Chinese revolutionary, first president and founding father of the Republic of China (1866-1925). Autograph letter signed ("Very truly yours / Y. S. Sun") "On board R.M.S. 'Adriatic'". 08.11.1911. 8vo. 1 page on bifolium. In English. On watermarked White Star Line headed notepaper with red flag emblem.
$ 127,836 / 120.000 €
(86112/BN57004)
After a series of failed uprisings in the years leading up to the date of our letter, the exiled Sun Yat-sen was in the United States seeking further support when news reached him of the success of Huang Xing's second military uprising at Wuchang, on 10 October 1911. Within weeks he set sail for London, as the present letter attests, where he sought to arrange British financing for the new Chinese republic. After an unsuccessful month in London, Sun left for China, arriving on 21 December, and was immediately named "Provisional" President of the newly founded Republic of China, before resigning and relinquishing the title to Yuan Shikai shortly after.
- Born in Guangdong province, Sun had qualified as a medical doctor in 1892 in Hong Kong, and it was here that he met Dr. (later Sir) James Cantlie (1851-1926), an Aberdeen-trained physician who became a pioneer of first aid (when it was largely unknown) and an expert in tropical diseases. Cantlie went to practice in Hong Kong in 1887, and one of his earliest achievements was to help establish a medical training college for native students, the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, which later became the University of Hong Kong. One of his first students was the future president of China, who, after graduating, remained in contact with Cantlie and his wife Mabel, periodically appealing to the British government and public for support for democratic China through their good offices (see Cantlie's papers, which were later donated to the Wellcome Institute by his descendants). - The connection between Sun and the Cantlies became more widely known following Sun's kidnapping in London in 1896, which was the subject of Sun's own account in "Kidnapped in London: Being the Story of My Capture by, Detention at, and Release From, the Chinese Legation", published a year after the events. When Sun had arrived in London in October 1896, Cantlie helped him find lodgings in Gray's Inn Place (the site is marked with a wartime plaque). However, his route to the Cantlies' house happened to take Sun past the Chinese Legation building at 49 Portland Place (now the Chinese Embassy), and one Sunday he was approached by some Chinese men who, ostensibly stopping for a chat, hustled him into the Legation, where he was locked in a windowless upstairs room. Sun eventually managed to get a servant to smuggle out a message to the Cantlies but his release was far from immediate. Cantlie's protestations to the Legation, the local police, Scotland Yard, lawyers and the Foreign Office were initially not believed or fruitless, but eventually he managed to secure an article in "The Globe" which helped persuade the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, to insist upon Sun's release, 12 days after his capture. - Cantlie's own account of the kidnapping was published, on the day of Sun's release, in "The Globe", where he stated that Sun had at one stage considering suicide, that he managed to throw further messages out of his window, and that Cantlie had employed a private detective to watch the legation. More recently, J. Y. Wong in "The Origins of a Heroic Image: Sun Yat Sen in London, 1896-1987" (Hong Kong, 1986), has written that Sun entered the building voluntarily, and that the plan was to execute him and return his body to Beijing for ritual beheading. He also mentions that Cantlie was refused a writ of habeas corpus because of the Legation's diplomatic immunity. Sun spent some time recovering with the Cantlies, who became his frequent correspondents and remained his closest friends and allies outside China for the rest of his life. James Cantlie's book about Sun and the situation in China, "Sun Yat Sen and the Awakening of China", co-authored with C. Sheridan Jones, was published in 1912. - Autograph letters from Sun Yat-sen rarely appear at auction - only four (three in English, one in Chinese) are listed in records for the last twenty years. One of the greatest leaders of modern China and the "Father of the Nation", Sun holds a unique position in the Chinese-speaking world as the only 20th century leader who is revered by those in both the People's Republic of China, for his instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911, and in the Republic of China (Taiwan). - Provenance: Sir James and Mabel Cantlie; acquired from their heirs..
Chinese revolutionary, first president and founding father of the Republic of China (1866-1925). Autograph letter signed ("Yours very sincerely / Sun Yat Sen"). Reinanzaka (Tokyo). 17.03.1914. 4to. 4 pp. on 4 ff. In English. With autograph envelope marked "Via Siberia!!" and addressed to "Mrs Cantlie / 14a Harley Street / London W. / England". With one enclosure (see below).
$ 191,754 / 180.000 €
(86113/BN57005)
To "my Dear Mrs. Cantlie", expressing his thanks for the many letters which "brought me much comfort and happiness", and giving news that his former Private Secretary and later editor of the China Republican, "Mr. Fraser", who had previously "abandoned the idea of working for the cause", considering it a lost one, had after all left for England from Singapore, apparently re-invigorated by the enthusiasm of Sun Yat-sen's people there, and sensing "that the people in China are getting ready for something".
Explaining that he had raised the funds to finance Fraser's trip to London, Sun goes on to ask for Mrs. Cantlie's valued help regarding Fraser ("Will you please render him the friendly support if you think he is still loyal to the cause. I am writing you these confidential facts about my former Secretary and without any reserve knowing exactly how you will take it"), and asks her to pass on this news to Mr. Diosy in France (an incomplete letter from whom is included, see below). - The letter was written during Sun Yat-sen's second period of exile in Japan, this time following the failed Second Revolution of July 1913, when Sun and the Kuomintang (KMT) military forces tried to overthrow President Yuan Shikai, who had plotted the assassinations of Song Jiaoren and Chen Qimei, founders of the Kuomintang. The KMT was dissolved, and Sun was forced to flee to Japan, where he began to seek to rebuild his support base and broaden international acknowledgement of his cause. It was at this time that Sun began to develop his vision for the world's first socialist republic, and three months after the date of this letter he established the Chinese Revolutionary Party. The following year, which marked the beginning of the chaotic "Warlord Era" in China, both Sun and Xu Shichang were to be proclaimed President of the Republic of China. - Ma Su (or Soo, "Mr. Fraser") attended St Joseph College in Hong Kong and in 1911 joined Sun Yat-sen as his Private Secretary in Shanghai. He took part in the attack on the Kiangnan Arsenal with Chen Chi-mei during the First Revolution, and afterwards he accompanied Sun to Nanking in the capacity of English Secretary. The following year he was entrusted with the editorship of Sun's new weekly English-language organ, The China Republican, which was set up in Shanghai to argue the case against Yuan Shikai. The paper was closed by the authorities of the French Concession on 6 November 1913 on account of its extreme views on politics, whereupon Ma Su was deported to Singapore, stating his intention to abandon politics and go into business there. - Nonetheless, it was in Singapore that Ma Su underwent the change of heart referred to in the letter. After a year in London (where he presumably met the Cantlies), he went on to study at Columbia and New York universities, playing an important role as Sun Yat-sen's man in the United States from 1911 to 1922, and serving as a special delegate of the Kuomintang at the Washington Conference in 1921-22. He also edited the New York periodical, "China Review", and at the same time turned his hand to dealing in Chinese art. - Included in the lot is the second half of a 4-page letter from Alfred Diosy telling the Cantlies that Sun "is taking precautions to ensure complete success this time! Let us imitate his hopeful patience and wait steadfastly for the Great Day [...] by increasingly holding up Yuan's Dictatorship to the contempt it deserves". Diosy (1856-1923) founded the Japan Society in 1891, wrote several books including "The New Far East", and was also a close friend of Sun. According to James Cantlie, "no one is in a better position to declare his opinion than Mr. Diosy, for he has [...] alone enjoyed with my wife and myself the privilege of an intimate acquaintance with the great reformer". - Provenance: Sir James and Mabel Cantlie; acquired from their heirs..
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Autograph letter signed.
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To the Russian revolutionary, journalist and writer Feliks Volkhovsky: "I shall be off at 1st of July, it would be most improbably that I could see you before my departure. But that will be a matter of no important, the only thing I hope is that you will be prospered and succeeded in the work of your national cause. The Chinese officials who have the right to study geography and sciences &c., I think, are those above the sixth grade. But such law or usage is pra[c]tically abolished in the recent years when China open to foreign intercourse. I could not tell you what is the number of members in the secret societies of China. It is very flourishing over all parts of China. But I was told especially in the two central provinces, Hunan and Hupek are more than three quarters of their population are enlistened as members; and the provinces in south east of China are also very numours [recte: numerous] of the same. As regard to what part of them is ready to take up arms in a revolt is a question of very hard to tell. All of them seem to ready but there is always something or other is wanted. And at present the Tartar government is greatly threatened and taking great precaution to prevent any uprising, and at the same time acquire foreign assistance by yielding, unconditionally, any demand of the great powers especially that of Russian French. It is most probably that your government would render any assistance to the Chinese government to put down any uprising in case of need. This would be the most stumbled to our movement. So we have to prepare not only to match with the Tartar but also to avert all the selfish and injustice intervention of the European Powers. I do not know when we could strike a[n] effective blow but we will not be daunted. If the Divine Destiny of the Human Races is liberty and equality we will bound to succeed. At any occasion if anything is happened we hope we will gain your sympathies in our cause [...]". - The critical state of affairs that existed in China between the years 1896 and 1898 was characterized by reform and upheaval, both of which the Tartar (Manchu) government under the conflicting leadership of the young emperor, Kuang-hsü, and the aging empress, Tz'u-his, tried to control. The Chinese had been shockingly defeated in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95, and the ensuing peace treaty had called for recognition of Korea's independence, an indemnity of 200,000,000 taels, and the cession of Taiwan, the Pescadores Islands, and the Liao-tung Peninsula. However, six days later, Russia Germany, and France forced Japan to restore the peninsula, which she did at the cost of 30,000,000 taels. "Gaining China's favour by this intervention, the three powers suddenly began to press China with demands, which gave rise to a veritable scramble for concessions. Immediately after the triple intervention, Russia succeeded in 1896 in signing a secret treaty alliance with China against Japan, by which Russia gained the right to construct the Chinese Eastern Railway across northern Manchuria". A second concession - the right to build two railways in Shantung - was granted to Germany in 1897. Others followed, forcing China into various leases and grants to Britain, France and Japan. China was therefore placed on the brink partition, a crisis which set the stage for the Hundred Days of Reform in 1898, followed by a furious and inevitable antiforeign uprising in Shantung - the Boxer Rebellion - in 1900 (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Sun Yat-sen's fears expressed in this letter, regarding the uprising that would hinder the progress of his movement, and the "selfish and [unjust] intervention of the European Powers", were thus not allayed, as one crisis after another followed in quick succession.
Letter signed ("Sun Wen").
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Sun was an avowed anti-monarchist, and played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the centuries-old Qing dynasty (the last imperial dynasty of China) during the years leading up to the Xinhai Revolution (1911). He went on to become the first president of the Republic of China, and later founded the Kuomintang of China (Nationalist Party of China) in 1919. - From 1923 to 1926 Sun and the Kuomintang used Guangdong (his hometown) as a base to challenge the warlords in the north, who controlled much of the nation. In this letter, at the beginning of that effort, Sun identifies the urgent need to reclaim Guangdong, and addresses his army's needs to an apparent supporter "Our troops have battled across thousands of miles, their food consumption is huge and resources are scarce. If it was not for the joint effort by supporters within the country and overseas and their generous donations, how could we have embarked on this great mission." He then goes on to note: "At this extremely critical moment where success hangs by a thread, we summon up our courage and lead all kindred spirits, each exerting the final effort towards the cause of overcoming the evildoers to settle the chaos". - Some soiling, particularly to margins, multiple small tears, some reinforced and repaired but not affecting text, a few chips to edges. Sun Yat-sen material remains exceedingly rare, only five letters have appeared at auction in the last 30 years.
Autograph letter signed ("Y-S Sun").
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