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. This
angered the consul and he returned them to the viceroy, who
promptly cut off their heads without so much as the semblance of
a trial, and Britain, anxious, as she was, to have every door of
the Chinese empire opened to foreign trade, found in this another
pretext for war. We do not pretend to argue that this was not the
best thing for China and for the world, but it can only be
considered so from the bitter medicine, and corporal punishment
point of view, neither of which are agreeable to either the
patient or the pupil.
Britain went to war. The viceroy was taken a prisoner to India,
whence he never returned. As though ashamed to enter upon a
second unprovoked and unjust war alone, she invited France,
Russia, and America to join her. France was quite ready to do so
in the hope of strengthening her position in Indo-China, and with
nothing more than the murder of a missionary in Kuangsi as a
pretext she put a body of troops in the field large enough to
enable her to checkmate England, or humiliate China as the
exigencies of the occasion, and her own interests, might demand.
America and Russia having no cause for war, no wrongs to redress,
and no desire for territory, refused to join her in sending
troops, but gave her such sympathy and support as would enable
her to bring about a more satisfactory arrangement of China's
foreign relations--that is more satisfactory to themselves
regardless of the wishes, though not perhaps the interests, of
China
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