English and French officials proceeded to the scene in gunboats to examine the case and arrange a settlement. The case of the English family was settled without difficulty; but that of the French mission was more complicated. Among the French demands were two items which the Chinese Government found embarrassing. It had accepted the theory of murder and hastily conferred posthumous honours on the deceased magistrate. The French demanded the retraction of those honors, and a public admission of suicide. To pay a money indemnity and cashier a governor was no great hardship, but how could the court submit to the humiliation of dancing to the tune of a French piper? An English surgeon declared, in a sealed report of autopsy, that the wounds must have been self-inflicted, as their position made it impossible for them to have been inflicted by an assailant. But [Note from PG proofer: two lines of text missing here.] [Page 261] In 1870 France accepted a money payment for the atrocious massacre at Tientsin, because the Second Empire was entering on a life-and-death struggle with Germany. If she makes things easy for China this time, will it not be because the Republic is engaged in mortal combat with the Roman Church? China's constant friction and frequent collisions with France spring chiefly from two sources; (1) the French protectorate over the Roman missions, and (2) the menacing attitude of France in Indo-China. It was to avenge the judicial murder of a missionary that Louis Napoleon sent troops to China in 1857-60. From this last date the long-persecuted Church assumed an imperious tone. The restitution of confiscated property was a source of endless trouble; and the certainty of being backed up by Church and State emboldened native converts not only to insist on their own rights, but to mix in disputes with which they had no necessary connection--a practice which more than anything else has tended to bring the Holy Faith into disrepute among the Chinese people. Yet, on the other side, there are more fruitful sources of difficulty in the ignorance of the people and in the unfair treatment of converts by the Chinese Government. While the Government, having no conception of religious freedom, extends to Christians of all creeds a compulsory toleration and views them as traitors to their country, is it not natural for their pagan neighbours to treat them with dislike and suspicion?