Peking
July 3, 1879

My dear Sir Harry.

Many thanks for your long and interesting note of April 28. If I have not answered it before this, pressure of business and the poor state of my health were the only causes of my apparent neglect and I need hardly tell you that I shall be most happy to renew our correspondence. The memory of the times when we used to fight back to back is a too pleasant one not to make me gladly welcome any direct news from my old companion in arms.
From what I heard at London and Berlin and from what I read in the papers I can fully understand the difficulties you have to contend against in the revision of your treaty or rather of most of the treaties now pending. The way in which the Japanese government went about it, the little estimable allies it found in de Gendre & co. and the native press, the proceedings of the United States Govt. in concluding a separate treaty, which gives nothing to Japan that would cost the United States a shilling but throws all the compensation for the advantages they obtain upon your and our shoulders all unite to make your and our position in Japan a very difficult one, but I have no doubt that common sense will come out first in the long run. Jwan-ura & company are evidently bent upon driving the foreigner from Japan; what assassinations and the court at Kioto could not accomplish is now to be tried under pretence of the offended dignity of the nation and the sovereignty of the Micado. But I should like to know what Japan would be worth to the world at large if the right of trading between the open ports (what the Japanese and Americans call the coasting trade of Japan) were taken from the foreigners and their manufacturers excluded from the Jap. Markets by a prohibitory tariff. We might just as well return to Desima at once. Our revision in China does not proceed much more favourably than yours in Japan. We contend in vain against the stolid power of resistance, the vis inertiae you know so well, and if we do not yet encounter the same phrases about abolition of extraterritoriality, submission to Chinese jurisdiction and sovereign rights, which you do in Japan, it is simply because the hostile elements are not yet educated enough to take to that claptrap; they are however not wanting European teachers who will very soon bring them up to that point.
The great question here is for the moment the annexation of the Liu Kiu Islands by Japan. The Chinese are very much enraged about it and talk very openly that it must lead to war between the two countries; so openly that I rather believe them to intend on the one hand to try to intimidate the Japanese and on the other to exercise a certain pressure upon the foreign Representatives in order to make them look more favourably upon a demand for mediation. The Yamen is at this moment waiting for the results the endeavors of General Grant may have; when they have failed as I have not doubt they will as far at least as I know the Japanese, the Yamen will then try foreign mediation either through the representatives here or in Japan, I rather suppose in Japan as they are likely to be met here with rather unpleasant remarks about non-fulfillment of treaty obligations. But were if everything should fail how Chinese could act on the offensive against Japan, they are utterly unfit to lead an expedition to the Liu Kiu islands and not much more capable of defending themselves against Japanese invaders, as long as the invaders would not attempt to gain a permanent footing on the mainland. A little war between China and any foreign Power would do it an immense deal of good and would make it progress more in six months’ time that it would do otherwise in twenty years. The great fear of the Chinese however is that the same thing which has happened with regard to the Liu Kiu islands may repeat itself with regard to Corea, and they are certainly not very far from the truth in supposing that relations between Japan and Corea must end sooner or later in an armed conflict. I have told them twenty times that the best means of preventing an attempt by Japan to secure Corea would be to throw that country open to foreign intercourse, they and especially Li Hung Shang fully agree with me, but they do not take to council and work a course to the Coreans, who appear to act the part of “le enfant terrible” towards China, bullying her and reviling her for her convenience towards foreigners.
Taken all together the situation is not without interest and may have rather far reaching consequences.
Sir Thomas Wade has returned to the delightful place a few days ago hale and hearty, after adventures enough to finish three ordinary mortals. He had the good luck to get wrecked with the Shaulu at some part of the coast where a German ship had suffered the same fate in December last and had been plundered unmercifully. At our demand a general bambooing had just been going on in that part of the coast and Wade reaped the benefit of our measures.
I hope you have good news from Lady Parkes and your little family which must be very much grown up by this time; kindly remember me to Lady Parkes when writing to her.
Goodbye for today, my dear Sir Harry, I shall write to you again as soon as something interesting happens here and I do count upon your promise of not letting me wait too long for an answer.
With very best wishes for your welfare.

Yours very truly.
[Mr. Braus]