the policy adopted by his government even to accept affronts with forbearance and exercise patience towards a people with very different traits of national character and education. And yet the Chinese regarded the American minister as very unreasonable, and as "having treated the emperor with disrespect" in not accepting the form of audience offered him.
The Chinese mission did not prove a very attractive field for American statesmen. Messrs. McLane and Reed had asked to be relieved within a year after arrival at their posts; and Mr. Ward wrote from the mouth of the Peiho, following the British defeat at the Taku forts, less than four months after reaching Hongkong, for permission to return home. On arriving at Canton, after his somewhat inglorious visit to Peking, he received this permission, and in December, 1859, Dr. Williams assumed charge of the legation.[1]
The events in China of the eighteen months which followed were memorable in its history and of vast consequence to its future; but in them the United States took little part. A change of administration and the civil war in America were impending, absorbing the attention of the government, and a new minister was not sent to the country till the events there in progress had their consummation. The British and French allied forces had demanded and sought to exercise the right
- ↑ S. Ex. Doc. 30 (cited), 569-624; Martin's Cathay, pt. i. chap, xii.; Williams's Life and Letters, chap, ix.; Harper's Mag. Oct. 1898, p. 747. As to kotou, S. Ex. Doc. 30, p. 595; Martin's Cathay, 199; N. A. Rev. Jan. 1860, pp. 159, 166; 1 Davis's The Chinese, 97; Histoire des Relations Politiques . . . Suivie du Cérémonial observé à la cour de Peking pour la Réception des Ambassadeurs, G. Pauthier, Paris, 1859.
