President Tyler, and was seeking a creditable means of escape from his position, induced the President to nominate Edward Everett, then minister to Great Britain, for the special mission to China, expecting to succeed him at the court of St. James. But Mr. Everett preferred to remain in London, and another nomination had to be made. The choice fell upon Caleb Cushing, a member of Congress from Massachusetts.[1]
Mr. Everett was a gentleman of refined manners, and possessed a highly cultured mind, but Mr. Cushing, a shrewd lawyer and a plain-spoken man, was better fitted to cope with Chinese diplomacy.
Associated with Mr. Cushing was Fletcher Webster, son of the Secretary of State, as secretary of the legation, and Dr. Peter Parker and Rev. E. C. Bridgman, a missionary of Canton, were made Chinese secretaries. A surgeon was also attached to the legation, and five young men accompanied it as attachés. Mr. Webster, in his letter of instructions, had said that "a number of young gentlemen have applied to be unpaid attaches to the mission. It will add dignity and importance to the occasion, if your suite could be made respectable in numbers, by accepting such offers of attendance without expense to the government." A squadron of one frigate, a sloop of war, and a steam frigate, was placed at the service of Mr. Cushing by the Secretary of the Navy to convey the members of the mission to China. He thus went to his post with much more display than has been usual with American diplomats; and it is
- ↑ 4 Presidents' Messages, 211; A Century of American Diplomacy, by John W. Foster, Boston, 1900, pp. 289, 296.
