from officials more experienced than the Chinese in diplomacy, and which could not be well gainsaid from the standpoint of international law. The result of the conference was a failure, as it was not possible for the ships to remain at that stormy season of the year until an answer to the demands of the envoys could be received from Peking, and no assurance was given that these demands would be laid before the emperor. Nothing was left for the representatives but to leave the inhospitable shores of the Peiho and return to safer anchorage and more genial climate at Shanghai and Hongkong.
From Shanghai Mr. McLane sent full details of the events at the Peiho to the Secretary of State and gave a review of his futile efforts since his arrival in China to lay before the authorities at Peking the complaints of his government. He then submitted a recommendation that the President embody in a letter to the emperor the complaints which he had formulated and the changes desired in the treaty; and that this letter be confided to a commissioner "supported by the presence of the United States naval forces in the Chinese seas, precisely as the letter of the President was delivered to the emperor of Japan." He reported that the British and French ministers had recommended that a more decisive policy should be initiated, and it was to be hoped that harmonious action would continue to be maintained between the three governments. In a later dispatch he continued to urge a new and a more positive, "perhaps an aggressive, policy" on the part of the Western nations towards China.
