takes place here as you may believe. Your evasive answer I can only take for what it is, as a final and net refusal of my request, and as, under these circumstances, I do not feel justified in uselessly remaining here any longer with the steamer, we shall prepare to return at once. The Government will have to thank itself if the request, now amicably made, is repeated in a more categoric and less acceptable way another time.
The envoys listened to my reply with great attention, and without moving a muscle of their faces, while their secretaries wrote it down word for word. When I came to speak of the affair of the missionaries, they started and looked at each other, as if to express their surprise that it was known abroad. They both rose when I had concluded, and, coming up to me, they tried to appease the vexation and anger which they saw me exhibit. They seemed much to regret that the answer, which they had been instructed to deliver, was taken so much to heart; and expressed their hope that everything might yet come right in time. They begged me not to lose patience, and not to bear them any personal ill-will for the part they had to take in the affair.
I have no cause to be angry with you, I told them, for I know that you have only carried out the instructions given to you. But I am naturally angry with your Government, which will not listen to the voice of reason and peace; the time will come sooner or later, when it will have to listen to the
