.

I have purposely entered into these details so that you may appreciate exactly the facts. In view of my last dispatch to you, written at Shanghai, and of the circumstances I now communicate, I earnestly hope you will adopt such a course as your good judgment may suggest, in order to point out to the Peking government the mistaken, and to them injurious, path they have adopted, due exclusively to the very peculiar and extraordinary manner of transacting diplomatic affairs in China.

I have come to this empire with a most honorable mission, which my government has intrusted to me. This mission directly interests the Chinese people, at least as much as it does Peru. There exists a misunderstanding between the two governments in regard to certain occurrences, true or false, which belong to the past. I am now here, which makes it possible that an understanding may be arrived at for the future between both parties.

Only a few miles separate me from the central government to which I am accredited; but before I reach Peking I meet an officer, a very high one it is true, of China, who abruptly commences to treat with me about my business, without the least knowledge of it or of my country, without telling me that he is duly authorized to negotiate with me, and who ends by saying (an Asiatic, or rather, Chinese fashion, probably,) that he doubts my statements.

I now hope that, as the season of the year does not allow me to remain indefinitely at Tien-tsin, and if I am to conduct my negotiations at Peking, I must know it within a very short time, you will do me a real service by finding out and letting me know the intentions and the way of proceeding of the Chinese government, who in any case ought to know that I have not come to beg favors of them nor to submit to their caprices.

It is painful to me to have to trouble you in this manner, but I am convinced that the present minister of the United States, who knows so profoundly the history of the middle kingdom, and who has so ably described the development of foreign intercourse in this empire, will take interest in assisting to disentangle an international situation such as probably has never presented itself before.

I shall always be happy to hear from you, officially or privately, begging you to address your communications to care of the consulate of the United States.

Thanking you again for your kind action, I am, my dear sir, &c.,