"Heard from far was hospitably entertained by Kubla Khan | cludes three ambassadors with their secretathe same Kubla of whom Coleridge sings ries, attachès, interpreters, and suite; and in his Vision in a Dream;' he who built not only represents the Chinese Emperor at the stately pleasure-dome on the bank of the Court of Great Britain, but it is charged the sacred river Alph, and with the same mission to all the Courts and Governments of Christendom France, Prussia, Austria, Italy, Spain, Russia, and, by no means the least among them, to the Government of the United States. The chief of the mission, the Honourable Anson Burlingame, is an American; and his two associate ambassadors, Chih-Tajen and SunTajen, are Chinese, and mandarins of high rank. They represent the oldest civilized Government in the world—a Government that was great and mighty, and ruled over a large and thickly peopled territory, long before the days when Israel was captive in Egypt, or Abraham and Lot divided the pasturages of Arabia between them. Seldom if ever has so great a mission been conceived. Seldom or never before were ambassadors intrusted with such high powers or confronted with such splendid opportunities. It has yet received but scant welcome from the pens of our ready writers, and in some political and commercial quarters has been looked upon with mistrust if not with hostility. But these feelings will probably wear away as the purposes of the Chinese Government become more fully known; and the British public, once interested in the subject, though they may not care to view it under its picturesque or sentimental aspect, will not lag behind the more enthusiastic Americans in their appreciation of its business importance. Ancestral voices prophesying war.' Kubla was so pleased with the character and conversation of Marco Polo as to contract a warm feeling of friendship towards him; and when the time came at last when the Venetian felt the home-sickness too strongly upon him to permit a longer residence in China without danger to health or life, he was reluctantly permitted to depart, and charged with a double mission the one to convoy a young lady of the Imperial family as far as the Persian Gulf, there to be consigned to the Shah of Persia, to whom she was betrothed in marriage; the other, to visit the principal Courts of Europe, and make known what he had seen, and how he had been received in China. Marco Polo left the Peiho river in the year 1280. The fleet which conveyed him and the princess consisted of fourteen vessels, each with four masts, the largest of them with crews of two hundred and fifty men, and all equipped and provisioned for two years. After escorting the young lady to her lord, Marco Polo proceeded to Venice, with the intention of accomplishing the other objects of his mission, which were rather social and complimentary than political. But the design was frustrated. The great Kubla died, without receiving news of the arrival of his envoy; and Marco Polo, from circumstances connected with the history and affairs of his native city, found himself unable to visit any of the Courts of Christendom. The second mission was three centuries later, when a native Chinese was despatched by the Emperor to the Court of Muscovy, with what objects are not very well known. That mission also proved to be fruitless. The envoy attempted to make his way north-quent member of the anti-slavery party, at wards and eastwards, and is supposed to have perished, with all his suite, in the wilds of Kamtchatka or Siberia. At all events, nothing further was ever heard of him. The third, the most important and most remarkable, is the mission of Mr. Burlingame, the history and objects of which we proceed to explain. Three months ago, without pomp or parade, and in the quietest and most unostentatious manner, heralded only by announcements in the American press, which few Englishmen have the opportunity of perusing, the Chinese embassy arrived in England from the United States. The mission in Mr. Burlingame is a gentleman of Scottish descent, and proud of his ancestry, as most American Scotsmen are. Eleven years ago, when the present writer had the honour of making his acquaintance, he sat in the House of Representatives at Washington, as member for one of the Congressional districts of the city of Boston, in Massachusetts. He was an earnest and elo a time when it required considerable courage to avow such unpopular opinions, and for the too violent expression of which in the Senate, some time before, Mr. Charles Sumner had wellnigh forfeited his life. Mr. Burlingame was, next to Mr. Sumner, the most noted abolitionist in Congress; and second to few either in or out of the House for the ability and fearlessness with which he advocated a policy of negro emancipation, which he justly considered to be a question of even more vital importance to the poor white non-slaveholding people of the South than it was to the negroes. At that time the struggle was up-hill work, and there seemed but little prospect that the the United States to accredit to his court Democratic party, which held other views some gentleman in the place of Mr. Burlinon the subject, would be removed from the game, whose political antecedents were less conduct of affairs, of which, for a long pe- objectionably associated with an unsuccessriod, they had held a virtual monopoly ful rebellion in the Austrian empire. As, under a succession of Presidents of their under the circumstances, there was someown choosing. But, as all the world thing due to the position of Mr. Burlingame knows, the Democrats, at the Presidential as well as to the dignity of the Emperor of election of 1860, quarreled among them- Austria, Mr. Burlingame was nominated by selves on the slavery question, split up into Mr. Lincoln to the more important, though three sections, and allowed their opponents possibly less comfortable, mission to Pekin. to snatch a victory which, had the Demo- The appointment was confirmed by the sencrats united their forces under Mr. Doug- ate. Mr. Burlingame shook the dust of las, Mr. Breckenridge, or Mr. Bell, would Europe from his feet, and proceeded to have been impossible of attainment. Under China, where he remained in the performthese circumstances, as was natural, the ance of his duties during the whole of the most eminent politicians of the triumphant great Civil War. This was perhaps a forparty looked up to the new President for a tunate circumstance, for had he been present share of the honours and emoluments of in the midst of such a strife, he must, like public life, from which they had been ex- all other politicians of his influence and cluded during a long and all but hopeless standing, have taken his side, and made encontroversy. Among the first to receive emies as all did, under whichever banner this recognition at the hands of his party they ranged themselves in that bitter strugwas Mr. Burlingame, who, early in 1861, was offered by Mr. Lincoln, on the recommendation of Mr. Seward, the post of Ambassador from the United States to the Emperor of Austria. Mr. Burlingame accepted the mission, and duly arrived at Paris on his way to Vienna. Here he remained for some weeks in expectation of instructions from his Government. not a 66 Mr. Seward, in a long despatch to his new Minister a despatch historical, antiquarian, logical, satirical, and legal amused all America, and possibly Mr. Burlingame, by informing him that Austria was unique" empire-meaning homogeneous. It was not, however, Mr. Burlingame's destiny to visit this "unique" empire, but to be deputed to another and more distant empire, that really deserved the epithet. Very unexpectedly, though not, as it will appear, very unnaturally, the Emperor of Austria conveyed an intimation to Mr. Burlingame, through Prince Metternich, the Austrian ambassador at Paris, that he would not be received at Vienna. Mr. Burlingame, like the great majority of his countrymen, had sympathised with Kossuth, when the ex-Dictator made his triumphal tour through the United States, after the collapse of his efforts to establish the independence of Hungary; but unlike the rank and file, he had made many eloquent speeches on the subject, in which he had spoken of the aspirations of the Hungarians for independence, and of the policy of the Austrian Government, in a manner that was not pleasant either to the Emperor or his advisers. The Emperor stood upon his dignity, and requested the Government of gle enemies that might have found future occasion to thwart his advancement or impair his usefulness. All these dangers he escaped by his absence. When he returned home the war was at an end, and he found himself in the very pleasant position, for an American, of being the favourite of rival parties. It was not until Mr. Burlingame had been upwards of six years in China, a diligent student of the laws, customs, manners, history, and politics of the people, and had announced his intention of returning to the United States, that a remarkable offer was made to him on the part of the Chinese Government. Since the, accession of the present Emperor, who is a child in his fourteenth year, the actual ruler of China has been Prince Kung, the Emperor's uncle. The Prince is recognised by every member of the European legations at Pekin to be one of the ablest statesmen of the time, and by no means resembles the imperial ostriches who have for ages hidden their heads in the palace of Pekin, and refused to make themselves acquainted with the great world of humanity that trades or fights beyond the boundaries of the Chinese empire. Prince Kung, fully aware of the fact that moral and physical forces are greater, and terrestrial distances less, than they were in the olden time, before the power of steam and electricity had virtually converted this huge globe into one great cosmopolitan city-of which China and India may be considered the eastern, the United States the western, and Europe the central divisions soon became as fully aware of the corresponding fact, that the old system of isolation and ex THE CHINESE MISSION TO CHRISTENDOM. 749 The late Sir Frederick Bruce, the clusion, which had for ages been the policy | welcome to those of Great Britain and of the Chinese Government, could no longer France. be maintained; and that the time had come British Minister to China, who had corwhen, in the interest of China no less than dially acted with Mr. Burlingame in all in that of the world, the Chinese Empire matters during their joint residence in Peshould formally seek admission into the kin, was cognisant of the proposed arrangecomity and brotherhood of the civilised na- ment, and is understood to have given it tions of Europe and America. The idea his hearty support. After due consideraseems so obvious to the European and tion Mr. Burlingame accepted the mission. American mind, that many who do not be- Two mandarins of the second-class, Sunstow sufficient thought upon the matter un- Tajen and Chih-Tajen, an English and a derrate the merit and genius of Prince Kung French secretary, and a numerous suite of in conceiving and acting upon it. But the attachés, interpreters, and other officials, Prince, though not a revolutionist, is the were associated with him; and early in the greatest reformer that China has produced; spring of last year he set sail for San Franand in resolving, as he has done, to break cisco, to commence the performance of his It was to have been expected among so down the moral Chinese wall that separated duties in the land of his nativity. his country from the rest of the world, has entitled himself not alone to the praise of impulsive, warm-hearted, and demonstrative wisdom, but of courage. There were many a people as the Americans, that Mr. Burways by which this great change in Chinese lingame and his colleagues would be repolicy might have been made known to the ceived with more than ordinary enthusiasm. powers of the earth either by the promul- It is easy to stir up the American people to gation of Chinese official documents, by no-political demonstrations of a kind which in tification to the diplomatic and consular slower and less excitable England are wholly agents of all States represented at Pekin unknown; but here was an occasion entireand the treaty ports, or by the despatch of ly novel, highly important, and one that a sufficient number of envoys or ambassa- appealed strongly, not only to the imaginadors to all the courts and governments of tion of the people, but to their national Christendom. Or the Prince might have pride and their commercial interests. Had for in America, as among ourselected from the many able men associated the plenipotentiary been in the Humour for with himself in the administration of Chi- dinners nese affairs, one person of the highest rank selves, the public dinner is a political instruand attainments and diplomatic skill to ment of no mean power and popularity — travel from kingdom to kingdom - from he might have traversed the Union from state to state- both in the Old World and extremest west to extremest east and reto represent viva voce the new ceived at any city at which he chose to halt the New position which the ancient Empire had as- for the night such hearty demonstrations as sumed, and to explain the intimate relations the wealth of the inhabitants could bestow, into which it desired to enter with its neigh- and been greeted with such floods of rhetbors. But there were no Chinese states-oric and rhetorical buncombe as no other men to be found who, in addition to other people in the world can either so effectively essential requisites for so high a post, pos- discharge or so thoroughly appreciate. It The city has sessed sufficient knowledge of the languages is not often that the San Franciscans have and the ideas of Christendom to be able to such an opportunity as the arrival of Mr. enter into negotiations with governments so Burlingame afforded them. many and so varied as those of Great Brit- a resident population of 50,000 Chinamen, ain, the United States, France, and Russia, and of about four or five times that number to say nothing of smaller, but still import- of industrious and enterprising American Under these circumstances, immigrants from the Atlantic sea-board and, ant powers. Prince Kung bethought himself that one of the older States of the Union; so that the "ovation," and the Christian ambassadors who had resided Embassy alike in its cosmopolitan, its Amerlong enough in China to become familiar ican, or its Chinese character, could not exwith the character and traditions of the peo-pect to pass without an ple and the wishes of the Government, might an "ovation" there was on the 29th of April, be induced to accept a mission from China when the spacious banqueting-hall of the to Christendom. The first person he thought of in this capacity was Mr. Burlingame, a statesman who, he rightly thought, would be agreeable to the people and Government of the United States, and not un Lick House, the largest and finest on the the spirit, and the splendour of a civiliza- | the Eastern and Western world. I will not attion so much newer than, and so very differ- tempt," he continued, "to picture the grand reent from, their own. sults which, I trust, will flow from this auspicious event, not merely to America and Europe, but to China and to mankind. I see in the near the Chinese empire and the nations of the West; future a vast commerce springing up between an interchange of products and manufactures mutually beneficial; the watchwords of progress and the precepts of a pure religion uttered to the ears of one-third of the human race, hitherto resisting with the inertia of a dead weight all progress, material, political, social or spiritual." Mr. Haight, the governor of California, in proposing the toast of the evening," our guest, the Honourable Anson Burlingame, the son of the youngest and the representative of the oldest government in the world," was both eloquent and sensible (the truest eloquence is always the most sensible), and described the objects of the mission in a manner peculiarly gratifying to the San Franciscans, who expect, and not without reason, that the trade of Europe to China will ere long flow westward, and that this city will be its half-way house. He affirmed the mission to be a great historical event. It marked the entrance of the oldest empire on the globe into the great family of nations, from which it had for thousands of years held scrupulously aloof. -- Then, addressing himself personally to Mr. Burlingame, he expressed a hope, which Englishmen as well as Americans may share, "that he had accepted his great trust in no selfish or narrow spirit, either of personal advantage or of seeking exclusive privileges for America over other nations; and finally, in the name of commerce, of civilisation, of progress, of humanity, and of religion- -on behalf not "Mercantile enterprise and religious devo- merely of California or America, but of tion," he continued, "had vainly striven to Europe and of mankind-he bade him and overthrow the barriers which a jealous spirit of his associates welcome and God-speed." seclusion had erected and maintained against Mr. Burlingame's reply contact with those who were regarded by the teresting as being his first public utterance not only inpeople of that empire as outside barbarians.' The antiquity of Chinese civilisation—the per- ing in substance and spirit the same as all upon the subject of his mission, but as befection to which many of the arts had attained among that people — the value of some of their his other speeches in Washington, New - merits the agricultural products, especially that far-famed York, Boston, and elsewhere herb that cheers but not inebriates' their lack attention of the commercial classes of this of knowledge of the religion of the Bible- had country, as showing exactly what China all operated as powerful incentives to efforts, wants in seeking admission into the comboth selfish and unselfish, to open the door to monwealth of nations, and what she does freedom of trade and interchange of products not want. That it may receive this attention and ideas. Opinions might differ upon the as far as the circle of our influence extends, question of immigration and other subjects, but we reproduce its most important passages, there was, and could be, no difference of opinion omitting the merely local and personal alupon the desirableness of unrestrained commer-lusions. cial intercourse with China, and with all the reticent as a diplomatic functionary should Mr. Burlingame, while he was as nations of the earth. To Californians, the ap- be who had not yet been received by any pointment by that Government of an American citizen to be its organ of communication with of the governments to which he was accrethe Western Powers, was an event of peculiar is at last learning to do, finding that secredited, spoke very plainly as diplomacy interest. The discovery of gold in California, teresting résumé of the present position of the Treaty Powers towards China, and of the position and desires of China towards them and the world. and the consequent rush of adventurous emi-cy and mystery are not the best policy in gration across the plains and mountains, had our times, whatever they may have been in brought the oldest and youngest of nations face the days that are gone. He gave an into face on the opposite shores of the Pacific Ocean. The young, impulsive, progressive civilisation of America was thus brought into direct contact with the ancient, venerable, and peculiar civilization of Asia. Events, some of which," he added, "were perhaps not very creditable either to China or to Europe, had culminated in liberating the Chinese mind from the fetters in which it has been bound by centuries of exclusion from Caucasian progress. The first result of this liberation was the remarkable spectacle they beheld that evening, when a citizen of the young republic appeared before them as the bearer of offers of commerce and amity between "There is," said the ambassador, "nothing in the origin of the mission that I should not be glad to tell. There is nothing-not one purpose of it that I should be ashamed to conceal. It came to me unsolicited; it was accepted in the broad interests of civilisation. You said truly, sir" (turning to Governor Haight), "when you said that the mission would not be used by me in any partial or limited sense. If I know my self, it shall be conducted only in the interests rich fruits. Under its inspiring influences comof all the world. This mission is not the result merce has sprung into being; trade has inof any accident, or of any special design; it is creased from 82,000,000 to 300,000,000 dollars; the result, the legitimate consequence, of events steamboats have been multiplied; arsenals have which have recently occurred at Pekin. It was been built; lighthouses are being erected; hunnot until recently that the Western Powers were dreds of foreigners have been taken into the brought into proper relations with the Chinese civil service of China, under the leadership of Government. Previously, affairs went on upon some of the ablest men in the world. The flag a system of misunderstandings, resulting in which is above us (the imperial flag of China) mutual misfortunes. It was not until the year has been adopted as the first national flag of 1860 that the representatives of the Treaty Pow- China. Wheaton's International Law has been ers met the great men who carry on the Chinese taken and is become a text-book for that great empire. Coming into personal relations with empire. The influence of Christian missions has them, their representatives had occasion to modify been advanced from the Yellow Sea even to the their views as to the capacity of the members of great plains of Mongolia. A great college has the Chinese Government and as to the intentions been established at Pekin, where modern science of those men. And they were led straightway is to be taught, as well as the foreign languages to consider how they should substitute for the a great college which will be looked up to by old false system of force one of fair diplomatic the eleven thousand students of China who go action. They addressed themselves resolutely up every three years to Pekin to take their third to the discussion of that question, and that dis- and fourth degrees, and to look, as they term cussion resulted in the adoption of what is called it, into the mirror of the mind,' to see what it the co-operative policy,' which is briefly this: has to reveal to them. And, finally, as a reAn argument on the part of the Treaty Powers sult, I think, directly of that fair and generous to act together upon all material questions to policy, it has sent this mission forth on its stand together in defence of their treaty rights; errand of goodwill. As I have said, I will not and the determination, at the same time, to give speak at length of its purposes - I must reserve to these treaties a generous construction; a de- myself for questions as they arise; but this I termination to maintain the foreign system of will say, that this mission means that China customs, and to support it by a pure adminis- desires to come into warmer and more intimate tration and upon a cosmopolitan basis; an agree- relations with the West. It means that she dement to take no concessions of territory to the sires to come under the obligations of internaTreaty Powers, and never to menace the terri- tional law, to the end that she may enjoy the torial integrity of China. These agreements are advantages of that law. It means that China, at the foundation of the co-operative policy. conscious of her own integrity, wishes to have You will perceive that they leave China per- her question stated; that she is willing to subfectly free to develop herself in precisely such mit her questions to the general judgment of form of civilisation at she may desire, at such mankind. It means that she intends to come time and in such manner as she pleases. It into the brotherhood of nations. It means comleaves her waters under her own control, and merce; it means peace; it means a unification her territory safe from aggression or spoliation. of the whole human race. Though this ephemeSuch, in brief, is the co-operative policy. I do ral mission may pass away, the great movement not propose to speak of the protracted discus- will go on. The fraternal feeling of four hunsions which led to these results. I did not in- dred millions of people has commenced to flow tend and it would be improper to do so- to through the land of Washington to the older speak of the action of the living in this regard, nations of the West, and it will flow for ever. but I would speak of the dead. There is one Who is there that would check it? Who is there who is identified with that policy, and with the that would say to China, We wish to have no establishment of justice in China, whose name other relations with you than such as we esought never to be forgotten or passed over in tablish in our own interests and enforce at the silence the name of Sir Frederick Bruce, the cannon's mouth?' I trust there are none such. late British Minister at Washington. That great I believe, rather, that this fraternal meeting is man, recalling the traditions and practices of the true exponent of the sentiment of the masses his own country, said that they jarred upon the of the people. I believe this occasion reflects moral sense of England, and that he was ready more truly that enlarged spirit which is not upon his own responsibility to reverse them. He alone devoted to trade, but also to civilisation was ready to lead against them: and he did and progress; that great and liberal spirit which lead against them, so fairly and so ably as, in would not be content with exchanging goods the first place, to earn the respect of his col- with China, but would also exchange thoughts leagues; in the second place, to receive the sup- with her; that would inquire carefully into the port of his country; and, in the third place, to causes of that sobriety and that industry for win the admiration of the diplomatic world. It which the Chinese are celebrated; that would is not time yet to speak of the results of that learn something of the long experience of that policy. I cannot foretell the future; I can only people; that would question those institutions speak to some extent of the recent past. And as which have withstood the storms of time as to I do so I must aver that that policy has borne the secrets of their stability; that would ask 6 |