but voluntarily acquired, through the Jesuits missionaries, a solid knowledge of mathematics, and of general European science in its then state, to an extent curiously great in an Asiatic potentate. Possibly this young and talented ruler felt that he possessed the abilities, the resources, and the instruments necessary to bring back all China within the centralized form of government; and, to that end, began proceedings against the southern vassals which drove them into rebellion. Or it may have been that these latter thought themselves sufficiently established to assert complete independence. Certain it is, however, that Woo san kwei who was still living, and the loved feudal ruler of the present province of Yunan, formally threw off his allegiance and marched (1673-1674) a large army northwards against his suzerain. The three vassal princes of South Eastern China followed his example, and were joined in the movement by the independent naval Prince of the Formosan Colonies. But though acting simultaneously, they did not act together; some of them even fought with each other; and in the course of a ten years' war, the young Emperor Kang-he overcame them all. Kwang tung and Fuh keen were in about three years completely conquered, and formally incorporated into the centralized system. It took about five or six years to reduce Kwang se, which lay nearest to the territory of Woo san kwei. This old ex-Ming general* maintained his military reputation to the last. He carried on the war, beyond the bounds of his own principality rather than within it, for five years. He then (1678) died; when with an army in Hoonan. In the course of the three years following his demise, the armies of the Manchoo Emperor penetrated into his state, reduced it to complete subjection, and put

* He was a contemporary of Cromwell. Like Cromwell he exercised a decisive influence on the fortunes of his country; and though he felt constrained to acquiesce in the domination of his self imposed auxiliaries, yet whenever he did fight, either against or with them, he was like Cromwell successful as a warrior. Though almost unheard of in Europe, he was one of the most remarkable men that the seventeenth century saw in the "world.”

every member of his family to death. These contests finished, the Emperor concentrated his efforts on Formosa, and soon compelled its prince to give in his submission. He was removed to Peking, where he thenceforth resided as a pensioned titulary; and the Formosan colonies were brought under the centralized administration as a department of the Fuh keen province.

CHAPTER X.

FORMATION OF CHINESE POLITICAL SOCIETIES AGAINST THE MANCHOO DOMINATION, AND ORIGIN OF CHINESE INSURREC→ TIONS AND REBELLIONS GENERALLY.

THE final subjugation, just narrated, of all South Eastern China to the Manchoo dynasty did not take place till 1678-9, that of Formosa not till 1683, up to which latter period the sea-board population had always a place of refuge in that independent, though small, Chinese State. For about 40 years, therefore, after the advent of the Manchoo dynasty was proclaimed at Peking, the mountaineers and coastlanders of South Eastern China never felt themselves completely and hopelessly under its sway; and from that date to the present day-during a period of 170 years-this very portion of China has been the great seat of a formidable political society, best known as the San ho hwuy, the Triad Society, the express object of which has been the expulsion of the barbarian conquerors of their country.

Few of the details of its internal organization are known with certainty. Like the members of many other societies, the first Christians for instance, who have had a common object so great that in presence of it all were equal, the Triads call each other "brethren," and the chiefs are, irrespective of actual age, the senior brethren.

During the remaining 40 years' rule of the vigorous, talented, and learned Emperor Kang he; during the 13 years' reign of his son; and during the 60 years' reign of his grandson, his rival in Chinese political learning and

administrative ability, these political societies were only able to exist by the observance of the strictest secrecy, and the adoption of peculiar rules of embodiment and mutual support, which tend to separation of the members from social and family ties. Under the debasing influence of this secrecy and this separation, to which they were compelled during the most brilliant century of the Manchoo domination, the members largely degenerated into mere gang-robbers and pirates. Nevertheless, they have from first to last not ceased to cherish their original principles and objects, summed up in their well known pithy manifesto: "Fan tsing fuh ming. Overthrow the Manchoos, re-establish the Mings." And whenever the opportunity has offered, the seemingly mere bandits and buccaneers have evinced a capability to aspire after, and to assume a character and functions essentially political.

This is a kind of change which is not puzzling only to the British public at home. Many English, French and Americans, long residents in China, have shewn a noteworthy lack of power to comprehend aright, even when it has taken place under their eyes, a transformation so alien to all their previous conceptions and historical recollections. This lack of power, or mental incapacity to master a novel situation (as we may call it in modern diplomatic language), cannot, I regret to say, be regarded at this time simply as a noteworthy fact for the philosophical historian: it is too likely to prove a lamentable fact in a practical sense at the present crisis in China, by leading to a radically unsound and wrongheaded interference, or a confused and vacillating intermeddling with Chinese political movements. The following remarks will, I trust, set the matter in its true light.

I have already shewn above (page 24) that there does not exist, in the strictly autocratic organization which the Chinese government system constitutes, any authorized peaceable means by which the people can check tyranny on the part of the Emperor himself, or tyrannical proceedings

I

sanctioned by him. When a district, a departmental, or even a provincial authority makes tyrannical demands on those under him, the Chinese can and do, often, oppose a peaceable opposition in this way: they refuse to yield and suffer quietly all the oppressions brought to bear on them to extort compliance. The tyrannical mandarin either shrinks from carrying his oppressions beyond a certain degree and extent, or these oppressions themselves ultimately defeat the object they were intended to effect. This species of purely passive opposition is often accompanied by one of an active but still peaceable and quite negative character: the tradesmen will close their shops, workmen will cease labouring, and passage boats stop running, i. e. there is a general strike of the productive and distributive classes. The result is in both cases the same, the tyrannical mandarin fails in attaining his aims, and finds himself an object of general abhorrence. But the people bring about this result only by a fearful amount of loss and suffering in property and person; and though the Chinese do possess to a degree in which they are equalled only by the Anglo Saxon race what may be termed the communal spirit (that is, the faculty of combining for common purposes, and of making the cause of individuals the cause of the community because representing a principle), nevertheless tyrannical proceedings may be carried to a most deplorable extent before the people generally of any locality can resolve to engage in a struggle in which, even if successful, they unavoidably suffer so much. The right of appeal to a higher authority exists in the above cases, and is invariably exercised in conjunction with the passive resistance offered. But the unfortunate necessity in which pure autocracy is placed of regarding all opposition in the first instance as factious, and of enforcing obedience as the general rule, rarely to be departed from,—this necessity renders these appeals for a long time ineffective; while the individuals who make them in the name of the community seldom escape special victimization. Still it is by persistance in these appeals, sup