The Regent said he thought this quite reasonable, and he would explain my view to the National Assembly. As to the Dalai Lama, I said I was quite prepared to give him the most positive assurance that he would be safe from us if he returned here. I did not wish to discuss personally with him the details of the settlement, but wished him to affix his seal in my presence; and it would certainly be more convenient if he were nearer Lhasa for reference during the negotiations. The Regent said he would send two messengers to him to-morrow, advising him to return. The trouble was, though, that he had nobody about him to advise him properly. At the close of the interview I told the Ti Rimpoche that I should be glad to see him again. He was an old man, and was, I knew, very busy just now, but whenever he liked to come and talk with me I should be most pleased to receive him.
The first sign of yielding came on August 15, when the Resident intimated to me that he had pressed the Tibetan Government to make a start towards a settlement by releasing the two Lachung men (British subjects) who had been seized last year beyond Khamba Jong, and that the Tibetan Government had agreed. He wished to know when and in what manner they should be handed over. I informed him that they should be handed over to me the next morning by two members of the Council.
That morning I held a full Durbar, and two members of Council, accompanied by two Lamas, brought the two Lachung men before me. I told the men, who showed the liveliest satisfaction at their impending release, that I had received the commands of the King-Emperor to obtain their release from the Tibetan Government, and they were now free. His Majesty had further commanded that if they had been ill-treated reparation should be demanded from the Tibetan Government. I wished to know, therefore, if they had been ill-treated or not. They said they had been slightly beaten at Shigatse, and their things had been taken from them, but since their arrival in Lhasa they had been well fed and had not been beaten. I told them that they would be examined by a medical officer, to ascertain if their statements were correct.
I then turned to the Tibetan Councillors and said that the King-Emperor considered the seizure, imprisonment, and beating of two of his subjects as an exceedingly serious offence. It formed one of the main reasons why the Mission had moved forward from Khamba Jong to Gyantse, and one of the principal terms of the settlement, which I had been commanded to make at Lhasa itself, was the release of these men. If the Tibetan Government had not cared to have them in Tibet they should have returned them across the frontier, or, in any case, have handed them over to us at Khamba Jong. Their seizure and imprisonment for a year was altogether unpardonable. I trusted they now understood that the subjects of the King-Emperor could not be ill-treated with impunity, and that we would in future, as we did now, hold them strictly responsible for the good treatment of British subjects in Tibet.