recalled to China, upon the pretext of the reactionary party that their long residence abroad would weaken their devotion to their own country. The action in sending them to the United States demonstrated the liberal tendencies of the controlling spirit of the government and its friendly disposition to the United States. On their return to China, although a disposition was shown to exclude them from public life, the value of their foreign education was so manifest that a number of them have been assigned to important posts under the government, and have rendered their country very useful service.[1]
In 1875, Dr. S. Wells Williams, who began his diplomatic career in 1853 as secretary and interpreter to Commodore Perry in Japan, and who for twenty years had acted as secretary and often as charge of the American legation in China, resigned his office and returned to the United States. For several years and until his death in 1884 he occupied the chair of Chinese Languages and Literature at Yale University. Few American officials in China have been enabled to render their country such useful services. His work on China, "The Middle Kingdom," remains to this day the standard authority on that country. His Chinese Dictionary—a work of much labor and research—is the best evidence to his great learning in the Chinese language. Secretary Fish, in accepting his resignation, expressed in the highest terms the government's appreciation of his services. Minister Reed, with whom he served
- ↑ U. S. For. Rel. 1872, p. 130; 1873, pp. 140, 186; Williams's Hist. China, 387.
