embodied in a joint
note signed by all the foreign ministers on the 20th and 21st of
December 1900. The demands were substantially as follows:

Honourable reparation for the murder of von Ketteler and of Mr
Sugiyama, to be made in a specified form, and expiatory monuments to
be erected in cemeteries where foreign tombs had been desecrated. "The
most severe punishment befitting their crimes" was to be inflicted on
the personages designated by the decree of the 21st of September, and
also upon others to be designated later by the foreign ministers, and
the official examinations were to be suspended in the cities where
foreigners had been murdered or ill-treated. An equitable indemnity,
guaranteed by financial measures acceptable to the powers, was to be
paid to states, societies and individuals, including Chinese who had
suffered because of their employment by foreigners, but not including
Chinese Christians who had suffered only on account of their faith.
The importation or manufacture of arms or _materiel_ was to be
forbidden; permanent legation guards were to be maintained at Peking,
and the diplomatic quarter was to be fortified, while communication
with the sea was to be secured by a foreign military occupation of the
strategic points and by the demolition of the Chinese forts, including
the Taku forts, between the capital and the coast. Proclamations were
to be posted throughout China for two years, threatening death to the
members of anti-foreign societies, and recording the punishment of the
ringleaders in the late outrages: and the viceroys, governors and
provincial officials were to be declared by imperial edict
responsible, on pain of immediate dismissal and perpetual disability
to hold office, for anti-foreign outbreaks or violations of treaty
within their jurisdictions. China was to facilitate commercial
relations by negotiating a revision of the commercial treaties. The
Tsung-Li-Yamen was to be reformed and the ceremonial for the reception
of foreign ministers modified as the powers should demand. Compliance
with these terms was declared to be a condition precedent to the
arrangement of a time limit to the occupation of Peking and of the
provinces by foreign troops.

Under instructions from the court, the Chinese plenipotentiaries affixed
their signatures on the 14th of January 1901 to a protocol, by which
China pledged herself to accept these te