spirit in which the term was used by the ancient Greeks as including all who were outside of their civilization and culture. For instance, in an official report of a customs employee of Canton we find such expressions as the following: "The barbarian Marks, [a merchant] residing in the English devil factory; … the barbarian Just, residing in the French devil factory." Twenty years later Lord Elgin, backed by a British fleet and army, in a dispatch informing his government that he had made the Chinese retract the word "barbarian" in an imperial decree, candidly says: "I confess that I very much doubt whether they have any other term which conveys to the Chinese population the idea of a foreigner."[1]
We have seen that the British and other European governments had made vain efforts, by imposing embassies sent to Peking, to establish political intercourse and secure greater facilities for trade. The government of the United States occupied a more favorable position with the Chinese authorities than those of Europe because of the fact that its intercourse had been marked by no violence or offensive disregard of the imperial policy or regulations, and that it had manifested no disposition to despoil the nations of the Pacific of their territory. But the Chinese government had shown such a deep-rooted prejudice against foreigners and so determined a policy of exclusion that it seemed useless for the United States to attempt to open
- ↑ Consular Archives, 1839; 1 The Chinese, Davis, 68; N. A. Review, 1860, p. 163. As to American consuls and their status, 5 Chinese Repository, 219; 6 Ib. 103.
