"I must not conceal from your Excellency the extreme dissatisfaction and disappointment which the people of America will experience when they learn that their Envoy, instead of being promptly and cordially welcomed by the Chinese government, is thus molested and delayed, on the very threshold of the province of Yuh. The people of America have been accustomed to consider China the most refined and the most enlightened of the nations of the East; and they will demand, how it is possible, if China be thus refined, she should allow herself to be wanting in courtesy to their Envoy; and, if China be thus enlightened, how it is possible that, having just emerged from a war with England, and being in the daily expectation of the arrival of the Envoy of the French, she should suffer herself to slight and repel the good will of the United States. And the people of America will be disposed indignantly to draw back the proffered hand of friendship, when they learn how imperfectly the favor is appreciated by the Chinese government. In consenting, therefore, to postpone, for a short time longer, my departure for the North (Peking), and in omitting, for however brief a period, to consider the action of the Chinese government as one of open disrespect to the United States, and to take due measures of redress, I incur the hazard of the disapprobation and censure of my government; for the American government is peculiarly sensitive to any act of foreign governments injurious to the honor of the United States. It is the custom of American citizens to demean themselves respectfully towards the people and authorities of any foreign nation in which they may, for the time being, happen to reside. Your Excellency has frankly and truly borne witness to the just and respectful deportment which both scholars and merchants of the United States have at all times manifested in China. But I left America as a messenger of peace. I came into China full of sentiments of respect and friendship towards its sovereign and its people. And notwithstanding what has occurred, since my arrival here, to chill the warmth of my previous good will towards China, and to bring down the high conceptions I had previously been led to form in regard to the courtesy of its government, I am loth to give these up entirely, and in so doing put an end perhaps to the existing harmonious relations between the United States and China. I have therefore to say to your Excellency, that I accept, for the present, your assurances of the sincerity and friendship of the Chinese government. I suspend all the resentment which I have just cause to feel on account of the obstructions thrown in the way of the progress of the legation, and other particulars of the action of the Imperial and Provincial governments, in the hope that suitable reparation will be made for these acts in due time. I commit myself, in all this, to the integrity and honor of the Chinese government; and if, in the sequel, I shall prove to have done this in vain, I shall then consider myself the more amply justified, in the sight of all men, for any determination which, out of regard for the honor of the United States, it may be my duty to adopt under such circumstances."
It was now the middle of May, 1844: the correspondence with Ching had commenced the last of February: the three months had nearly elapsed, within which a return answer was to be had from Peking: and by extraordinary speed the answer arrived. It contained the Emperor's positive refusal to suffer Mr. Cushing to come to Peking—enjoined him to remain where he was—cautioned him not to "agitate disorder"—and informing him that an Imperial commissioner would proceed immediately to Canton, travelling with the greatest celerity, and under orders to make one hundred and thirty-three miles a day, there to draw up the treaty with him. This information took away the excuse for the intrusive journey, or voyage, to Peking, and also showed that a commercial treaty might be had with China, without inflicting upon her the calamities of war, or breeding national dissensions out of diplomatic contentions. It made a further suspension of his resentment, and postponement of the measures which the honor of the United States required him to take for the molestations and ill treatment which the federal government had received in his person. These formidable measures, well known to be belligerent, were postponed, not abandoned; and the visit to Peking, forestalled by the arrival of an imperial commissioner to sign a treaty, was also postponed, not given up—its pretext now diminished, and reduced to the errand of delivering Mr. Tyler's letter to the Emperor. He consents to treat at Canton, but makes an excuse for it in the want of a steamer, and the non-arrival of the other ships of the squadron, which would have enabled him to approach Canton, intimidate the government, and obtain from their fears the concessions which their manners and customs forbid. All this he wrote himself to his government, and he is entitled to the benefit of his own words:
"So far as regards the objects of adjusting in a proper manner the commercial relations of the United States and China, nothing could be more advantageous than to negotiate with Tsiyeng at Canton, instead of running the risk of compromising this great object by having it mixed up at Tien Tsin, or elsewhere at the north, with questions of reception at Court. Add to which the fact that, with the Brandywine alone, without any steamer, and without even the St. Louis and the Perry, it would be idle to repair to the neighborhood of the Pih-ho, in any expectation of acting upon the Chinese by intimidation, and obtaining from their fears concessions contrary to the feeling and settled wishes of the Imperial government. To remain here, therefore, and meet Tsiyeng, if not the most desirable thing, is at present the only possible thing. It is understood that Tsiyeng will reach Canton from the 5th to the 10th of June."
This commissioner, Tsiyeng, arrived at the time appointed, and fortunately for the peace and honor of the country, as the St. Louis sloop-of-war, and the man-of-war brig Perry, arrived two days after, and put Mr. Cushing in possession of the force necessary to carry out his designs upon China. In the joy of receiving this accession to his force, he thus writes home to his government:
"It is with great pleasure I inform you that the St. Louis arrived here on the 6th instant, under the command of Lieutenant Keith, Captain Cocke (for what cause I know not, and cannot conceive), after detaining the ship at the Cape of Good Hope three months, having at length relinquished the command to Mr. Keith. And on the same day arrived also the Perry, commanded by Lieutenant Tilton. The arrival of these vessels relieves me from a load of solicitude in regard to the public business; for if matters do not go smoothly with Tsiyeng, the legation has now the means of proceeding to and acting at the North."
"If matters do not go smoothly with Tsiyeng!" and the very first step of Mr. Cushing was an attempt to ruffle that smoothness. The Chinese commissioner announced his arrival at Canton, and made known his readiness to draw up the treaty instantly. In this communication, the name of the United States, as according to Chinese custom with all foreign nations, was written in a lower column than that of the Chinese government—in the language of Mr. Cushing, "the name of the Chinese government stood higher in column by one character than that of the United States." At this collocation of the name of his country, Mr. Cushing took fire, and instantly returned the communication to the Imperial commissioner, "even at the hazard (as he informed his government) of at once cutting off all negotiation." Fortunately Tsiyeng was a man of sense, and of elevation of character, and immediately directed his clerk to elevate the name of the United States to the level of the column which contained that of China. By this condescension on the part of the Chinese commissioner, the negotiation was saved for the time, and the cannon and ammunition of our three ships of war prevented from being substituted for goose-quills and ink. The commissioner showed the greatest readiness, amounting to impatience, to draw up and execute the treaty; which was done in as little time as the forms could be gone through: and the next day the commissioner, taking his formal leave of the American legation, departed for Peking—a hint that, the business being finished, Mr. Cushing might depart also for his home. But he was not in such a hurry to return. "His pride and his feelings (to use his own words) had been mortified" at not being permitted to go to Peking—at being in fact stopped at a little island off the coast, where he had to transact all his business; and his mind still reverted to the cherished idea of going to Peking, though his business would be now limited to the errand of carrying Mr. Tyler's letter to the Emperor. In his despatch, immediately after the conclusion of this treaty, he justifies himself for not having gone before the Chinese commissioner arrived, placing the blame on the slow arrival of the St. Louis and the Perry, the non-arrival at all of the Pacific squadron, and the want of a steamer.
"With these reflections present to my mind, it only needed to consider further whether I should endeavor to force my way to Peking, or at least, by demonstration of force at the mouth of the Pih-ho, attempt to intimidate the Imperial government into conceding to me free access to the Court. In regard to this it is to be observed, that owing to the extraordinary delays of the St. Louis on her way here, I had no means of making any serious demonstration of force at the north, prior to the time when Tsiyeng arrived at Canton, on his way to Macao, there to meet me and negotiate a treaty. And with an Imperial commissioner near at hand, ready and willing to treat, would it have been expedient, or even justifiable, to enter upon acts of hostility with China, in order, if possible, to make Peking the place of negotiation?"
The correspondence does not show what was the opinion of the then administration upon this problem of commencing hostilities upon China after the commissioner had arrived to make the treaty; and especially to commit these hostilities to force a negotiation at Peking, where no treaty with any power had ever been negotiated, and where he expected serious difficulties in his presentation at court, as Mr. Cushing was determined not to make the prostrations (i. e. bumping his head nineteen times against the floor), which the Chinese ceremonial required.
"I have never disguised from myself the serious difficulties which I might have to encounter in forcing my way to Peking; and, if voluntarily admitted there, the difficulties almost equally serious connected with the question of presentation at court; for I had firmly resolved not to perform the acts of prostration to the Emperor. I struggled with the objections until intelligence was officially communicated to me of the appointment of Tsiyeng as imperial commissioner, and of his being actually on his way to Canton. To have left Macao after receiving this intelligence would have subjected me to the imputation of fleeing from, and, as it were, evading a meeting with Tsiyeng; and such an imputation would have constituted a serious difficulty (if not an insuperable one) in the way of successful negotiation at the North."
The despatch continues: