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and argued that it was improper to treat with dishonour representatives of foreign rulers, equally independent and dignified as the Chinese Emperor himself, and added that if the Chinese Court should go on disrespecting foreign Ministers, he, too, would make use of his knowledge of Chinese rituals, and assume a position as disdainful of the Chinese Court as that of the Court to the foreign representatives. Nay, more, he would also teach the foreign representatives the way in which they could reciprocate the Chinese lack of respect. The lucky use he made of his profound Chinese scholarship soon made him master of the situation, and the Yamen Ministers accepted in principle the Western ceremony of saluting the Emperor while standing in front of him. But they procrastinated, and put off appointing the date of audience. Just at this time the news of the burning of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo reached Peking, and Soyejima now told the Yamen Ministers that the Japanese Emperor had sent the Ambassador to the Chinese Emperor out of respect to the Sovereign of the neighbouring Power, so that the Chinese Emperor should, properly speaking, send a mission of condolence to Tokyo on account of the late disaster; that he regarded the Chinese Ministers as standing very low in the scale of Chinese morals in not even hastening to appoint the day of audience already agreed upon; and that, as his presence was urgently called for in Tokyo, he would no longer wait, but would depart, leaving the rest to the Russian Minister in Peking.

Thus threatening to break off negotiations, he tried to take the Yamen Ministers by improviso regarding the question of Corea and Liukiu, for he knew that if he were to carry on formal negotiation on these subjects it would take months and years, and finally no definite results would be obtained. So he announced the 24th of June to be the day of departure, and on the 21st he sent Lord Yanagiwara, Japanese Minister to Peking, to the Yamen as his representative, and made him discuss with the Ministers on the following points:

Japanese Minister. Was Macao ceded for ever and without condition to Portugal?

Yamen Ministers. It is Chinese territory, but was ceded to Portugal on perpetual lease.

Japanese Minister. Some years ago, when France and the United States had to carry on military operations against Corea, they questioned the Chinese Government as to whether China regarded Corea as her tributary or not, and your Government answered that, though the King of Corea receives investiture from the Emperor of China, yet the internal administration and the question of war and peace were left to the