Pardon an insignificant old Englishwoman for venturing to address you. It is only because of the immense sympathy with your noble-hearted efforts to stop wars, ambitious and unjust, that I have done so. England loves peace also, and her united millions who now with one heart and soul are carrying out this war (and madam, the very peasants are naming their children after our generals) would never allow war to be made on our European neighbors. There is not the slightest wish or expectation of such a thing among us. Foreign journals which assert the contrary and thereby try to fan the flames of war are guilty of a European crime. I am, madam, faithfully yours Emily Axbell The year 1900 brought, besides the struggle so obstinately contested in South Africa, still other warlike events into the world, notably the troubles in China. First the Boxer uprising, the assassination of the German ambassador Ketteler, then the expedition for rescue and revenge sent by the combined European powers. I can still remember vividly with what feelings we followed the successive phases of these events. First the tidings of alarm, then the full horror of it. Then the Emperor William’s “Pardon-will-not-be-granted” speech—“Never in a thousand years shall a Chinaman venture to look askance at a German!” Great Heavens! in a thousand years it is to be hoped that no man will any longer inspire other men with fear.... Then the anxious question every day, “Are the legations still safe?” Then the joy that something corresponding to our ideal had been spontaneously developed: an international protective army for the rescue of the oppressed European brotherhood-in-arms,—a precursor of European unity. Then again the sorrow at the behavior of this army. Not only protection but also revenge, cruelty, and looting! The description of the outrages committed there by Europeans on noncombatants, even on the innocent, made one’s blood run cold. The thing itself—a united force of French, Russian, and other troops under the command of a German general—belonged to the new methods that are to come; but the execution still showed the old spirit. Even before things had reached their worst in China, the Chinese ambassador in St. Petersburg, Yang-Yü, whom we met at The Hague, wrote the following letter in reply to one which my husband had addressed to him in this emergency: Imperial Chinese Embassy St. Petersburg, August 4 (17), 1900 My dear Baron: The melancholy events now happening in my country often make me think of the friends of peace and those whom I had the honor of knowing at The Hague.