The Tibetans’ so-called reply to our terms was the next day communicated by the Resident’s secretary to Mr. Wilton. The Tibetans refused each single point, and said that an indemnity was due from us to them rather than from them to us. The only trade-mart they would concede was Rinchengong, which was scarcely two miles beyond Yatung. I had the document returned to the Resident with a message that I could not officially receive so preposterous a reply.
The Resident called upon me the next day and said he had received a reply to our terms, but it was so impertinent he could not even mention it to me officially. He had sent it back to the Tibetans censuring them for their stupidity, and ordering them to send a more fit reply. He had pointed out to them their folly in not settling with us, and how impossible it was for them to contend against us.
He then made a singularly interesting remark. The ordinary people, he said, were not at all ill-disposed towards us. They liked us, and were anxious to trade with us. Reports of our treatment of the wounded, and of the liberal payment we made for supplies, had spread about the country, and the people in general would be glad enough to make a settlement and be on good terms. Where the opposition came from was from the Lamas, more especially those of the three great monasteries. They and they alone were the obstructionists, and if they were out of the way there would be no more trouble, and the people would speedily be friends with us.
I told the Amban that this was extremely interesting and gratifying to hear, and that what he had said entirely bore out my own conclusions. It made me all the more sorry that so many of these poor peasants with whom we had no quarrel, and who only wished to be friendly with us, should have been killed, and this was one consideration which was restraining us from fighting now. I had on several occasions during the recent fighting gone round the dead Tibetans, and invariably found that they were peasants. A Lama was never seen. If we could be quite sure that the originators of all this fighting would fight themselves, I was not sure that we would have been so ready to suspend hostilities.
Before the close of his visit I asked the Amban if the Nepalese and Kashmiris kept on good terms with the Tibetans here. He replied that they got on well enough with the ordinary people, but avoided the Lamas, as contact with them was liable to lead to trouble. He added that the Nepalese representative had been ordered by the Prime Minister of Nepal to advise the Tibetans to be reasonable and come to a settlement with us, and to tell them that the British respected the religion of others and would not interfere with theirs. I said I had heard of this, and if the Tibetans had only followed this good advice, which was given a year ago, we might have settled up everything at Khamba Jong. What the Prime Minister of Nepal had said about the tolerance of other religions was perfectly true. We had many millions of Buddhists under our rule, about 200,000,000 Hindus, and 70,000,000 Mohammedans. The Tibetan fear that we would interfere with their religion was altogether unfounded. The Amban replied that they were so jealous of their religion that they tried to prevent even Chinese Buddhists of other sects from their own from entering Tibet.