Szechwan - Its Products, Industries and Resources #271989

In 1874 Augustus Raymond Margary, a young British Consular Officer, was instructed to cross China to meet and conduct a Mission from India having for its object the exploration of a trade route from India through Burma into Western China. He left Shanghai on the 22nd of August, travelling by steamer up the Yangtsze to Hankow and then by native boat into Hunan and up the Yuan River to the city of Chen-yüan Fu in Kweichow, whence he proceeded overland through the west of Kweichow and the province of Yünnan. He reached Bhamo on the 17th of January 1875 and there joined the Mission under the leadership of Colonel Browne.<br><br>On the 18th of February the Mission arrived at the Burmo-Chinese frontier where rumours of dangers ahead reached it. Margary volunteered to re-cross the frontier alone and ascertain the state of the country. This he did next morning and reported from Seray that all was quiet and that he was going on to Manwyne, the first important town within the Yunnan border. He was followed up by the Mission as far as Seray; but no further message was received from him. On the 22nd letters reached the Mission from Burmese agents in Manwyne that on the previous day Margary had been brutally murdered in the neighbourhood of the town and the Mission was simultaneously attacked and had to retire into Burmese territory. A Mission of Inquiry composed of the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor and two Consular Officers - Arthur Davenport and Edward Colborne Baber - was later sent across China to Yunnan, but no satisfactory explanation of the murder was obtained, nor were the real instigators or perpetrators of the crime brought to book, and a settlement of the case, known at the time as "The Yünnan Case," was reached only after protracted negotiation, by the Agreement of Chefoo of the 13th September, 1876, in which were incorporated other stipulations dealing with Official Intercourse and Trade.<br><br>This Agreement marked the beginning of official connection with the great province of Szechwan, for Section III provided that the British Government would be free to send officers to reside at Chungking to watch the conditions of British trade in Szechwan. Baber was the first officer to take up his residence there, and in 1881 I was subsequently appointed to the same post. During the three following years I made three journeys through the provinces of Szechwan, Kweichow and Yunnan with the object of studying the conditions of trade in Western China.