PREFACE THE writer of these pages pleads guilty,and throws him- self on the mercy of the court.In extenuation of his offence he alleges that the events recorded are true to his- tory;that the racial characteristics and customs are correct ethnographically;and that,of the persons portrayed,some, the fictitious,are true to type,and with others,the real, he was well acquainted,either in person or by repute,with only one link in the chain connecting him with them. A romance should have a purpose other than that of filling an idle hour.The purpose of this work is to show how European qualities were called in to aid the Imperial government of China in suppressing the great Taiping re- bellion.Book I gives the history of a picturesque incident at Shanghai,which demonstrates the incapacity of the Im- perial government,in its then state of disorganisation and inefficiency,to suppress the armed resistance to its authority; but the writer has grasped the opportunity to describe some further aspects of the period.He has given an outline sketeh of old Shanghai and of the handful of English and American merchants who created the port and established the foundations of its prosperity;he has described the con- ditions which led to the creation of tho Inspectorate of Customs;and he has tried to make the reader understand the personality of some of the notabilities of the place.Of Rutherford Alcock,who was the untitled Governor of Shanghai in that critical time;of Robert C.Murphy,who averted a war which might have arisen from the same causes which two years later precipitated the struggle between Eng- land and China;of Yang Tzetang,the Banker Taki,who created and provided for the force which was the principal instrument in suppressing the rebellion.But above all he has tried to show the possibilities in the mental development of a timid young scholar of the Chinese gentry,who had been (xi)