The year 1868 is remarkable for a singular episode. The Regents and other high authorities in Peking decided, at whose instigation can only be surmised, to send an embassy to the various countries of Europe and America, in order to bring to the notice of foreign governments China's right, as an independent Power, to manage her internal affairs without undue interference from outside. The mission, which included two Chinese officials, was placed under the leadership of Mr Burlingame, American Minister at Peking, who, in one of his speeches, took occasion to say that China was simply longing to cement friendly relations with foreign powers, and that within some few short years there would be "a shining cross on every hill in the Middle Kingdom." Burlingame died early in 1870, before his mission was completed, and only four months before the Tientsin Massacre threw a shadow of doubt over his optimistic pronouncements. The native population at Tientsin had been for some time irritated by the height to which, contrary to their own custom, the towers of the Roman Catholic Cathedral had been carried; and rumours had also been circulated that behind the lofty walls and dark mysterious portals of the Catholic foundling hospital, children's eyes and hearts were extracted from still warm corpses to furnish medicines for the barbarian pharmacopoeia. On June 21, the cathedral and the establishment of sisters of mercy, the French Consulate and other buildings, were pillaged and burnt by a mob composed partly of the rowdies of the place and partly of soldiers who happened to be temporarily quartered there. All the priests and sisters were brutally murdered, as also the French Consul and other foreigners. For this outrage eighteen men were executed, a large indemnity was exacted, and the superintendent of trade, the same Manchu official whose subsequent diplomatic failure at St Petersburg has been already noticed, was sent to France with a letter of apology from the Emperor.