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The Sinking of the S.S. Kowshing: International Law, Diplomacy, and the Sino-Japanese War1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

DOUGLAS HOWLAND*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
*
The author is currently Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (Wisconsin, USA), and can be contacted at dhowland@uwm.edu.

Abstract

In July 1894, the Japanese navy sank the British steamship Kowshing, leased by China to transport troops to Korea. Diplomatic negotiations over compensation for the loss of the ship persisted for the next decade. In insisting upon China's responsibility, the British Foreign Office forsook the judgments of international legal experts and demonstrated that its main goals were to support British commercial interests and to encourage the position of Japan in East Asia. The surprising denoument of the Kowshing incident was China's payment of damages for the ship in 1903.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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Footnotes

1

The Japan Foundation and the Social Science Research Council provided generous funding for the research of this work; for assistance in locating materials, I thank staff members at the Public Record Office in London, the Archives of the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, and the Qing Diplomatic Archives in Taibei. The Center for Japanese Studies at the University of Michigan and the Department of History at the University of Connecticut kindly invited me to present preliminary versions of this essay; I am grateful to Michael Dintenfass, Sylvia Schafer, and their colleagues for penetrating questions, and to James Hevia, Teemu Ruskola, and a pair of anonymous readers for their valuable comments on earlier drafts.

References

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4 See Toshio, Ueda, “Nisshin sen'eki to kokusaihō”, in Hanabusa Nagamichi hakushi kanreki kinen ronbun shū, ed. Hanabusa Nagamichi hakushi kanreki kinen ronbun shū henshū iinkai (Tokyo: Keiō tsūshin, 1962), 488495Google Scholar; Yūzō, Shiraha, Nisshin Nichiro sensō to hōritsugaku (Tokyo: Chūō daigaku shuppanbu, 2002), 7072Google Scholar; and Qizhang, Qi, Guojifa shijiao xia de jiawu zhanzheng (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2001), 316328Google Scholar. The starting time of 23 July was the judgment of Ariga Nagao, who served as international legal advisor to the Japanese Army during the war; the starting time of 25 July was the judgment of Takahashi Sakue, who served as legal advisor to the Japanese Navy during the war. Takahashi's judgment was officially accepted by the Japanese government and unofficially by the British government.

5 Nish, Ian H., The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894–1907, 2d. ed. (London: Athlone, 1985), 911, 14Google Scholar; and Bourne, Kenneth, The Foreign Policy of Victorian England, 1830–1902 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970)Google Scholar. See also The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922, ed. Phillips Payson O'Brien (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004); for an example of the typical view, see Langer, William L., The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902, 2d. ed. (N.Y.: Knopf, 1961), 782784Google Scholar.

6 Nish, Ian H., “Japan Reverses the Unequal Treaties: The Anglo-Japanese Commercial Treaty of 1894”, Journal of Oriental Studies (Hong Kong) 13.2 (July 1975): 137145Google Scholar.

7 An English translation of Suematsu Kenchō's official report is available in British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, Part I, Series, E, Volume 4, Sino-Japanese War, 1894, ed. Ian, Nish (N.p.: University Publications of America, 1989), 267–70Google Scholar (cited hereafter as BDOFA).

8 The list of questions asked of survivor First Mate Tamplin is included in his testimony, reprinted in “Vladimir”, The China–Japan War, 241f., and in BDOFA, 251–54.

9 See telegram from Mutsu to Eitaki, 28 July 1894; telegram from Okoshi to Mutsu, 30 July 1894, and the series of telegrams between Mutsu and Aoki, 31 July 1894: in File 5.2.3./1, Japan, Gaimushō Archives. See also Takahashi, Sakuye, Cases on International Law During the Chino-Japanese War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899), 16Google Scholar; and the official history of the war prepared by Japan's Naval General Staff: Kaigun gunreibu, Seishin gaikō shiteki (N.p., 1904), 105–113.

10 Telegram from Aoki to Mutsu, 4 August 1894, in File 5.2.3./1; and exchage of telegrams between Aoki and Mutsu, 21–23 July 1894, in File 5.2.18./9, Japan, Gaimushō Archives. In fact, stories from Reuters that clearly took Japan's side in the dispute were printed in the London Times, 30 July 1894, p. 5, and 2 August 1894, p. 5. For accounts of similar activity, see Dorwart, Jeffery M., The Pigtail War: American Involvement in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1975), 9698Google Scholar; and Valliant, Robert B., “The Selling of Japan: Japanese Manipulation of Western Opinion, 1900–1905,” Monumenta Nipponica 29.4 (1974): 415–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Preliminary reports of the Kowshing incident are available in File F.O. 46/444, British Foreign Office Archives, and in File 5.2.3./1, Japan Gaimushō Archives. The offical British report is reprinted frequently in several sets of documents in File F.O. 46/446; and related material has been reprinted in BDOFA. An English translation of the official Japanese report is reprinted in Takahashi, Cases, 192–200, and BDOFA, 267–71. Reprinted Chinese materials are scattered among several collections, most important of which are: Qing Guangxuchao Zhong–Ri jiaoshe shiliao, ed. Gugong bowuyuan (Beiping: [Gugong bowuyuan], 1932); and Qingji Zhong-Ri-Han guanxi shiliao, ed. Zhongguo jindaishi ziliaohui (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, Jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1972); the Zongli yamen archives, held at Academia Sinica (Taiwan, R.O.C.) contains a number of Chinese translations of materials from British inquests; see Waijiao dang'an, File 01-13-18-4. A number of surprising variants of the story circulated at the time, which remain inexplicable for their unique sets of details; see Albert d'Anethan, The d'Anethan Dispatches from Japan, 1984–1910, sel., trans., and ed . . .. by George Alexander Lensen (Tokyo: Sophia University Press; Tallahassee: Diplomatic Press, 1967), 26f.; Hart, Robert, The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868–1907, ed. Fairbank, J. K., Bruner, K. F., and Matheson, E. M. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 979Google Scholar; Takahashi, Cases, 28; and Masao, Tokichi, “The Kowshing, in the Light of International Law”, Yale Law Journal 5.6 (June 1896): 247–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Takahashi gives the number of Chinese as 1100, in Cases, 26; his colleague Ariga Nagao gives 2000 in La guerre Sino-Japonaise au point de vue du droit international (Paris: A. Pedone, 1896), 18. By comparison, von Hanneken gave the number as 1220, First Mate Tamplin “about 1000”, and Captain Galsworthy testified 1100; see “Vladimir”, The China–Japan War, respectively 234, 237, and 242. In his meticulous attempt to reconstruct the event, Qi Qizhang gives the number of 1116; see Jiawu zhanzheng shi, 45.

13 See especially the survivors' testimony in “Vladimir”, The China–Japan War, 232–244; and BDOFA, 201f., 251–264, 292–95, 302–304. Additional reports by Chinese and Philippine crew are included in Qingji Zhong-Ri-Han guanxi shiliao, 3399–3401; and Waijiao dang'an (Zongli yamen Archives), File 01-13-18-4; and Von Hanneken's statement is also reprinted in the correspondence from the U.S. Chargé d'Affairs in Seoul, John M. B. Sill, to W. Q. Gresham of the State Department in Washington; see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894, Appendix 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1895), 45–47. Von Hanneken's subsequent career with the Chinese navy is recounted in Trumbull White, The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea (N.p., 1895), 525–29; his report of naval action at Yalu, for example, is included in F.O. 233/119 (pp. 171–187), British Foreign Office Archives.

14 Takahashi inexplicably gives erroneous dates, stating that the Kowshing's officers arrived in Sasebo on 28 August, were quite graciously conveyed to Nagasaki at their own request on 4 September, and that the naval court hearing in Nagasaki took place on 18 September; see Cases, 35.

15 A memorial sent by Li Hongzhang to the Chinese court on 13 August reported that the Lion had rescued 45 persons, the German warship Iltis rescued 120, and a British warship rescued 87, for a total of 252; see Zhong-Ri zhanzheng, ed. Qi Qizhang (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1989), 1: 77. Takahashi's numbers vary: the Lion rescued 45, another 467 Chinese were found on the several islands in the vicinity, of whom 120 were carried back to China by the German warship Iltis. And the other 347? Cases, 36f.

16 The preliminary reports and finding of the Naval Court of 7 August are reprinted in BDOFA, 265f., 292f., 296f., 302–304, 313–315. Another inquiry was held at Tianjin by two officers of the Imperial Chinese Admiralty: Gustav Detring, a German in the service of the Inspector General of Maritime Customs (and advisor to Li Hongzhang), and Luo Fenglu, naval secretary toViceroy Li Hongzhang (and future ambassador to London); see “Vladimir”, The China–Japan War, 232–34; and BDOFA, 293–95. On Luo, see Xiangji, Kong, “Jiawu zhanzheng zhong beiyang shuishi shangceng renwu de xintai: yingwuchu zongban Luo Fenglu jiashu jiedu”, Jindaishi yanjiu, no. 120 (11/2000): 140160Google Scholar; and on Detring, see Lilian Ota Dotson, “The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95: A Study in Asian Power Politics” (Ph.D.dissertation, Yale University, 1951), 59. Present at the hearing were the consuls of the United States, Russia, France, and Germany, as well as representatives of the British Consulate and the owners of the Kowshing; Qi Qizhang has determined that the hearing took place at 10 a.m. on 1 August; see Jiawu zhanzheng guoji guanxi shi (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1994), 241.

17 See the “Latest Intelligence” report on “China and Japan” in the London Times, July 28, 1894, p. 5; the letter from Lloyd's Underwriters to the Foreign Office, 3 August 1894, F.O.46/462, British Foreign Office Archives; and “Rosebery's Memorandum on the Eve of the Sino-Japanese War”, reprinted in Bourne, The Foreign Policy of Victorian England, 433f. See also d'Anethan, The d'Anethan Dispatches, 25; Bourne, The Foreign Policy of Victorian England, 153f.; Joseph, Foreign Diplomacy in China, 71–73; Pelcovits, Nathan A., Old China Hands and the Foreign Office (1948, repr. N.Y.: Octagon, 1969), 168174Google Scholar; Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 172–175; Young, L. K., British Policy in China, 1895–1902 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 16f.Google Scholar; Perez, Louis G., Japan Comes of Age: Mutsu Munemitsu and the Revision of the Unequal Treaties (Cranberry, NJ: Associated University PressesGoogle Scholar; Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999), 152–171; Qizhang, Qi, Guojifa shijiao xia de jiawu zhanzheng (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2001), 254f.Google Scholar; and Nish, The Anglo–Japanese Alliance, 11–26. Nish notes that many Japanese officials at the time—and later Japanese historians—felt that the British took the side of China in the war; such a sentiment was confirmed by the British consul-general in Shanghai, Mr. O'Conor, in an interview with the Zongli yamen on 27 July: see Qing Guangxuchao Zhong-Ri jiaoshe shiliao, 15: 33f. An English translation of the interview is preserved in the “Record Book” of the British Embassy in Peking: F.O. 233/42 (p. 131f.), British Foreign Office Archives.

18 See the exchange of telegrams between Aoki and Mutsu dated 12 August 1894, in File 5.2.3./1, Japan, Gaimushō Archives. See Fremantle's report to the Admiralty, 8 August 1894, in BDOFA, 111; on 17 August, the Foreign Office told the Admiralty and the Law Officers of the Crown that Fremantle was not to interfere with belligerents who captured British vessels, BDOFA, 127.

19 Mutsu to Aoki, 12 August 1894, in File 5.2.3./1, Japan, Gaimushō Archives. Because Britain did not issue a formal neutrality act until 7 August 1894, Mutsu was likely referring to a British Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, which prohibited British subjects from serving with foreign belligerents in time of war. Both the formal Proclamation of Neutrality and discussion of the Foreign Enlistment act are included in File 46/462, British Foreign Office Archives; for the latter, see the correspondence between Foreign Secretary Lord Kimberley and the Law Officers of the Crown, 3 August 1894. Public proclamations in the London Gazette, 7 August 1894, are reprinted in BDOFA, 106–109.

20 J. Westlake, “To the Editor of the Times”, August 3, 1894, p. 10; reprinted in Takahashi, Cases, 38–40. Westlake reiterated these points in a second letter “To the Editor of the Times”, August 29, 1894, p. 9.

21 T. E. Holland, “To the Editor of the Times,” August 7, 1894, p. 3; reprinted in Takahashi, Cases, 40–42.

22 See the report on questions before Parliament in the London Times, August 3, 1894, p. 4; and the pair of letters “To the editor of the Times” by George Curzon, August 6, 1894, p. 6, and August 9, 1894, p. 8.

23 See Westlake, John, The Collected Papers of John Westlake on Public International Law, ed. Oppenheim, L. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914), 274282Google Scholar.

24 See Sakue, Takahashi, Eisen ‘Kōshō’ gō no gekichin (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1903), 140–43Google Scholar.

25 The Japan file in the British Foreign Office archive reveals a steady stream of requests on the part of Japanese diplomatic personnel for official naval and army policies and manuals during the 1870s, 80s, and 90s.

26 Holland, Thomas Erskine, A Manual of Naval Prize Law, founded upon the Manual prepared in 1866 by Godfrey Lushington (London: Printed for HMSO by Darling & Son, 1888)Google Scholar, 25f., 44, 62. See also Institute of International Law, Resolutions of the Institute of International Law dealing with the Law of Nations, coll. James Brown Scott (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1916), 4562Google Scholar, 71–77.

27 Holland, Manual of Naval Prize Law, 16.

28 See the letter by Lawrence, T. J., “To the Editor of the Times”, August 24, 1894, p. 4Google Scholar.

29 “Chine et Japon,” Revue générale de droit international et public 2 (1894): 463–468.

30 Masao, Tokichi, “The Kowshing, in the Light of International Law,” Yale Law Journal 5.6 (June 1896): 248257CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Institute of International Law, Resolutions of the Institute of International Law dealing with the Law of Nations, coll. James Brown Scott (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1916), 163f.Google Scholar; and Scott, James Brown, ed., The Hague Conventions and Declarations of 1899 and 1907, 3d. ed. (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1918), 9699Google Scholar.

32 The first sign of a shift occurs in a memo from Francis Bertie (assistant to the Foreign Secretary) to Kimberley, dated 9 August, in which he reports on his interview with Baron von Siebold, secretary to the Japanese Legation inTokyo: Siebold asserted the fact of Chinese hostility to Japan and observed that a state of war may exist without a formal declaration; see BDOFA, 112. On the operation of the Foreign Office during this period, see Jones, Ray A., The Nineteenth-Century Foreign Office: An Administrative History (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1971), 7384Google Scholar.

33 Lord Herschell, “The ‘Kowshing’: Memorandum”, 10 November 1894, in F. O. 46/446, British Foreign Office Archives. See also the Foreign Office, “Memorandum” (1 July 1895), in BDOFA, 14–15.

34 Note from Kimberley to Aoki [1 August 1894], in File 46/444; and the Colonial Office Note of 31 July 1894, in File 46/462, British Foreign Office Archives.

35 Nonetheless, Hosea Morse reported that “The British Foreign Office decided that war had already broken out at 4 a.m. on July 23rd, by the Japanese invasion of the royal palace at Seoul; accepting this decision, it must also be accepted that the Japanese were within their right in sinking a transport on which enemy troops refused to surrender”. See Morse, Hosea Ballou, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (N.Y.: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1910–1918), vol 3: 24Google Scholar. I have not found confirmation of this judgment in the Foreign Office archives.

36 Robert Hart, The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868–1907, ed. Fairbank, Bruner, and Matheson, 1038, 1096.

37 Luo Fenglu, Memorandum to Salisbury, 22 August 1898, p. 10, in F.O. 17/1355, British Foreign Office Archives.

38 Lord Herschell, “The ‘Kowshing’: Memorandum”, [p. 5].

39 Ibid., [p. 4].

40 Luo Fenglu, Memorandum to Salisbury, p. 2.

41 On the background of the Tonghak rebellion and its relation to the Sino-Japanese war, see Conroy, Hilary, The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868–1910 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960), 229240CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the comments of Bonnie B. Oh in “The Historiography of the Sino-Japanese War”, by Jansen, Marius B., Chu, Samuel C., Okamoto, Shumpei, and Oh, Bonnie B., International History Review 1.2 (April 1979): 214227CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 George Curzon, “Letter to the Editor”, Times, 9 August 1894, p. 8.

43 Luo Fenglu, Memorandum to Salisbury, pp. 2–3. At the time of the sinking, other Chinese scholars had already insisted that Japan had defied international law by firing on a British ship without a declaration of war; see Qingji waijiao shiliao, ed. Wang Yanwei (Beiping: n.p., 1932–35), 93: 14f.; and Zhong-Ri zhanzheng (ed.Qi), 1: 57f.

44 Luo Fenglu, Memorandum to Salisbury, pp. 4–5. On Luo's references to Lord Stowell's (Sir William Scott's) judgments re. the “San Juan Baptista” and the “La Purissima Conceptione”, see Henry, Wheaton, Elements of International Law, ed. Richard, Henry Dana Jr., [1866] and George Grafton Wilson [1936] (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1936), pp. 507, 576, 579, 601Google Scholar; and Hall, William Edward, A Treatise on International Law, 4th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon; London: Henry Frowde, 1895), 526f., 626f., 762Google Scholar.

45 “Chine et Japon”, Revue générale de droit international et public 2 (1894): 467.

46 Luo Fenglu, Memorandum to Salisbury, p. 11.

47 Ibid., p. 13.

48 Ibid., p. 13.

49 See the correspondence between Luo and Salisbury in Files F.O. 17/1355 and 1397, British Foreign Office Archives. In the interests of length, I would merely note that Luo, in striving to make the British Foreign Office argue in a consistent and thus rational manner, also presented an analogy between the Kowshing incident and the case of the Tatsuta, a Japanese warship built in Britain and detained from proceeding to Japan during time of war, according to the rules of neutrality. The diplomatic correspondence is contained in Files F.O. 46/462 and F.O. 46/463, British Foreign Office Archives; see also BDOFA, 275f.

50 Quoted in Luo's letter to Salisbury, 18 April 1899, F.O. 17/1397, British Foreign Office Archives. Cf. Hall, A Treatise on International Law, 4th ed., v, 521–23, 597.

51 Holland, Thomas Erskine, “International Law in the War Between Japan and China” [1895], in Studies in International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898), 112129Google Scholar. This was also the conclusion of T. J. Lawrence in his letter “To the Editor of the Times,” August 24, 1894, p. 4.

52 Luo's letter to Salisbury, 18 April 1899, F.O. 17/1397, British Foreign Office Archives.

53 A geopolitical explanation that was offered then and again recently is that Britain and Japan cooperated out of a collective fear of Russian penetration into Korea, which China could not forestall; see Long Zhanlin's memorial of 5 August 1894, in Zhong–Ri zhanzheng (ed. Qi), 1: 53; and Sun Kefu and Sun Fang, “Lun jiawu ‘Gaosheng’ hao shijian”, 269f. See also Kajima, Morinosuke, The Diplomacy of Japan, 1894–1922, vol. 1, Sino-Japanese War and Triple Intervention (Tokyo: Kajima Institute of International Peace, 1976), 141Google Scholar; and Qi Qizhang, Guojifa shijiao xia de jiawu zhanzheng, 252f., 256f., 261.

54 Note from Sanderson to Salisbury, 27 April 1896, File F.O. 17/1286, British Foreign Office Archives. At this point, matters concerning the Kowshing incident shift from the Japan file to the China file in the Foreign Office.

55 Correspondence between Francis Bertie and the Law Officers of the Crown, 6 September 1894, File F.O. 46/446, British Foreign Office Archives. See also the Foreign Office, “Memorandum” (1 July 1895), 13; and the legal opinions of the Law Officers of the Crown, in BDOFA, 127f.

56 See Young, British Policy in China, 5–8; Pelcovits, Old China Hands and the Foreign Office, 157–189, esp. p. 160; Tilley, John and Gaselee, Stephen, The Foreign Office (London: G. P. Putnam, 1933), 227232Google Scholar; Jones, Raymond A., The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914 (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983), 221Google Scholar; and Cecil, Algernon, “The Foreign Office”, in The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783–1919, ed. Ward, A. W. and Gooch, G. P. (N. Y.: MacMillan, 1923), vol. 3: 610f., 624fGoogle Scholar. Cecil notes that commercial interests migrated to the Department of Overseas Trade after it was established in 1917.

57 Letter from Salisbury to Luo, 29 August 1897, F.O. 17/1327, British Foreign Office Archives.

58 Letter from Luo to Salisbury, Dec. 8, 1897, File F.O. 17/1327, British Foreign Office Archives. The Foreign Office too had earlier noted the negligence of the ICSN Company in presenting their claim; see the Foreign Office, “Memorandum” (1 July 1895), 15.

59 This initial claim against Japan, for 80,000 pounds, is reprinted in BDOFA, 273f.

60 Some of the correspondence from January through June 1895 is reprinted in British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, Part I, Series E, Volume 5, Sino-Japanese War and Triple Intervention, 1894–1895, ed. Ian Nish (N.p.: University Publications of America, 1989).

61 Sanderson's note of 8 December 1897, File F.O. 17/1327, British Foreign Office Archives.

62 Letter from Salisbury to Luo, 18 March 1899, and Luo to Salisbury, 10 December 1899, File F.O. 17/1397, British Foreign Office Archives.

63 Letter of Luo to Salisbury, 10 December 1899, File F.O. 17/1397, British Foreign Office Archives.

64 Letter from Law Offices to Lansdowne, 3 June 1901, File F.O. 17/1666, British Foreign Office Archives.

65 See the correspondence between Luo and Salisbury, 3 April 1900, 24 April 1900, 15 June 1900, and 30 August 1900, in File F.O. 17/1435, British Foreign Office Archives. Chinese records contain an exchange of telegrams between Luo and Li Hongzhang (Viceroy of Zhili) from 31 March to 3 April 1900, reconfirming the fact that the Chinese troops aboard the Kowshing had been expressly invited by the Korean king; see Qing Guangxuchao Zhong-Ri jiaoshe shiliao, 53: 6–7; and Li Hongzhang, Li Wenzhong gong quanji: diangao (Nanjing: n.p., 1908), 22: 5–6.

66 Letter from Lansdowne to Luo, 8 April 1902; and Draft Protocol of 18 March 1902, with handwritten revisions: File F.O. 17/1666, British Foreign Office Archives.

67 See the several letters from the Secretary of the Indo–China Steam Navigation Company to Lansdowne in File F.O. 17/1666; the comment about “no inconsiderable suffering” occurs in the letter of 10 December 1901; and see Ure's letters to Lansdowne of 2 April 1902, 8 May 1902, and 9 March 1903, in File F.O. 17/1666, British Foreign Office Archives.

68 Letters from Satow to Lansdowne, 6 May 1902 and 12 June 1902, and telegram from Satow to the Foreign Office, 23 September 1902, in File F.O. 17/1666, British Foreign Office Archives.

69 See the correspondence between the ICSN Company and the Foreign Office in 1902 and 1903, in File F.O. 17/1666, British Foreign Office Archives.

70 See Howland, Douglas, Borders of Chinese Civilization: History and Geography at Empire's End (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 37f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hsü, Immanuel C. Y., The Ili Crisis: A Study of Sino-Russian Diplomacy, 1871–1881 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 181188Google Scholar; Eastman, Lloyd E., Throne and Mandarins: China's Search for a Policy During the Sino-French Controversy, 1880–1885 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 153, 175Google Scholar; and Hevia, James L., English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-century China (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 173CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 The original agreement is reprinted in BDOFA, 277–280. Charles Denby, Jr., the U.S. Ambassador to China, reported the fact of the “purchase money” to the State Department, see Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894, Appendix 1: 42; and Takahashi Sakue reported that a telegram from the Japanese Consul at Shanghai on 8 August indicated that the Chinese had put 40,000 pounds on deposit at the Hongkong Shanghai Bank as security for the boat, see Eisen ‘Kōshō’ gō no gekichin, 24f. See also Anethan, The D'Anethan Dispatches from Japan, 26f.; and White, The War in the East, 445.

72 See the exchange of letters between Collier and Carver, and Lansdowne, on 4 and 11 February 1904, in File F.O. 17/1666, British Foreign Office Archives.

73 Kunitaka, Kume, Tokumei zenken taishi Bei-Ō kaitan jikki, ed. Akira, Tanaka (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1979), vol 3: 329fGoogle Scholar.

74 See Dudden, Alexis, The Japanese Annexation of Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

75 On the Japanese massacre at Port Arthur in November 1894, see Keene, Donald, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912 (N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 2002), 491–96Google Scholar; Haruki, Inoue, Ryojun gyakusatsu jiken (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1995)Google Scholar; Lensen, Balance of Intrigue, 187; Paine, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, 207–222; Sauvage, La guerre sino–japonaise, 1894–1895, 146–149; Shiraha, Nisshin–Nichiro sensō to hōritsugaku, 120–190; Hisaya, Shirai, Meiji kokka to Nisshin sensō (Tokyo: Shakai hyōronsha, 1997), 141–88Google Scholar; and White, The War in the East, 583–609. Inoue's work has been translated into Chinese as Lüshun da tusha (Dalian: Dalian chubanshe, 2001); for the official Japanese military version of the event, see Meiji nijūshichi–hachinen Nisshin senshi, vol. 3, Ryojun hantō no sakusen, ed. Sanbō honbu (Tokyo: Ikueisha, 1907).