in a hurry---especially don't be in a hurry about answering
letters. If you leave things long enough and quiet enough they answer
themselves, whereas if you hurry matters balanced on the edge of a
precipice, they often topple over instead of settling and remaining
comfortably there for ever."

During Hart's visit to Peking a very important question arose
concerning the policing of the China Seas. Great Britain had
hitherto been doing the work, but the arrangement was considered
unsatisfactory. The first idea that China should invest in a fleet of
her own came up in the course of a friendly conversation between the
British Minister and the Officiating Inspector-General.

Later, when they had talked the subject over at length, and Bruce
asserted that Great Britain would probably be willing to lend officers
and sell ships of war to China for the nucleus of the proposed
navy, Hart laid the matter before Prince Kung. There were endless
negotiations, the difficulty and delicacy of which cannot be
exaggerated. But they ended satisfactorily.

[Illustration: A ROAD IN OLD PEKING DURING THE RAINY SEASON.]

Prince Kung memorialized the Throne, with the result that L250,000
was directed to be set aside for the purpose. Then, at Robert Hart's
suggestion, the money was sent to the Inspector-General--Mr.
Lay--to be spent by him in England, together with a long letter
of instructions (written by Prince Kung) urging Lay to purchase
everything as soon as possible, and to see that the "work put into the
vessels should be strong and the materials genuine."

This delicious phrase, a true touch of human nature, is solemnly
recorded in one of the despatches, and may still be seen in the
correspondence on the subject in the Blue Book for the year.

It is only fair to point out that it was Robert Hart who stated that
"the ability of the Inspector-General is great; that he possesses
a mind which embraces the minutest details, and is therefore fully
competent to make the necessary arrangements with a more than
satisfactory result," when he might so easily have used his great and
growing personal influence with the Chinese (he was a _persona grata_
with them from the beginning) to undermine his chief.

How the fleet "of genuine materials" came out with all despatch under
the celebrated Captain Sherard Osborne and various other officers
lent by the Admiralty, is a matter of history. The reputations of its
commanders--for all were men of dis