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the Court into consternation. But the force at the disposal of the British envoy was totally inadequate for such an enterprise as a long march inland, involving the capture of many towns and forts en route, the maintenance of communications with a naval base a hundred miles distant, and finally the assault of a vast city protected by a wall which could not be breached without heavy artillery. If the British plenipotentiary had suggested such a mad project to the military and naval commanders, he would have provoked their ridicule. On the other hand, these same annalists do not hesitate to allege that in seeking to shift the scene of negotiations to Canton, the Chinese acted with characteristic treachery, having no intention of seriously discussing peace-terms either there or anywhere else. There have been many European and American accounts of China's foreign relations. Their compilers differ frequently in the details of the narratives, sometimes even in the main facts. But with few exceptions they agree in ascribing all China's acts to motives of duplicity and in denying the possibility of obtaining any concession from her except by displays of force. Through assiduous iteration these propositions have become proverbial. They have little basis of fact. Occidental appreciations of China have been derived chiefly from writers unconsciously prejudiced against her; writers who approached their task with a natural desire to find justification for the West in