envoy's commission with those employed in the two missives addressed by the Emperor to the President of the United States in 1858 and in 1863. The first of these, sent by Hsien-fêng to Mr. Reed, at Tientsin, begins: "I, the August Emperor, wish health to the President of the United States. Having received with profound respect the commands of Heaven to sway with tender care the entire circuit of all lands, we regard the people everywhere, within and without the wide sea, with the same humane benevolence"; . . . concluding: "The minister of the United States is now at Tientsin, where he is negotiating with our high officers, and their intercourse has been mutually agreeable. As soon as their deliberations are concluded, he should return to Canton to attend to the commercial duties of his office as usual." The second, dated January 23, 1863, was the infant Emperor Tung-chih's acknowledgment of the President's letter, conveyed by Mr. Burlingame: "His Majesty the Emperor of the Ta-Tsing Dynasty salutes his Majesty the President of the United States. On the twenty-fifth day of the seventh moon the envoy Anson Burlingame, having arrived in Peking, presented your letter, which, when we had read it, we found to be written in a spirit of cordial friendliness [breath

ing] nothing but a desire for relations of amity that should ever increase in strength.” 1

The notification to the foreign legations of the appointment of the envoy to the treaty powers was issued by Prince Kung on November 22. The copy sent to that of the United States reads as follows:

Since the time when the treaties with foreign countries were ratified, the friendly relations between the two parties have daily strengthened. Every matter that has come up for discussion between the representatives of those nations now living at the capital and myself has been deliberated upon with so much sincerity and candour that they have in no case failed to be arranged to our mutual advantage. But all those countries are separated from this by wide oceans, and no envoy has hitherto been sent to those lands, and thus there has been no medium through whom the Chinese Government could personally make known its views to their governments, or explain its policy. But now, seeing that his excellency Anson Burlingame, lately the minister residing here from your honourable country, has such thorough acquaintance with the internal and external relations of this country, and I myself have such entire confidence and acquaintance with him, it has seemed to be feasible for this government now to adopt the customs of those countries who have sent resident ministers to this, and it would, moreover, be exceedingly agreeable to me to com

1 Williams to Seward, December 23, 1867. ("Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs,” 1869, part I, p. 496.)

mission him as the envoy of his Imperial Majesty's Government to all the treaty powers, to attend to and manage whatever affairs may arise between them. I have already stated this matter in a memorial to the Throne, and yesterday I was honoured by receiving the following rescript:

"The envoy Anson Burlingame manages affairs in a friendly and peaceful manner, and is fully acquainted with the general relations between this and other countries; let him, therefore, now be sent to all the treaty powers as the high minister, empowered to attend to every question arising between China and those countries. This from the Emperor."

A copy of this rescript has been made known to Mr. Burlingame, and this copy has also now been made to communicate to your excellency for your information and action thereon.1

The credentials of the mission, as translated by its first secretary, J. McLeavy Brown, and approved by Messrs. Williams, Martin, and

1 A few days later copies of the rescripts ordering the appointment of the Chinese envoys and of the secretaries were forwarded to the legations. Much was made afterward by the opponents of the Mission of the terms employed in these and the following documents. An erudite but demented German, Johannes von Gumpach, who had been relieved by Mr. Hart from his position as instructor in the imperial college, compiled in 1871 an extraordinary and vituperative volume of 891 pages, entitled "The Burlingame Mission: A Political Disclosure," which is supposed to have been financed by a number of British firms in Shanghai. The work was subsequently suppressed and is now rather rare. Dr. von Gumpach translated the rescript quoted above as follows: "The board for the general control of individual states' affairs, having respectfully submitted that the public messenger P'u-Ngan-Ch'en [Burlingame] transacts business matters in a conciliatory spirit, and is thoroughly conversant with the fundamental relations of the central [state] and the outer [states]: it is hereby ordered, that he be appointed to proceed to the individual states bound by treaty in the capacity of a high official,

Hart

probably at the time the three foremost sinologues in Peking are as follows:

His Majesty the Emperor of China salutes . . . [the sovereign addressed].

In virtue of the commission we have with reverence received from Heaven, and as China and foreign nations are members of one family, we are cordially desirous of placing on a firm and lasting basis the relations of friendship and good understanding now existing between us and the nations at amity with China. And as a proof of our genuine desire for that object, we have specially selected an officer of worth, talents, and wisdom, Anson Burlingame, late minister at our capital for the United States of America, who is thoroughly conversant with Chinese and foreign relations, and in whom, in transacting all business in which the two empires [names given]

to manage such matters as have arisen, in reference to each individual state, out of the [commercial] intercourse between the central [state] and the outer [states]. The rest according to prevision. This from the Emperor."

or

Emphasis was laid chiefly upon the unwarrantable freedom of Mr. Williams's translation and on the derogatory terms employed for foreign countries and for envoy. There can be no question of the Emperor's claim of universal supremacy - still a tenet of Chinese orthodoxy of the conventional idea of "individual" states being inferior to the middle kingdom. But this and the title of "messenger" constituted a part of the time-honoured phraseology of Chinese diplomacy which the court could not venture to ignore without inviting a revolution on the part of the literati class of China. The California papers, for reasons of their own, evinced a very lively concern in the disparity between translations when the Chinese text was published, but the New York Tribune sensibly dismissed the difference as "less a matter of importance than of curiosity." Europeans might afford to treat such assumptions as good-naturedly as the Emperor Vespasian, who was content to reply to the Parthian's "Arsaces, King of Kings, to Flavius Vespasianus,""Flavius Vespasianus to Arsaces, King of Kings, greeting." (Rawlinson "Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy," p. 290.)

have a common interest, we have full confidence as our representative and the exponent of our ideas. We have also commissioned Chih Kang and Sun Chia Ku,1 high officers with the honorary rank of the second grade, to accompany Mr. Burlingame to [name of capital], where Mr. Burlingame, with the two so appointed, will act as our high minister extraordinary and plenipotentiary.

We have full confidence in the loyalty, zeal, and discretion of the said three ministers, and are assured they will discharge satisfactorily the duties intrusted to them, and we earnestly request that the fullest credence and trust may be accorded to them, and thereby our relations of friendship may be permanent, and that both nations may enjoy the blessings of peace and tranquillity, a result which we are certain will be deeply gratifying.

Dated this sixth day of the twelfth moon of the sixth year of our reign, Tung Chih.

Mr. Williams's commentary upon this letter is of some value:

The preparation and dispatch of these letters of credence marks an advance on the part of this government almost as great as that of sending the Mission itself, although apparently a mere consequence of that act. In order to explain this, it is needful to observe that the board of Foreign Office, notwithstanding its great influence and the high rank of its members, has hitherto no legal existence of itself, but at present consists of the presidents of four of the six boards, viz., civic office, revenue, punishments, and works, and two other high officers, who have 1 Chih was born in Peking in 1819, Sun in Suchang in 1823.