I am so confident that you have been informed of every important
 particular connected with :the arrest, and, discharge of General Le Gen-
 dre, by the consuls at Amoy and Shanghai, that I shall not repeat what
 they have written about it. Mr. Seward has sent me a copy of his dis-
 patch No. 797, in relation to it, and I only refer to it in this place in
 explanation of the following short extract from a reply sent him on
 the 31st ultimo:
 In view of the whole question, and the difficulty of finding witnesses to
prove charges
 against General Le Gendre of having violated the neutrality act, I think
you could
 hardly have done otherwise than discharge him. To send him to Japan for
trial would
 have also been attended with the same difficulty of proving the charges
or of getting
 the 'attendance of witnesses. The arrest has, however, had its effect in
showing the
 Chinese our desire to carry out treaty stipulations.
   I, however, inclose copies of the protest of Mr. Go Sheki, acting
 Japanese consul at Amoy, with Mr. Henderson's reply, and my dispatch
 to him upon it, (June 1, 2, and 3,) and General Le Gendre's protest, (in-
 closure 4,) in order to facilitate reference to them. These protests involve
 one or two points in international law which, so far as I can learn from
 Wheaton, have not been prominently brought forward in treatises on
 the subject,
   In Europe, where Turkey is the only power under the restraint of the
 ex-territoriality law, there has been no risk of one of her envoys being
 interfered with as he went over the continent by entering into the lim-
 its of a nation where the same ban prevailed, and, therefore, the ques-
 tion of the status and privileges of her diplomatic agent in the territo-
 ries of the other could not arise. Neither would it enter into her view
 to appoint as her envoy anybody beside one of her own subjects to
 represent her abroad, and especially in a state subject to the same
 disabilities, and this would prevent this point of his immunities com-
 ing up.
   In General Le Gendre's case, it has happened that the Japanese con-
 sul claims for him immunity against the jurisdiction of his own national
 authorities, simply on the ground of his enjoying the privileges of a
 diplomatic agent. This protest states, for the first time to my knowl-
 edge, that General Le Gendre was "1 His Imperial Japanese Majesty's
 special commissioner in China," but no such announcement was made
 by-the Mikado's government to the United States legation in Japan
 before lie left that country. None of the Japanese officials in China
 have informed this legation or the United States consuls of the ap-
 pointment, and it seems to me that this act of courtesy was necessary
 as a preliminary to his being accepted as a commissioner by the Chinese
 officials. General Le Gendre came to Peking last year as one of Soyes-
 himal's suite, but that subordinate position was altogether different from
 the present one claimed for him. But whatever his own national
 authorities might say or claim in the premises, I think that until he had
 presented his credentials, and been acknowledged by the Chinese gov-
 ernment as a diplomatic officer, he could not be considered as such by
 any one. No Japanese official had informed the Chinese authorities,
 so far as I know, that he had been sent on a diplomatic mission by the
 Mikado, and his pretended national character could not be claimed-in
 immunity of arrest by the United States consul.

 In view of all these things, I conclude that the protest of Mr. Go
Sheki is entitled to no weight, and that he had no grounds for making
it. To allow its propriety in any degree, would allow the Japanese gov-
ernment the right to employ American citizens in China to carry on its
       20 F


305


SCHINA.