Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 3, 1888, Part I

No. 161.
Mr. Denby to Mr. Bayard.

Legation of the United States,
Peking , December 28, 1887. (Received February 24.)

No. 533]

Sir: Recurring to my dispatch No. 529, of date the 20th instant, I have the honor to inclose a translation of the Yamên’s reply to my communication regarding the recent missionary trouble at Chi Nan Fu, by which you will observe that instructions have been sent to the Shantung authorities to clearly investigate and properly manage the affair.

I have, etc.,

Charles Denby.

[Inclosure in No. 533.—Translation.]

The Tsung-li Yamen to Mr. Denby.

Peking , December 26, 1887.

No. 19.]

Your Excellency: Upon the 21st instant the prince and ministers had the honor to receive a communication from your excellency citing the circumstances of a riot at Chi Nan Fu, which occurred on account of the lease of property by American missionaries, in which one of them was informed that one of the middlemen to the transaction was confined in chains; that the magistrate had disregarded the promises of the Taotai and that all the missionaries could do would be to accept back the money. Your excellency requested that the Shantung authorities be instructed to provide some remedy for the wrongs and injuries inflicted, and proposed four things be ordered by the prince and ministers to be done, etc.

The prince and ministers would state that it appears that there is no record of the case in question having been reported to the Yamên. But now having received your excellency’s communication narrating the circumstances, the prince and ministers have addressed the governor of Shantung requesting him in turn to instruct the Taotai at Chi Nan Fu to clearly investigate and properly manage the affair. As in duty bound the prince and ministers send this communication in reply for your excellency’s perusal.