The place at which this agent should reside was a question on which opinions might easily differ, and it might, the Indian Government thought, be left open until they were in possession of the fuller information that would be acquired after the Mission had reached Lhasa. The arguments in favour of placing him at Lhasa were the following: Lhasa was the pivot of the religious and political life of Tibet; it was the seat of the Dalai Lama and his Council, with whom we had to establish official relations; and it was the focus of the priestly influence, which we had to conciliate or overcome. It might be argued that it was undesirable to arouse the resentment of the Tibetans by requiring them to receive a representative of a strange race and a strange religion in the home of their most sacred associations. But after the manner in which for the past fifteen years the Tibetans had repudiated their obligations and had derided the patience with which we had submitted to their insults, Government believed that, even should such a feeling exist, it might be better to face it than to allow of the misconstruction which would be placed upon the location of an agent at any place outside Lhasa.
They saw, however, no reason why the presence of a resident agent in Lhasa should be a lasting source of irritation. For more than eighty years we had now had an agent at Khatmandu, a capital the isolation of which from foreign intrusion had been guarded hardly less jealously than that of Lhasa itself, and that by a people whose prowess had been proved in our own armies. The hostilities which preceded the first appointment of a British Minister at Peking, under the treaty of 1860, were also far more serious than any opposition which had so far been encountered, or was likely to be met with, on the way to Lhasa. The Government of India saw, then, no reason to anticipate greater risk in placing a Resident at Lhasa than was incurred in sending a British representative to Khatmandu or Peking.
Despite the hostility which, under the influence and leadership of the monkish faction, they had displayed against us, the Tibetan people had no dislike for us as a race, and there was nothing in the tolerant Buddhist creed which counselled hostility to strangers of a different faith or encouraged fanaticism. The exclusion of British subjects and Europeans was merely based on a concordat of the present dominant class in Tibet, and was not in any way a religious obligation. The monks were at present opposed to us, fearing the loss of their influence, but their antipathy was based on suspicion and ignorance, and with tact and patience it might be eradicated—a view which was supported by the friendly relations which the Mission was able to establish at Khamba Jong with ecclesiastical Envoys from the Tashi Lama of Shigatse.