Mr. Conger to Mr. Hay.
Peking, China , November 20, 1900 .
Sir: I have the honor to confirm my telegram of the 19th instant, and also to inclose1 a copy of the decree therein mentioned. The punishments are all grossly inadequate, and by no means commensurate with the crimes. Prince Tuan, the chief patron of the Boxers, and the responsible leader of the movement, is only stripped of his titles, and banished (?) to Moukden, the capital of Manchuria. The other princes are treated still more leniently. The two members of the Tsungli Yamen, Ying Nien, and Chao Shu-chiao, who were also patrons of the Boxers and directors of their movements, are simply degraded, but remain in their high offices. Yü Hsien is punished a little more severely, but since he himself is responsible for the commencement of the Boxer movement in Shantung, and later for the murder of our missionaries in Shansi, and of which he, as governor of that province, boasts, nothing but death is a fit punishment for him. * * *
I have, etc.,
- See dispatch No. 540, dated February 20, 1901, for this inclosure.↩