Mr. Yang Yü to Mr. Gresham.
Washington, December 6, 1894.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 30th ultimo, in which you refer to the interviews had between us respecting [Page 125] two Japanese spies arrested in Shanghai a few months ago, and you particularly direct my attention to the fact that you requested me to ask that the two Japanese should not be tried till the return of United States Minister Denby to Peking, and that you understood me subsequently to have informed you that my Government had acceded to your request.
Your conduct, Mr. Secretary, in this whole transaction has been so just and impartial that I would deeply deplore any embarrassment which might even in an indirect way attach to you on account of it, and certainly nothing that I shall do or say shall in the slightest degree reflect upon you.
When I received from you the request above alluded to, I communicated it at once by cable to my Government at Peking, and expressed strongly my wish that action in the case of the Japanese prisoners should be delayed. Subsequently, when certain press dispatches reported the decapitation of said prisoners, I endeavored to obtain information by cabling directly to the taotai at Shanghai, into whose custody the U. S. consul-general had, by your direction, delivered them. In response, I received from the taotai a cablegram informing me that the prisoners had been forwarded to Nankin with his recommendation that they be punished by sentence of imprisonment, and that the report was without foundation. Upon receipt of this cablegram I had another interview with you, and, in explaining the purport of the telegram, I stated that you might rest assured the prisoners would not suffer harm before the arrival of Colonel Denby; but you must have misunderstood me if you received the impression that my Government had made any promise that the spies should not be tried before the arrival at Peking of Colonel Denby.
I gave you the assurance I did upon the information cabled me by the taotai at Shanghai and upon the belief on my part that his recommendation would be carried out. But when the prisoners were taken to Nankin, it was established by proof that they had furnished information to their Government by means of ciphers, in which seventy-six telegraphic messages in all were sent by them, giving reports of the movement of troops and of military matters in China of the gravest importance; all this in addition to the maps which had been found upon their persons in Shanghai. Further, when they were brought to trial they confessed these facts and boasted that they were serving their country as patriots. In the light of these undoubted proofs of guilt, the lenient recommendation of the taotai of Shanghai was set aside, and, in conformity with the laws of war, they were executed.
In our interviews you seemed to be impressed by the reports sent you from Shanghai that the prisoners were harmless students, and your desire appeared to be that in the excitement of war the forms of law and a fair trial should not be disregarded, and, in the belief that Colonel Denby’s presence and the high estimate in which he was held in my country would secure these guarantees, you asked for delay till his arrival at Pekin g. In view, however, of the unmistakable proofs of guilt and the boasts of the prisoners in the trial, I feel sure you will not regard the course pursued by my Government as unwarranted, much less wanting in deference for you or the Government which you so worthily represent.
Accept, etc.,