The position of foreigners in the Middle Kingdom has been defined by various formal conventions, the first of which was the Treaty of Nanking, signed between England and China after the war of 1842, known in history as the Opium War. This was followed in 1844 by other treaties upon the same subject with France and the United States, and still later with other nations; in 1858 the treaties of Tien-tsin, which were concluded with France and England after a short war, but which were not ratified until 1860, after a much more serious campaign and the entry of the allied troops into Peking, greatly ameliorated the condition of foreigners in the Celestial Empire. Lastly, in 1895, the treaty of Shimonosaki, imposed upon China by victorious Japan, gave fresh facilities to foreign commerce. It is a characteristic fact, however, that no serious concession has been obtained from China until after a disastrous war, the Government of Peking never ceding to persuasion, only to force. Since the sixteenth century Europeans have been able, as the Arabs and Malays had before them, to carry on commerce with Canton without being molested, simply because they did not show any intention of extending their commerce further. But in the second quarter of the present century they became more numerous and exacting, and tension began to manifest itself. The pride of the Westerners, who were more than ever convinced of the superiority of their civilization, and whose progress at home was making giant strides, burned to impose their ideas upon the whole world, and thereby wounded the equally great pride of the Chinese, stubbornly attached to those very ancient customs so haughtily despised by the barbarians, as they were pleased to call us. The port of Canton, consecrated by tradition as the exchangemart between foreigners and natives, no longer sufficed for European ambition, and a clamour was raised to get rid of the twelve merchants, or _hongs_, to whom the Chinese Government had conceded the monopoly of trading with the outer world. The foreigners, moreover, demanded the right to deal with whomsoever they pleased, and refused to submit any longer to the arbitrary taxation and treatment to which they had hitherto been subjected by the local authorities. These demands and others of a similar character, which appear to us perfectly reasonable, were considered exorbitant by the Chinese. To our incessant protests they answered exactly as they had done twenty—nay, fifty—years before, that we wished to compel them to do in their own country exactly as we chose, whereas, considering that we were their guests, the contrary should be the case, and that we ought to submit to their ways, however objectionable they might seem to us, and even contrary to the interests and development of our commerce. This is precisely what Europe to-day, as then, refuses to admit, unless the Chinese very considerably mend their ways, being of opinion that so vast a country has no right to