EECEPTION AND ENTERTAINMENT CHINESE EMBASSY. CITY OF BOSTON. 1868. BOSTON: ALFRED MUDGE & SON, CITY PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. W. .^ iViAY 4 iy07 D. of D. THE RECEPTION. The visit of an Embassy from the Chinese Empire to the United States Government, for the purpose of promoting the interests of the two countries by facilitating the intercourse be- tween them — an event of the highest significance in itself — was regarded by the citizens of Boston with peculiar satisfaction, from the fact that the chief personage in the Embassy from this ancient empire had long been a resident in their immediate vi- cinity, and had, during several terms, represented a portion of the city in the National Congress. It was in harmony, therefore, with the unanimous wishes of the citizens, that the City Council, on the twenty-ninth of May, 1868, — soon after the arrival of the Embassy from the Pacific Coast, — passed an order for the ap- pointment of a joint committee to tender the hospitalities of this city to the distinguished visitors. The Committee, consisting of Aldermen Samuel C. Cobb and Benjamin James; Councilmen Charles H. Allen, (the President,) Henry W. Pickering, George P. Denny and S. T. Snow, pro- ceeded to New York on the thirtieth day of May, and invited the Honorable Anson Burlingame, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, and his associates. Chili Ta-jin and Sun Ta-jin to visit Boston, at an early day, with the members of their suite, and partake of its hospitalities. In accepting the invitation, Mr, Burlingame expressed his gratification at this mark of confidence and esteem from his former fellow-citizens, who, he said, were the first to extend an official welcome to his mission. 4 RECEPTION OF THE The delay growing out of the ratification of the supplementary- treaty between China and the United States, which the Embassy were empowered to negotiate, prevented Mr. Burlingame and his associates from visiting Boston until the twentieth of August. On the nineteenth the Embassy arrived at Worcester, where they remained, under the care of the Committee of the City Council of Boston, until the following morning. At nine o'clock a special train was provided by the Superintendent of the Boston and Albany Railroad, which conveyed the city's guests and the Committee to the Western Avenue Crossing, where they arrived at half past ten o'clock, A. M., and where preparations had been made to receive them. Mr. Cobb, the Chairman of the Committee, then presented Mr. Burlingame and his associates to the Honorable Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Mayor of Boston. The Mayor welcomed the Em- bassy in the following words : Mr. Ambassador, — The City Council of Boston has already, through a committee, formally tendered to you the civilities that are your due, both as the accredited representative of the illustrious sovereign of the Chi- nese empire, and also, as one, who, in times past, emi- nently enjoyed the confidence and esteem of the citizens of this community. My duties on this occasion are, therefore, so far simplified as to afford me only the pleasure of expressing, in a few words, the welcome of this municipality to you, and to your distinguished associates, upon your entering the capital of the com- monwealth, which in former days you yourself have personally represented in the high councils of the nation. To us it is a cause of much regret that your coming hither has been deferred until the time of our general CHINESE EMBASSY. O vacation, when the anthorities and many of the citizens with their families are absent from their homes, and our halls of counsel and legislation, our schools and institu- tions of science, learning and the arts, are temporarily closed, and our family hearthstones almost deserted: For it is the earnest desire of our citizens to give you a reception fully commensurate with their respect for the ancient empire of China, and with their own ability to bestow. Nevertheless, you and the personages com- prising your suite are heartily welcome to the freedom and hospitalities of this our city ; and I trust that your sojourn with us, though of short duration, may be agreeable to you, and that the strangers who, for the first time, visit our peaceful abodes may find somewhat in our peculiar institutions, of sufficient excellence and interest to be deemed worthy of notice now, and of remembrance hereafter on their return to their far dis- tant home. In the name of my fellow-citizens, I extend to you all a sincere and most cordial welcome to Boston. In reply Mr. Burlingame said : Mr. 3Iai/or, — On behalf of myself and my associates I thank you 'for this tender of the hospitalities of the renowned city of Boston. Hitherto we have avoided all public demonstrations, not because we desired to repulse that good will which has followed us from our first arrival in this country down to the present hour, but because we felt it to be our duty to postpone our personal gratifications to the demands of our diplomatic 6 RECEPTION OF THE affairs. We have made this single exception for the reason that Boston was the first to establish relations with China, — because it was my old home, — because, sir, it has presented its public schools, and its institu- tions of learning as its highest points of interest. . Edu- cation is the foundation of all preferment in China, and is the basis of those institutions which have outlasted all others. It was natural, therefore, that my associates should have desired to make themselves acquainted with the systems of learning in the West. They will feel profound grief that it will be impossible for them to see your public schools in all their perfection. But I have no doubt that they will see much to admire when here, and much to remember when far away. Thank- ing you for this welcome, deeply grateful to you for your personal allusions, we now present ourselves to your hospitality with confidence and pleasure. The company then entered the carriages assigned to tliem, and a procession was formed by Colonel John Kurtz, Chief Marshal, in the following order: — The Chief Marslial. Aids — Police Captains R, H. Wilkins and S. G. Adams. Mounted Police Officers, under the command of Capt. Paul J. Vinal. Cavalry Band. Major Lucius Slade and Staff. Company B, First Battalion Light Dragoons, Capt. Albert Freeman. Company A, First Battalion Light Dragoons, Capt. Barney Hull. His Honor the Mayor and the Honorable Anson Burlingame, in a barouche drawn by four horses. CHINESE EMBASSY. 7 Tlie Chairman of the Committee, Chih Ta-jin and Mr. Brown (First Secretary), in a barouche drawn by four horses. Alderman Benjamin James, Sun Ta-jin and M. Dechamps (Second Secretary), in a barouche. The President of the Common Council, Councilman Pickering, Fung Lao-Yeh and Tah Lao-Yeh, interpreters, in a barouche. Councilmen Denny and Snow, Teh Lao-Yeh and Kway Lao- Ych, interpreters, in a barouche. Followed by carriages containing Ting Lao-Yeh, Lien Lao-Yeh ; also Kang Lao-Yeh, Chooang Lao-Yeh, the Scribes, and Tso, the Physician to the Embassy. Carriages containing reporters for the daily papers and the servants of the Embassy. Company C, First Battalion Light Dragoons, Captain Freeman C. Gilman. Company D, First Battalion of Light Dragoons, Captain George Curtis. The route of the procession was as follows : Through Western Avenue, Heath, Centre, Marcella and Highland streets, Eliot Square, Dudley, Warren and Washington streets, Chester Square, Tremont and Worcester streets, Harrison Avenue, Newton and Washington streets. Union Square, Tremont, Boylston and Ar- lington streets. Commonwealth Avenue, Berkeley, Beacon, Park, Tremont, Winter, Summer, Devonshire and Franklin streets, counter-marching around the flag-staff, through Devonshire, Milk, India, State, Washington and School streets, to the Parker House, where the guests were given up. The customary salutes in honor of a Foreign Minister were fired from Washington Square, at the Highlands, and from Boston Common, by a detachment of the Second Light Bat- tery, M. V. M. In the evening, Mr. Burlingame and his associates gave a re- ception to the members of the City Government in the large dining-hall on the second floor of the Parker House. 8 RECEPTION OF THE CHINESE EMBASSY. On Friday, at 12 o'clock, a public reception was given by the Embassy in Faneuil Hall, which was handsomely decorated. The galleries were occupied by ladies ; and the body of the hall was filled by gentlemen, who received Mr. Burlingame and his associates, on their entrance, with great enthusiasm. The recep- tion continued until one o'clock, when the guests, who were much fatigued, withdrew from the hall and returned to the Parker House. THE BANQUET. THE BANQUET. On Friday, tlie twenty-first of August, the City Council enter- tained the Embassy with a banquet at the St. James Hotel. About two hundred and twenty-five gentlemen, including the members of the City Government, were present. The company entered the dining hall at seven o'clock. The Honorable Nathaniel B. ShurtlefiF, Mayor, presided. On his right were seated the Honorable Anson Burliugame, Chief of the Embassy; His Excellency Alexander H. Bullock, Governor of the Commonwealth; Teh Lao-yeh, English Interpreter at- tached to the Embassy ; the Honorable Charles Sumner, Chair- man of the Committee on Foreign Eelations of the United States Senate; the Honorable Caleb Gushing; Major General Irwin McDowell, United States Army; Commodore John Rodgers, United States Navy ; Charles G. Nazro, Esquire, President of the Board of Trade. On the left of the Mayor were seated Chih Ta-jin, associate minister ; Mr. McLeavy Brown, Secretary to the Embassy ; Sun Ta-jin, associate minister ; M. Emile De- champs, Secretary to the Embassy; Fung Lao-yeh, English Interpreter ; Ralph Waldo Emerson, LL.D. ; Reverend George Futnam, D. D.; Mr. Edwin P. Whipple. Among the other distinguished guests present were Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes ; the Honorable Nathaniel P. Banks, the Hon- orable George S. Boutwell, and the Honorable Ginery Twichell, members of Congress; the Reverend Thomas Hill, D. D., Presi- dent of Harvard College; the Honorable George S. Ilillard, United States District Attorney ; the Honorable George 0. Bras- 12 RECEPTION OF THE tow, President of the Senate; the Honorable Harvey Jewell, Speaker of the. House of Representatives ; Brevet Major General H. W. Benham, and Brevet Major General J. G. Foster, U. S. Engineer Corps ; Major General James H. Carleton, U. S. A. ; Brevet Brigadier General Henry H. Prince, Paymaster U. S. A. ; Major General James A. Cunningham, Adjutant General ; the Honorable Henry J. Gardner, Ex-Governor of the Common- wealth ; the Honorable Josiah Quincy ; the Honorable Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr. ; Dr. Peter Parker, formerly Conmiissioner to China ; the Honorable Isaac Livermore ', Sr. Frederico Granados, Spanish Consul ; Mr. G. M. Finotti, Italian Consul ; Mr. Joseph lasigi, Turkish Consul; the Honorable Marshall P. Wilder, President of the Board of Agriculture; N. G. Clark, D. D., Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions ; and many of the leading merchants and professional men of Boston. When the guests had taken the places assigned to them, the Mayor said : Gentlemen of the City Council^ — At your bidding I most heartily welcome to the pleasures of the present occasion all who are here to participate in the hospital- ities of the city, in honor of the distinguished visitors from the oldest and most populous empire of the world. In accordance with our custom, we will now give atten- tion while an invocation for the Divine blessing is pro- nounced by the Reverend Dr. Putnam. A blessing was then asked by the Rev. Dr. Putnam. When the company had dined, the Mayor requested their attention, and made the following remarks : THE mayor's remarks. Gentlemen : — We are met this evening to testify our respect to the illustrious . embassy which is now CHINESE EMBASSY. 13 honoring our city with its presence. One of our per- sonal friends, who has been absent for a time for the accomplishment of much good for all nations and all people, has returned to the scenes of bygone days to meet his old associates, and to take hand by hand the friends of his early manhood. Tie has returned more weightily laden with official honors than his own country, and those with which it has heretofore held close alliance, could bestow upon him ; and with him he has many personages of a remote land, equally distinguished for their important official rank, and for the intellectual, moral, and social positions which they hold among their countrymen. We all welcome him and them most cor- dially to our municipality, deeming this honorable and much desired visitation to our country as a harbinger of the glorious future, when the greatest, the most popu- lous, and the most ancient of all the nations of the world shall open most widely and most freely her hitherto closed portals to all people of all lands and of all complexions and tongues. Especially pleased are we, Mr. Ambassador, that you, the chief personage of this illustrious embassy, are flesh of our flesh, and blood of our blood ■ — that your lan- guage is our language, your sentiments and feelings the same as ours — that our home has once been your home — and that you have equally the personal respect and high regards of those who are now your fellow-countrymen, as of us who have also enjoyed that privilege. Your pres- ence, sir, with us this evening, in your present capacity, and with these surroundings, gives us, I assure you, great pleasure and satisfaction, and will be remembered 14 RECEPTION OF THE most agreeably when you shall have successfully com- pleted your important missions, and when friendly breezes shall have wafted your trusty vessels with their precious burden, over the wide expanded ocean, and returned you in safety and in health to your far distant homes, to the affections of your friends, the plaudits of your countrymen, and the approbation of your govern- ment. It is not an empty compliment that you have paid to our country, in that the first negotiation on your very remarkable errand should have been made with the United States : Nor are we of Boston in the least degree insensi- ble to the distinction which you have accorded to our city, in having made to us the first, and perhaps the only, formal visit of your embassy to any of the large munici- palities of the land. The strong tie that once so firmly bound you in friendship to our community has not been broken; and we are joyfully permitted to hail your indi- vidual presence once more among us, as one of the felicities of the advent of the friendly mission to our shores. Time may wear on, events of the greatest portent may transpire ; but ancient friendships should never cease, nor the pleasant memories of the past be forgotten. We greet you, sir, most warmly as an old friend, and we recognize these your associates as new friends. May these relations never have an end ! But may the bonds which you and our beloved country have now made, prove of adamantine hardness, and of eternal duration ! May the results of your labors be of mutual benefit to all countries ! In the days that are to come, when the doings of the present time shall be regarded as of the ancient of days, may the grand treaties of this CHINESE EMBASSY 15 your embassy be remembered as the Maximie Chartic of international union for the promotion and security of political and religious liberty, of learning and intelligence, of law and harmony, and of perpetual mutual respect and amity. It may not be out of place for me to mention in this presence, that representatives of the oldest constituted government on the globe, dating back through more dy- nasties of potentates than any other nations can of rulers, have broken through the reserve of power, wealth, dignity and pride of ancient rank to tender to the whole civilized world an interchange of all that can be of any benefit or profit to individuals or collections of people ; while we, so young in national age, and differing so much from them in all our customs, manners, laws and government, are the first to open our arms to wel- come the offer, and to ratify treaties of the most incalculable good for their country and for ours. The Chinese Empire may date back to the fabulous era of Puankoo, and its history may be traced through the mythological times of Fohy, Shin-noong and their suc- cessors, and down in historical annals more centuries before the Christian era than have transpired since the advent of the Messiah ; and yet no period of the existence of that great empire, not even the days of the great Confucius, can compare in importance with the present era of her history, which will ever be noted as the greatest for giving and receiving that the world has ever known, either from recorded pages or even from the traditions of the past. The embassy has done wise- ly : For although the institutions of the Chinese, as well 16 RECEPTION OF THE as their habits and customs, may differ from ours, a great similarity nevertheless exists in the peculiar situation of our several territories. Their empire and our republic, although in different hemispheres, and the inhabitants antipodes, have somewhat similar positions in what have been known as the old and the new worlds. Both countries are north of the northern tropic, and centrally in the same temperate zone. The national capitals of both are, as near as chance could place them, on the same parallel of latitude ; and the United States and China proper cover about the same amount of territory, enjoy very nearly the same climate, and are bounded largely by the great navigable seas and oceans. The states and territories of the one correspond very closely with the provinces of the other. But what a vast differ- ence in population ! Where we have one inhabitant the Chinese have ten. They count more living souls than do all the nations of Europe and both Americas. Indeed were the Emperor of China, in our republican way of doing things, to submit to the hard duty of shaking hands with his subjects, it would take more years to accomplish the civility, on the eight-hour system, than were accorded to the venerable Parr — who, as you all have heard, lived to the remarkable age of one hundred and fifty-two years — and this too without keeping up with the births that would occur during the time. Indeed, were he gifted with eternal life he never would complete this intermi- nable undertaking. Perhaps I may be pardoned, gentlemen, in saying, that before the discovery of America by Columbus, the earth was seemingly flat, and contained little else than CHINESE EMBASSY. 17 Europe and Asia and a small part of Africa — at least all descriptions of it would lead to such a supposition — and that the only route to the ancient dominions of the Great Kahn of Cathay (now China) was by tedious overland travel, for the passage by sea around the Cape of Good Hope had not been discovered. The grand object of the voyage of Columbus, who had just come to the idea of the sphericity of the earth, was to find a new route to Cathay and Cipango by a westerly course ; and it is a remarkable fact that the Genoese adventurer, before starting on his grand voyage, actually provided 111 m- self with letters to the great powers of those almost unknown places from the fortunate Ferdinand and Isabella, then the sovereigns of Spain. Sailing with a belief that where the ocean terminated land would have a beginning, the great discoverer of this western hemisphere, on the twenty -first day of October, 1492, first of Europeans, set foot on ground, which in his belief was the desired land of his search : But in- stead he had found another continent ; and the passage so much needed, was subsequently, and but five years later, discovered in another dhection, and the route, by doubling the Cape of Good Hope, was established, and the laborious journeys to the east through inhospitable wildernesses and dreary deserts ceased forever. But, gentlemen, if I say much more about ancient China, I shall leave no room for the present of that great empire : And I need not now tell you of the great me- chanical effort of more than twenty centuries ago — the building of the great Chinese Wall, surpassing those of Babylon; nor of the great canal, the longest in the 3 18 RECEPTION OF THE world, and completed before the birth of Columbus ; nor of block-printmg, practised by the Chinese five hundred years before Faust, or Guttemberg, or SchcefFer ever dreamed of the art ; nor of the invention of gunpowder, known centuries before the days of lloger Bacon ; nor of the power of the loadstone, which helped direct the Chinese navigator long before the passage to Cathay was sought by Europeans, or our own country discovered through its instrumentality. Each of these themes would exhaust all the time, and more too, that is allotted to me. But all these have their significance, and all have had, and will continue to have, their influence for good. I may, however, without fear of complaint, say to our stranger friends, that we whom they are now visit- ing are a peculiar people ; that we all love liberty, and desire that others shall enjoy it with us ; that our small band of forefathers, about the time that the present dynasty commenced in China, peaceably sought these shores, driven from their transatlantic homes by vexations and persecutions, and here planted themselves and their principles ; and that we have grown up from such beginnings to what they now find us. From the first we opened our doors freely to all men ; no wayfarer, of any clime or tongue, was ever denied a welcome here. We had room for ourselves, and we had spare room for others. With the great Chinese sage, we have ever practised the Golden Rule of our own ancestors, but better expressed by him, " Do not unto others what you would not have others do unto you " ; and I verily believe that in the wise sayings of some learned aphorist of the Orientals, we may be able to CHINESE EMBASSY. 19 find another of our good sayings, " Be virtuous and you will be happy," also much improved by reversal, " Be happy and you will be virtuous." It may be interesting for our visitors to know, that from this community first commenced the China trade of this country ; that from this and a neighbor- ing port sailed, till recently, all the merchant vessels that traversed the oceans between America and China ; and that much of the Avealth of the old families of Bos- ton was obtained in the China and East India trade. But hereafter all trade with China will be attended with less difficulty than it was heretofore, — thanks to the present peaceable mission. The dawn has already ap- peared. China and the United States will hereafter exchange productions without let or hindrance, and the arts of peace and civilization will equally and reciprocally flourish in both. Religion — the boon most dearly esteemed by all men — will be liberally enjoyed in both nations, and by all people. The day will soon come when we shall be the east and China the west ; when all travel between these mighty nations shall be over the justly-named Pacific Ocean, (for dis- tance from our east to our west will soon be annihila- ted,) and the western passage — the long-lost hope and desire of the ancient navigators — shall be accom- plished. Gentlemen, let us rejoice in the event that has brought us together this evening ; and while we give welcome to those who visit us for the first time, may we be sufficiently grateful for the benefits which must in course result from their benevolent and wise mission ! 20 RECEPTION OF THE After music by Gilmore's Band, the Mayor announced as the first regular toast : " The President of the United States." The Band performed the American national air. The Mayor then announced as the second regular toast : "The Emperor of China." The Band performed the Chinese national air. The third regular toast, " The Chinese Embassy," was received with much enthusiasm. When the Mayor intro- duced Mr. Burlingame to respond, the company rose and gave nine cheers. SPEECH OF HON. ANSON BURLINGAME. Mr. Mayor: In rising to respond to what you have said, and to this cordial greeting, I feel how utterly inadequate are any words of mine to meet the require- ments of this occasion. Events are more eloquent than words. The presence here of my associates, with the sunshine of the Orient upon their faces, and the warmth of its fkes in their hearts, arouses more emo- tions than- the most eloquent tongue can express. The land of Washington has greeted the land of Confucius. The great thoughts of the one have been wedded to the great deeds of the other. Nothing can be more impressive than the facts themselves. The Imperial and the Republican seals have been placed side by side upon a great bond of friendship forever. In the CHINESE EMBASSY. 21 presence of this majestic past, the mcmhers of tlvis mission would be ghid to rest and be silent ; but siknicc you will not have. And there is no rest for mortals save in the grave. Breaking, then, the silence which you will not allow, permit me, in the first place, to seize a thought expressed by yourself, where you say that the physical condition of China is like unto the physical condition of the United States. That is true. China lies along the Pacific, as the United States lie along the Atlantic. It has, as you say, the same area ; it has the same isothermal lines ; it has a like system of rivers and mountains. The great river Yangtse Kiang empties to a bucket-ful the same volume of water as the Missis- sippi ; the distant plains of Mongolia answer to the great prairies of the northwest. But they are not only like to each other in their physical aspects, they have relations to each other in other respects. They have moral and political relations of a similar character with ours. China is divided into provinces as this country is divided into States. The Chinese hold to the great doctrine that the people are the source of power. You vote by ballot ; in China they vote by competitive examination. You shout when your fellow-citizen is elected ; they shout when their scholar has received his degree. They are scorn- ful of caste, and so are you. You tolerate every. faith, and so do they. You proceed to make a law by peti- tion; they proceed by memorial. This memorial is recorded ; it is passed to the Great Council ; it is approved by the Government ; it is handed over to the Great Secretariat : and if it shall be found to be accord- 22 RECEPTION OF THE ing to the tradition and the laws, that Secretariat is charged with its publication to the world. So that China is not a land of caprices, ■ — it is a land of laws. So, also, they are like unto us somewhat in their school system. It is voluntary. They pay great atten- tion to their schools. They hold the office of teacher to be the highest in the world. The great man in the Tsungle Yamen to-day, one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest scholar there, Tung Ta-jin, who presided over the translation of Wheaton's International Law, took from Mr. Wade, the British Secretary of Legation, a translation which he made of our own Longfellow's Psalm of Life, the first secular poem ever trans- lated into the Chinese language, and placed it upon a fan, which he sent by my hand to our great poet, that gift leading to a correspondence between these illustrious men. I say Tung Ta-jin makes it ever his boast, in the Tsungle Yamen, that he was once a poor school-teacher. But, however great may be the physical resemblances, however many resemblances may be found in other respects between them and the nations of the West, it is certain that we have much to learn from them, and they have much to learn from us. We have to learn from them to respect old age ; we have to learn from them sobriety ; we have to learn from them good manners ; we have to learn from them habits of schol- arship ; we have to learn from them how to cultivate fish ; we have to learn from them much in relation to agriculture, much of the effect of heat and cold, and light and shade upon plants ; how to iiTigate, how to CHINESE EMBASSY. 23 manure the laud. Indeed, it would be a most profitable employmeut for some man of obser\in<^ powers, some scicutific man, to go to China and record the facts lie finds there. The Chinese may not be able to give him the reasons why they do this thing, or why they do that thing, but he would find that, through long ages of experience, they had at last ascertained the right way. I do not know of so wide an unreaped field for a scientific man, and I trust that the greatest living naturalist. Prof. Agassiz, will next year make an expedition to the Chi- nese Empire. But not to follow your suggestion too far, I say, we have much to learn from them. We have many wise maxims to acquire from them. They have much, also, to learn from us. They have all the modern sciences, — they have all those things to learn from us, which are the result of our necessities. We lived far apart, and we invented the steamboat, the railroad, the telegraph, to bring us nearer and nearer together. But without pursuing this line of thought further, permit me to give you something more nearly relating to the present. I leave everything that may be said about the ancient sages of China who lived before Soc- rates, to the distinguished gentleman on my left, [Mr. Ealph Waldo Emerson,] who knows much more of them than I do ; and I come now to consider, for a mo- ment, the treaty which has just been concluded between the United States and China. And I shall not, I assure you, trespass upon your time to enter into any elaborate exposition of that treaty. No, sir, I leave the exposi- tion of that treaty to the distinguished Senator on my 24 RECEPTION OF THE right, who was its champion in the Senate, and who procured for it a unanimous vote. Permit me to say, briefly, that that treaty had its origin in the desire to give the control of China to herself, in opposition to that aggressive spirit which would take it from her and give it to the caprice of interest and to the rude energy of force. It had its origin in the belief that institutions which had withstood all the mutations of time, have something in them worthy of consideration ; in the be- lief that institutions, cherished unanimously by one-third of the human race, may possibly be the best institutions for the people of China, and that at least they are enti- tled to hold on to them until they shall be changed by fair argument. That treaty had its origin in, and in fact is the outgrowth of, that co-operative policy which was agreed to by the representatives of the Western pow- ers recently assembled at Peking ; that policy substituted for the old doctrine of violence one of fair diplomatic action ; so that if a Consul and the Taoutai could not agree, before war should ensue, the question at issue should be referred to Peking, and thence to the home governments. That policy was in brief an agreement, upon the part of the rej)resentatives of the treaty powers, that they would not interfere in the internal aff'airs of China ; that they would give to the treaties a fair and Christian construction ; that they would abandon the so-called concession doctrine, and that they never would menace the territorial integrity of China. On these principles rests the security of China. They were warmly approved by the Government of China which naturally desired that they should find CHINESE EMBASSY. 25 expression in a more solemn form than tliey were in at the present time. The evidence of this co-operative policy rested in the archives of distant legations, in the great despatches of Sir Frederick Bruce, who shed a new lustre upon diplomacy in the East. I say that China, feeling the advantage of these principles, desired that they should be carried forward into more solemn forms. Accordingly they have, as agreed to by the great treaty powers of the West, passed into the unbending text of the treaty recently made at Washington. Now, in a word, what is that treaty ? In the first place, it declares the neutrality of the Chinese waters in opposition to the pretensions of the ex-territoriality doctrine, that inasmuch as the persons and the property of the people of the foreign powers were under the ju- risdiction of those powers, therefore it was the right of parties contending with each other to attack each other in the Chinese waters, thus making those waters the place of their conflict. This treaty traverses all such absurd pretensions. It strikes down the so-called con- cession doctrines, under which the citizens of diff'erent countries, located upon spots of land in the treaty ports, had come to believe that they could take jurisdiction there, not only of their own citizens, not only of the persons and property of their own people, but of the Chinese and the people of other countries. When this question was brought under discussion and referred to the home governments, not by the Chinese, originally, but by those foreign nations who felt that their treaty rights, were being abridged by these concession doctrines, the distant foreign countries could not stand the discus- 26 RECEPTION OF THE sion for a moment. And I aver that every treaty pow- er has abandoned the concession doctrines, thongh some of their officials at the present time in China undertake to contend for it — undertake to expel the Chinese, to attack the Chinese, to protect the Chinese as though the territory did not belong to the Chinese government. China has never abandoned her eminent domain — never abandoned on that territory her jurisdiction doc- trine ; and I trust she never will. This treaty strikes down all the pretensions about concessions of terri- tory. Again, this treaty recognizes China as an equal among the nations, in opposition to the old doctrine that be- cause she was not a Christian nation she could not be placed in the roll of nations. But I will not discuss that question. There is the greatest living authority upon Eastern questions here to-night. He has stated that position more fully than anybody else, while his heart has leaned ever to the side of the Chinese. I say China has been put on terms of equality. Her subjects have been put upon a footing with those of the most favored nations, so that now the Chinaman stands with the Briton or the Frenchman, the Russian, the Prussian, or the subjects of any of the great powers. And not only so, but by a Consular clause in that treaty they are given a diplomatic status by which those privileges can be defended. That treaty also strikes down all dis- abilities on account of religious faith. It recalls the great doctrine of the constitution which gives to a man the right to hold any faith which his conscience may dictate to him. Under that treaty the Chinese may CHINESE EMBASSY. 27 spread their marble altars to the blue vault of heaven, aud may worship the spirit which dwells beyond. That treaty opens the gleaming gates of our public institu- tions to the students of China. That treaty strikes down or reprobates — that is the word — the infamous Coolie trade. It sustains the great law of 1862, drafted by Mr. Eliot of Massachusetts, and pledges the nation for- ever to hold that trade criminal. While it does this, it recognizes the great doctrine that a man may change his home and his allegiance. While it strikes at the root of the Coolie trade, it invites free immigration into the country of those sober and industrious people by whose quiet labor we have been enabled to push the Pacific Railroad over the summit of the Sierra Nevada. Woollen mills have been enabled to run on account of this labor with profit. And the great crops of California, more valuable than all her gold, have been gathered by them. I am glad the United States had the courage to apply their great principles of equality. I am glad that while they apply their doc- trines to the swarming millions of Europe, they are not afraid to apply them to the tawny race of Tamerlane and of Genghis Khan. There is, also, another article which is important to China. It has been the habit of the foreigners in China to lecture the Chinese and to say what they should do and what they should not do ; to dictate, and say when they should build railroads, when they should build tele- graphs ; and, in fact, there has been an attempt to take entire possession of their affairs. This treaty denounces all such pretensions. It says, particularly, that it is for 28 RECEPTION OF THE the Chinese themselves to fix the time when they will initiate reforms, — when they will build and when they will refuse to build, — that they are the masters of their own affairs ; that it is for them to make commercial regulations, and to do whatever they will, which is not in violation of existing treaties and the laws of nations, within their own territory. I am glad that that is in the treaty ; and while the treaty expresses the opinion of the United States in favor of giving to China the control of her own affairs, it assumes that China is to progress, and it ofi"ers to her all the resources of Western science, and asks other nations to do the same. The United States have asked nothing for themselves. I am proud of it. I am proud that this country has made a treaty which is, every line of it, in the present interests of China, though in the resulting interests of all mankind. I am glad that the country has risen up to a level with the great occasion. I am glad that she has not asked any mean advantages, such as weaken one people and do not exalt another. By leaving China free in all these respects, she feels secure, or will feel secure wheii these principles are adopted. When she feels that the railroad and the telegraph are not to be instruments by which she is to be disrupted or destroyed then she will come out of her seclusion and enter upon a course of trade, the importance of which, and the amount of which, no man can compute. The first thing for her to have is security ; and this treaty gives her security. It places her broadly under international law. I know this treaty will be attacked. You will wonder CHINESE EMBASSY. 29 at it. It will be attacked by that spirit of the old indigo planters iu India, which opposed British reforms there ; and by such as opposed Emancipation in the West Indies; it will be resisted by the spirit of the old opium smuggler in China. But notwithstanding all this, I be- lieve that treaty, or the principles of that treaty, will make the tour of the world, because it is founded in jus- tice. This mission, feeling confidence in the rectitude of their intentions, confidence in the merits of the policy which they propose, do not ask what reception they shall have in the countries to which they shall go, but trust themselves fairly and fully to the spirit of West- ern civilization. And now, having detained you too long, permit me to thank you all for the kind manner in which you have listened to what I have had to say. I thank you. Sir, for your personal allusions. I thank dear old Boston for her grand demonstrations of good will. I thank the American Government that it has placed a great ques- tion beyond the reach of individual misfortune. And now, having said this, the mission will press along the line of its diplomatic duty to other fields of effort. The Mayor then announced as the fourth regular toast, — " The Commonwealth of Massachusetts." He called upon His Excellency, Alexander H. Bullock, to respond. SPEECH OF GOVERNOR BULLOCK. 3Ir. Mai/or: The impressive ceremony and the cor- dial reception of the evening have been conducted so far and so well that no duty remains for me save offi- 30 RECEPTION OF THE cially to assure our distinguished guests that I heartily unite with the Capital in all the honors accorded to them. Aside from, the gratification we feel in extending this welcome to our own fellow-citizen, now returned to us as the head of an august mission, I surely may be permitted to express your sentiments as well as my own in recalling, with some satisfaction, the part which our Commonwealth has borne on the large field of American diplomacy in the recent historical period. With Mr. Adams at the British Court, Mr. Motley on the C-ontinent, Mr. Burlingame in the great empire of the East, our senior Senator, (Mr. Sumner,) at the head of foreign affairs in the Senate, — the fortress of our diplomatic security, — and Governor Banks in a like position in the House of Representatives, — the people of Massachusetts have had reason to be satisfied with the share committed to them in the civic responsibilities of our time. It is not to the present point that I should say that each of these gentlemen has performed his duty so well that we cannot readily see how it could have been done better ; for the world knows that already. But it is permissible that I should say, in view of those broad relations which these citizens of our own have sustained on the three continents of civilization, that the future historian of the Commonwealth must record that her fame never shone brighter, more conspicuous, or more beneficent than during this period. I may, therefore, be permitted, both as magistrate and as citi- zen, to allow my local pride to culminate this evening, as it blends with your patriotic pleasure, in paying honors to those who have proved such good masters of international rights and courtesies. CHINESE EMBASSY. 31 As an American I rejoice in the recent events which have cleyclopcd into something almost like an alUance for the welfare of the world, the imperial powers of the East and the West. After all that has occnrred in the last seven years, what patriotic citizen of the United States does not welcome the friendly hand reached out to ns from Russia and China ; — co-terminous countries, covering one-fifth part of the habitable globe, having institutions in many respects altogether unlike our own, but in some particulars quite in sympathy with ours, eager to join their histories and destinies with ours in a spirit of conciliation and unity which may hereafter become the protectorate of the peace of all the nations. From the former of these two, at a time when we failed to receive from countries nearer to us that encourage- ment of our nationality which we had a right to ex- pect, there came for us no voice or wish, expressed or suppressed, that did not give aid and comfort to every heart which was in allegiance to our government. In my remembrance of this, all political names of govern- ments have lost their power. There is a chord of sympathy that sounds the name of Russia pleasantest of them all in my ears. The purchase of Alaska becomes doubly agreeable. I thank Mr. Seward and Congress for making the trade. And now, after the war, just when we are to spread sail on a fresh career of prosperity at home and consid- eration abroad, let us be happy to receive, in advance of all the governments of Europe, His Excellency Mr. Burlingame and his Associate Envoys from C'hina. The specilic provisions of their recent treaty with us may or 32 RECEPTION OF THE may not comprise any striking innovations on the past. As to that I do not much profess to know. I have been trying to get some information from my friend Teh, who sits by my side, who, I will say, speaks the English language with a compass and flexibility and force which our own countrymen can seldom surpass, and some of them can hardly equal, after this hour in the evening. I introduced him to my late comrade in the legislative halls, Mr. Gushing, who was the pioneer in American diplomacy towards China, and who went out as Commissioner to China (if that was the title of his office) in 1842 or '43, and, to my surprise, I found, when I sought to make some comparisons between that time and the present, that my young friend Teh was born three years after Mr. Cushing returned, and that Mr. Cushing and I were much older than my Chinese friend. But, however that may be, the tone, the tem- per, the spirit in which this Embassy comes to us — that is a great deal — that inaugurates a new era in the relations of two powerful peoples. It is enough for me to know that it is in the interest of justice to the individual man of both nations ; that it is in recognition of the obligations of all the reciprocities of humanity ; that it is in aid and promotion of international com- merce, which is the handmaid of Equity and Christi- anity. So that, henceforth, the pledged honor of Ameri- cans and Chinamen shall be more potent for all the purposes of travel and trade and religion and civiliza- tion, than a thousand British cannon bellowing against the gates of the Celestial Empire, — gates which shall open in all time to come more easily to the force of fra- CHINESE EMBASSY. 33 ternity than to the force of arms. Why should not China be respected for that she has resisted with phicki- ncss, according to her traditions and with her hearts and $irms, every attempt to blow open her portals "? — for that she sends her Envoys to-day to make public tender at the doors of our Capitol of her desire to establish, as the law of nations, the Golden Rule, whether it comes to her from Confucius, or to us from authority infinitely higher ? Let us respect the authority of existing and ancient nations. One is especially before us now that has lengthened and enduring annals. As the oldest civi- lized community of the United States, we of Massachu- setts trace our record backward over only two centuries and a half. And that, we are apt to think, furnishes ample and dignified work of research for several histori- cal, antiquarian and genealogical societies, in examin- ing ancient mounds, exhuming corroded tomahawks, and bringing to the light of our day the virtues and the frailties of some eight or nine generations of men. How, then, can we not respect a people of a record of five thousand years ^ You may call them rude; but you have sought their commerce, and have scattered among all your homes the products of their luxury, their art, and their labor. You may call them barbarians ; but with their own sense of right they can call you the same. You may doubt their elemental principles of government; but they have existed having a govern- ment ages before you were known, and more recently when you were not sure that you could maintain and You may question the claim 34 RECEPTION OF THE of their literature to common respect ; but it ante-dates all that is known by us of the thought and record which we call sacred. You may ask, if you will, why China comes here with an American citizen for her Ambassa- dor, to demand a high place of dignity among the countries ; and she answers, with the eloquence of a long and masterly history, that she comes offering only terms of international equality as one of the peoples and governments of the world of to-day ; compacted and ribbed by the vicissitudes of fifty centuries ; self-subsist- ing against all efforts to assail or invade her; but willing, anxious now, to welcome the sails of your commerce into her ports, the voices of your missionaries into her interior, and the rights of your citizens within her juris- diction. In that spirit, and in that cause, I welcome Mr. Burlingame and his associates, and bid them God- speed on theu' way to the other countries. The Mayor then announced as the fifth regular toast, — "The Supplementary Treaty with China"; and called upon the Honorable Charles Sumner, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate, to respond. HON. CHARLES SUMNEr's SPEECH. Mr. Mayor : I cannot speak on this interesting oc- casion without first declaring the happiness I enjoy at meeting my friend of many years in the exalted posi- tion which he now holds. Besides being my personal friend, he was also an honored associate in representing the good people of this community, and in advancing a CHINESE EMBASSY. 35 great cause, wliich lie championed with memorable elo- quence and fidelity. Such are no common ties. Permit me to say that this splendid welcome, now otFered by the municipal authorities of Boston, is only a natural ex- pression of the sentiments which must prevail in this community. Here his labors and triumphs began. Here, in your early applause and approving voices, he first tasted of that honor which is now his in such am- ple measure. He is one of us, who, going forth into a strange country, has come back with its highest trusts and dignities. Once the representative of a single Con- gressional district, he now represents the most populous nation of the globe. Once the representative of little more than a third part of Boston, he is now the repre- sentative of more than a third part of the human race. The population of the globe is estimated at twelve hun- dred millions ; that of China at more than four hundred millions, and sometimes even at five hundred millions. If, in this position, there be much to excite wonder, there is still more for gratitude in the unparalleled op- portunity which it affords. What we all ask is oppor- tunity. Here is opportunity on a surpassing scale — to be employed, I am sure, so as to advance the best inter- ests of the Human Family; and, if these are ad- vanced, no nation can suffer. Each is contained in all. With justice and generosity as the reciprocal rule, and nothing else can be the aim of this great Embassy, there can be no limits to the immeasurable consequences. For myself, I am less solicitous with regard to con- cessions or privileges, than with regard to that spirit of friendship and good neighborhood, which embraces 36 RECEPTION OF THE alike the distant and the near, and, when once estab- lished, renders all else easy. The necessary result of the present experiment in diplomacy will be to make the countries which it visits better known to the Chinese, and also to make the Chinese better known to them. Each will know the other better and will better comprehend that condition of mutual dependence which is the law of humanity. In the relations among nations, as in common life, this is of infinite value. Thus far, I fear that the Chinese are poorly informed with regard to us. I am sure that we are poorly informed with regard to them. We know them through the porcelain on our tables with its law- less perspective, and the tea chest with its unintelligible hieroglyphics. There are two pictures of them in the literature of our language, which cannot fail to leave an impression. The fii'st is in Paradise Lost, where Milton, always learned even in his poetry, represents Satan as descending in his flight, on the barren plains Of Sericana, where Chineses drive, With sails and wind their cany wagons light. The other is that admirable address on the study of the law of nature and nations, where Sir James Mackintosh, in words of singular felicity, alludes to '' the tame but ancient and immovable civilization of China." It will be for us now to enlarge these pictures and to fill the canvas with life. I do not know if it has occurred to our honored guest, that he is not the first stranger who, after sojourning in CHINESE EMBASSY. 37 this distant unknown land, has come back loaded with its honors, and with messages to the Christian powers. He is not without a predecessor in his mission. There is another career as marvellous as his own. I refer to the Venetian Marco Polo, whose reports, once discredited as the fixbles of a traveller, are now recognized among the sources of history, and especially of geographical knowl- edge. Nobody can read them without feeling their verity. It was in the latter part of the far away 13th century, that this enterprising Venetian, in company with his father and uncle, all of them merchants, jour- neyed from Venice, by the Avay of Constantinople, Trebizond on the Black Sea and Central Asia, until they reached first the land of Prester John, and then that golden country, known as Cathay, where the great ruler, Kublai Khan, treated them with gracious consideration, and employed young Polo as his ambassador. This was none other than China, and the great ruler, called the Grand Khan, w^as none other than the first of its Mongolian dynasty having his imperial residence in the immense city of Kambalu, or Peking. After many years of illustrious service, the Venetian, wdth his compan- ions, was dismissed with splendor and riches, charged wdth letters for European sovereigns, as our Bostonian is charged wdth similar letters now. There were let- ters for the Pope, the King of France, the King of Spain, and other Christian princes. It does not appear that England was expressly designated. Her name, so great now, was not at that time on the visiting list of .the distant Emperor. Such are the contrasts in national life. Marco Polo with his companions, reached Venice 3y RECEPTION OF THE on his return in 1295, at the very time when Dante in Florence was meditating his divine poem, and when Roger Bacon, in England, was astonishing the age with his knowledge. These were two of his greatest con- temporaries. The return of the Venetian to his native city was attended by incidents which have not occurred among us. Bronzed by long residence under the sun of the East, — wearing the dress of a Tartar, — and speaking his native language with difficulty, it was some time be- fore he could persuade his friends of his identity. Hap- pily there is no question on the identity of our returned fellow-citizen; and surely it cannot be said that he speaks his native language with difficulty. There was a dinner given at Venice as now at Boston, and the Venetian dinner, after the lapse of nearly five hundred years, still lives in glowing description. On this occa- sion Marco Polo, with his companions, appeared first in long robes of crimson satin reaching to the floor, which, after the guests had washed their hands, were changed for other robes of crimson damask, and then again, after the fii'st course of the dinner, for other robes of crimson velvet, and at the conclusion of the banquet, for the ordinary dress worn by the rest of the company. Meanwhile the other costly garments were distributed in succession among the attendants at the table. In all your magnificence to-night, Mr. Mayor, I have seen no such largess. Then was brought forward the coarse threadbare clothes in which they had travelled, when, on ripping the lining and patches with a knife, costly jewels, in sparkling showers, leaped forth before the CHINESE EMBASSY. 39 eyes of the company, who for a time were motionless with wonder. Then at last, says the Italian chronicler, every donbt was banished, and all were satisfied that these were the valiant and honorable gentlemen of the house of Polo. I do not relate this history in order to suggest any such operation on the dress of our returned fellow-citizen. No such evidence is needed to assure us of his identity. The success of Marco Polo is amply attested. Prom his habit of speaking of millions of people and millions of money, he was known as millmii, or the millionaire, being the earliest instance in history of a designation so common in our prosperous age. But better than " millions " was the knowledge he imparted, and the impulse that he gave to that science, which teaches the configuration of the globe, and the place of nations on its face. His travels, as dictated by him, were repro- duced in various languages, and, after the invention of printing, the book was multiplied in more than fifty editions. Unquestionably it prepared the way for the two greatest geographical discoveries of modern times, that of the Cape of Good Hope, by Vasco de Gama, and the New World, by Christopher Columbus. One of his admirers, a learned German, does not hesitate to say that, when, in the long series of ages, we seek the three men, who, by the influence of their discoveries, have most contributed to the progress of geography and the knowledge of the globe, the modest name of the Venetian finds a place in the same line with Alexander the Great and Christopher Columbus. It is well known that the imagination of i\\e Genoese navigator was fired 40 RECEPTION OF THE by the revelations of the Venetian, and that, in his mind, all the countries embraced by his transcendent discovery were none other than the famed Cathay, with its various dependencies. In his report to the Spanish Sovereigns, Cuba was nothing else than Zimpangu, or Japan, as described by the Venetian, and he thought himself near a grand Khan, meaning, as he says, a king of kings. Columbus was mistaken. He had not reached Cathay or the grand Khan ; but he had discov- ered a new world, destined in the history of civilization to be more than Cathay, and, in the lapse of time, to welcome the Ambassador of the grand Khan. The Venetian, on his return home, journeyed out of the East, westward. Our Marco Polo on his return home, journeyed out of the West, eastward ; and yet they both came from the same region. Their com- mon starting-point was Peking. This change is typical of that transcendent revolution under whose influence the Orient will become the Occident. Journeying westward, the first welcome is from the nations of Europe. Journeying eastward, the first welcome is from our Eepublic. It only remains that this wel- come should be extended until it opens a pathway for the mightiest commerce of the w^orld, and embraces within the sphere of American activity that ancient ancestral empire, where population, industry and edu- cation, on an unprecedented scale, create resources and necessities on an unprecedented scale also. See to it, merchants of the United States, and you, mer- chants of Boston, that this opportunity is not lost. And this brings me, Mr. Mayor, to the Treaty, which CHINESE EMBASSY. 41 you invited me to discuss. But I Avill not now enter upon this topic. If you did not call me to order for speaking too long, I fear I should be called to order in another place for undertaking to speak of a Treaty which has not yet been proclaimed by the President. One remark I will make and take the consequences. The treaty does not propose much ; but it is an excel- lent beginning, and, I trust, through the good offices of our fellow-citizen, the honored plenipotentiary, will un- lock those great Chinese gates which have been bolted and barred for long centuries. The Embassy is more than the treaty, because it will prepare the way for further intercourse and will help that new order of things which is among the promises of the Future. The Mayor then introduced Dr. OHver Wendell Holmes, who recited the following poem : POEM BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Brothers, whom we may not reach Through the veil of ahen speech, Welcome I welcome I eyes can tell What the lips in vain would spell ; Words that hearts can understand, Brothers from the Flowery Land ! We, the evening's latest horn, Hail the children of the morn ! We, the new creation's birth, Greet the lords of ancient earth From their storied walls and towers Wandering to these tents of ours I Land of wonders, fair Cathay, Who long hast shunned the staring day, 6 42 RECEPTION OF THE Hid in mists of poets' dreams By thy blue and yellow streams ; Let us thy shadowed form behold; Teach us as thou didst of old. Knowledge dwells with length of days ; Wisdom walks in ancient ways ; Thine the compass that could guide A nation o'er the stoi-my tide Scourged by passions, doubts and fears, Safe through thrice a thousand years ! Looking from thy turrets gray Thou hast seen the world's decay; Egypt drowning in her sands; Athens rent by robbers' hands; Rome, the wild barbarian's prey, Like a storm-cloud swept away : Looking from thy turrets gray Still we see thee. Where are they? And lo ! a new-born nation waits, Sitting at the golden gates That glitter by the sunset sea — Waits with outsj)read arms for thee ! Open wide, ye gates of gold, To the Dragon's banner-fold ! Builders of the mighty wall, Bid your mountain barriers fall ! So may the girdle of the sun Bind the East and West in one. Till Kevada's breezes fan The snowy peaks of Ta-Sieue-Shan — Till Erie blends its waters blue With the waves of Tung-Ting-Hu — Till deep Missouri lends its flow To swell the rushing Hoang-Ho I CHINESE EMBASSY. 43 Dr. Holmes's poem was heartily applauded. At tlic con- clusion the Mayor aunounced, as the sixth regular toast, — " Diiilomacy," and called upon the Honorable Caleb Cusliing, formerly United States Commissioner to China, to respond. ^rr. Pickering, a member of the Committee of Arrangements, said: "I propose nine cheers for the only minister to China who bears a Chinese name, — ' Coo-Shing.'' " The cheers were given with much entluisiasm. HON. CALEB CUSHING's SPEECH. I rise to discharge the duty assigned me on this occasion, with sincere satisfaction, as affording an op- portunity to express my respect for yourself, and the city over whose administration you preside, as well as for your eminent guests. I rejoice to see that they re- ceive peculiar attention here. It especially becomes this State, so many of whose merchant princes have been, and are, the merchant princes of China also, to welcome the ambassadors of China. It is fitting that the representatives of a country where education, science, literature, the cultivation of the spiritual as distinguished from the material man, are held in the highest estimation, should meet with sympathetic ac- claim in the State of Massachusetts. And here, above all, should welcome, acclaim and applause be awarded to an embassy, which, while representing the power and the wisdom of the Ta Tsing Empire in the person of these, the native subjects of the great Yellow Khan, has at its head a statesman who attained distinction in 44 RECEPTION OF THE the fii'st instance as a representative of Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States. To him (Mr. Burlingame), therefore, at the outset, he all honor rendered. I, as the humble pioneer in that new region of diplomacy which he has explored to such great results, can well judge of the magnitude of the events he personifies, and presume to say that no imagination of oriental romance could conceive for its hero a career of usefulness and glory more mar- vellous than that which is exhibited by the Minister of the United States in China becoming its Minister to the Powers of Europe and America. And yet, on reflecting on this incident, it ceases to as- tonish me. I take pleasure in saying here, in the hear- ing of all the members of the Embassy, and especially of the two eminent Ta-jins and their countrymen, what I have never failed to say on other proper occasions, that the Manchu and Chinese statesmen, with whom it was my fortune to come in official contact in China, were men of the highest cultivation and accomplishment, versed in the direction of the largest public aff'airs, possessed of thorough comprehension of political and international questions, and worthy in all respects to be ranked with the most accomplished statesmen and diplomatists of Christendom. Such men were capable of rising to the height of any exigency which the progress of time and events might require the Chinese Empire to adopt. Thus it happened that my embassy to China was rather a brief pleasure trip than a diplomatic labor : For the intelligence and the frankness of Commis- sioner Keying soon removed all difficulties out of my CHINESE EMBASSY. 45 path. And wc sec ample attestation in the commission entrusted to Mr. Burlingame of the high character of the men now at the head of affairs in China. My name, susceptible as it is of adoption in Chinese writing and speech, — to which a gentleman just now kindly alluded, — had its inconveniences as well as conveniences ; for the sound represents that expression which, in China, is applied to personages who, in the ordinary transactions of the missionaries, are called " venerable sages " or " venerable saints." In a word, to those persons in the history of China, of whom Con- fucius is the representative man ; and when made aware of this fact, I was compelled to enter into a most confidential conference with my own conscience as to what name I ought to bear. I did feel somewhat " ven- erable " then, I confess, — much more so than I do now: Eor now I have become disillusioned and disabused of many things ; and there is but little left for me which seems entitled to respect. Hardly more than two things have ceased to be subjects of illusion, — woman's vir- tue and man's honor. The changes of time have left little else upon which the presumptions of the press, of the bar, and of the senate, [turning to Mr. Sumner, amid the laughter of the company] have not placed their profaning hands. And so, also, upon the ques- tion of sanctity. I really did not feel justified in pre- suming to attribute to myself any such qualities ; and, with the aid of skilful friends, I was enabled to discover that it was easy to change the sign from " venerable " to " venerator," and thus I became a very respectable personage, as Coo-Shlng — the venerator of the sages and saints. Beyond that I did not aspire. 46 RECEPTION OF THE My embassy to China was but the humble beginning of what we now behold, — of this great change in the relations of China to Europe and America. We have listened with admiration this evening to the clear and instructive exposition given by Mr. Burlin- game of the treaty which he and the American Secre- tary of State (Mr. Seward) have just completed, and the prompt despatch of which has been equally hon- orable to our Executive and our Senate. Of that initia- tory treaty it is impossible to exaggerate the probable consequences. In order in the least degree to appre- ciate the fact, we must recollect the history and remem- ber the condition of China. The distinguished Senator of Massachusetts on my left (Mr. Sumner), has referred to the fact that Marco Polo, after his return from China, was called " Messer Millioni." I think that title was applied to him in derision. I think his countrymen distrusted his tales of the millions of the population of China, — the millions of its revenue, and the millions of its cultivated scholars ; for we may remember that long after his day, and even so late as the time of the Stuarts, Congreve said, in exhib- iting a personation of mendacity, " Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the fu'st mag- nitude." Why did Pinto become the symbol of mendac- ity ? We know now that every word he uttered was true ; that he was one of those many brilliant voyagers of Spain and Portugal of whom Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbus, as mentioned this evening, were but higher examples ; many of whom left interesting narrations of their voyages, and that Pinto's truthful CHINESE EMBASSY. 47 relations of tlic g-raudcnr of China, of its population, of its wealth, of its advancement in civilization, of its agriculture, of its manufactures, seemed so portentous, so incredible, that no man believed what he uttered, and attributed it all to the invention of a fertile but unscrupulous imagination. I say, we now know it was all true ; and that neither Polo nor Pinto unfolded to us a tithe of the wonders of China. We know that there is in farther Asia an Empire which has subsisted for thousands of years, with an un- changed identity of civilization ; with a people, at a period anterior to all our records of history, sacred or profane, highly cultivated, intellectual, literary, scienti- fic ; with arts of agriculture and manufacture, and with a commerce, such as we now see. We know that as they are now, such they were when our forefathers were but half naked savages in the wilds of Britain or Germany. Their astronomical records carry us far beyond all the science of the Chaldees and the Brahmans. Whether in the arts of immortality, like printing, or those of mortality, like gunpowder, they are our masters. They are the only people of ancient or modern times, with whom moral and intellectual cul- ture outrank all other things, and constitute the sole avenue to civil station and power, and they are a peoj)le without j)arallel in the durability and the vastness of the adaptability of their institutions. What living language can count with the Chinese its thousands of ages of life? What nation but China showed itself in the times of Homer the same as at this day ] Where, save in China, has the world ever seen a homogeneous 48 RECEPTION OF THE people, equal in numbers to the whole of Europe, constituting a single self-sustaining nation '? While the magnificent empire of the Assyrians has passed away like a troubled vision, and left no trace but a few mounds of earth on the banks of the Euphrates or the Tigris ; while, also, the populous and powerful kingdom of Egypt is now manifest only by its massive tombs, temples and pyramids half buried in the sands of the desert ; while Greece and Rome have also all but dis- appeared, and are no longer potential except in the traditions they have transmitted to us ; at an epoch anterior to the rise of all these nations, the Chinese Empire was great, powerful, populous, civilized in every possible conception of the word civilized. There is no definition of civilization, as applied to Athens or to Rome, there is no definition as applied to Mem- phis or to Babylon, which does not apply with equal verity to China long before either Babylon or Mem- phis existed. And possessing a marvellous tenacity of existence, there China stands, sublime in the greatness alike and the unity of her civilization, unchanged by the tempests of five thousand years. Foreign war has in vain assailed her. Domestic insurrection has torn her asun- der, and the wounds have been healed with a recuper- ative vitality which seems to presage an immortality of empire. I say, there China stands, with her four hundred millions of human beings, exhibiting the only spectacle the human race ever did exhibit of such an immense mass of people, holding to the faith of their fathers, holding to their peculiar science, literature and CHINESE EMBASSY. 49 art, holding, also, to their government, — maintaining what no European nation has ever had the statesmanship or art to do, supreme power over a region of earth larger than Europe, and over a population larger than the population of Europe. Contrast that with our own petty states of Christen- dom My friend [Mr. Burlingame] will warrant me in saying, that there are nyfie provinces of the Chinese f^/ Empire, each one of them equalling in population, in wealth, in power, in the results of civilization, in agri- cultui-al commodities, in manufactures, in the mechanic arts, — each one of them, I say, equalling in every one of these incidents of civilization the proudest of the kingdoms of Europe. How is it to-day with Europe? There we see England, France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, each engaged in destroying itself by the vast armies they maintain, exhausting the resources of their people, wasting labor, wasting life, wasting all the means of usefulness which this divine creation of govern- ment rightly used can give to man ; wasting them by their intestine wars or by their perpetual apprehension of wars ; while in China, a larger mass of human beings is ruled by the sceptre of one sovereign, presiding over his millions of subjects in his palace at Peking. I repeat, there is no parallel for it in the history of the human race ; and therefore it is, that this occasion seems to me to possess claims upon our sympathy, upon our respect, upon our confidence, beyond any other cor- responding event in our lives. Who among us here present will ever forget this scene ? Who can fail to remember that one of our own fellow- citizens comes 7 50 RECEPTION OF THE back from that vast Empire, the representative of its power and of its millions of human beings, invested with the sacred, the sublime, the divine mission, to place them in harmonious correspondence, diplomatic, political and commercial, with the nations of Christen- dom ? No longer is China to be a sealed book to the world. No longer is her policy to be that of exclusion and non- intercourse. No longer is she to look with jealousy upon foreign powers. She has weighed and measured these foreign powers. She has statesmen enough of her own to know and to judge. Wildly is he deceived who imagines that these men are ignorant men, and unin- formed of the affairs of the world. I would that our own statesmen presented the same average of intelli- gence and accomplishment that I know is possessed by the statesmen of China. I say, they have weighed the statesmen of Christendom. They now appre- ciate their relation to one another, and their rela- tion to her ; and they feel that isolation has not only ceased to be for her interest, but that isolation does not become her. Is it for her, the inheritor of five thou- sand years of civilization, and with her immense popu- lation and resources, to shrink from contact with these relatively petty states of Christendom 'I By no means. She knows that she has but to advance, as she now does advance, to take her appropriate place in the great E-epublic of States — a place in which she is to exercise prodigious influence over the commercial as well as the intellectual condition of the human race. Her advance is the more noble in that it is peaceful. CHINESE EMBASSY. 51 What if the successor of Genghis Khan, from his throne of Cathay, should again send forth his millions of armed men like a deluge over Asia and Europe 1 I shudder at the thought. We cannot over-estimate, we can scarcely compre- hend, all the beneficent effects of that treaty of which we have heard so interesting an account this evening from Mr. Burlingame. It is the initiation of measures, by a treaty between China and that one of the Christian pDwers in whose relative neutrality, so to speak, she may and does impose implicit confidence, that one of the Christian powers which she feels that she may and can make the agent, the intermediary, as it were, between herself and the other powers of the world, — it is, I say, the initiation of a series of measures which are to place her on a footing of amicable relationship to the other great Powers. We have sounded the key- note ; we have initiated — unchecked by jealousies, unaffected by any minor considerations, with the sole thought how a great and grand thing shall be done greatly and grandly — that series of negotiations which, I venture to say, must and will pass the circuit of the globe as resistless, as triumphant, as the march of the sun in heaven. I conclude, therefore, by expressing, in common with the gentlemen who have preceded me, the thought which I am sure is welling up in every bosom here present, and which stands half expressed upon every lip, — I say, I conclude by expressing my sense of pride, of gratification, of satisfied patriotism, in seeing that to the lot of one of our own fellow-citi- 52 RECEPTION OF THE zens has fallen that most holy and suhlime mission of unsurpassed honor now, and of impcrishahle glory among all the nations, as well of Europe as of Amer- ica. And to us it should be the subject of special grat- ulation that this high duty has devolved not only upon one of our own fellow-citizens, but upon our own beloved country, and that in honoring him we do honor to the United States, The Mayor announced as the seventh regular toast : "The union of the farthest East and the farthest West." He introduced Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson to respond. MR. Emerson's speech. Mr. Mayor : I suppose we are all of one opinion on this remarkable occasion of meeting the Embassy sent from the oldest Empire in the world to the youngest Republic. All share the surprise and pleasure when the venerable oriental dynasty, — hitherto a romantic legend to most of us, — suddenly steps into the fellow- ship of nations. This auspicious event, considered in connection with the late innovations in Japan, marks a new era, and is an irresistible result of the science which has given us the power of steam and the electric tele- graph. It is the more welcome for the surprise. We had said of China, as the old prophet said of Egypt, " Her strength is to sit still." Her people had such elemental conservatism, that by some wonderful force of race and national manners, the wars and revolutions that occur in her annals have proved but momentary swells or surges on the Pacific ocean of her history. CHINESE EMBASSY. 53 leaving no trace. But in its immovability this race has claims. China is old not in time only, but in wisdom, which is gray hair to a nation, — or rather, truly seen, is eternal youth. As we know, China had the magnet centuries before Europe ; and block-printing or stereo- type, and lithography, and gunpowder, and vaccination, and canals ; had anticipated Linneeus's nomenclature of plants ; had codes, journals, clubs, hackney coaches, and, thirty centuries before New York, had the custom of New- Year's calls of comity and reconciliation. I need not mention its useful arts, — its pottery indispen- sable to the world, the luxury of silks, and its tea, the cordial of nations. But I must remember that she has respectable remains of astronomic science, and his- toric records of forgotten time, that have supplied important gaps in the ancient history of the western nations. Then she has philosophers who cannot be spared. Confucius has not yet gathered all his fame. When Socrates heard that the oracle declared that he was the wisest of men, he said, it must mean that other men held that they were wise, but that he knew that he knew nothing. Confucius had already affirmed this of himself: and what we call the Golden Rule of Jesus, Confucius had uttered in the same terms, five hundred years before. His morals, though addressed to a state of society utterly unlike ours, we read with profit to-day. His rare perception appears in his Golden Mean, his doctrine of Reciprocity, his unerring insight, — putting always the blame of our misfortunes on ourselves ; as w^hen to the governor who complained of thieves, he said, " If you, sir, were not covetous, though you should 54 RECEPTION OF THE reward them for it, they -would not steal." His ideal of greatness predicts Marcus Antoninus. At the same time, he abstained from paradox, and met the ingrained prudence of his nation by saying always, " Bend one cubit to straighten eight." China interests us at this moment in a point of poli- tics. I am sure that gentlemen around me bear in mind the bill which Hon. Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, has twice attempted to carry through Congress, requir- ing that candidates for public offices shall first pass examination on their literary qualifications for (he same. Well, China has preceded us, as well as England and France, in this essential correction of a reckless usage ; and the like high esteem of education appears in China in social life, to whose distinctions it is made an indis- pensable passport. It is gratifying to know that the advantages of the new intercourse between the two countries are daily manifest on the Pacific coast. The immigrants from Asia come in crowds. Their power of continuous labor, their versatility in adapting themselves to new condi- tions, their stoical economy, are unlooked-for virtues. They send back to their friends, in China, money, new products of art, new tools, machinery, new foods, etc., and are thus establishing a commerce without limit. I cannot help adding, after what I have heard to-night, that I have read in the journals a statement from an English source, that Sir Frederic Bruce attributed to Mr. Burlingame the merit of the happy reform in the relations of foreign governments to China. I am quite sure that I heard from Mr. Burlingame in New York, CHINESE EMBASSY. 55 in his last visit to America, that the whole merit of it belonged to Sir Frederic Bruce. It appears that the ambassadors were emulous in their magnanimity. It is certainly the best guaranty for the interests of China and of humanity. The Mayor tlicn introduced the Honorable Natlianiel P. Banks, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, of the House of Representatives. SPEECH OF HON. N. T. BANKS. Mr. Mayor : I am sure it is not my fault that I am led to trespass upon the attention of gentlemen at this late hour of the evening. I have learned a little wisdom from a short acquaintance with our Chinese friends. I have learned that there is medicine for sickness, but not for fate ; and that when a man comes to a banquet in Boston he ought to be ready for the destiny that awaits him. It gives me, sir, great pleasure to participate in this most wise and just celebration of the passage of the treaty to which reference has been made, and the advent of the distinguished Embassy from China. After what has been said by other gentlemen, I can do little more than return to you, Mr. Mayor, and your associates, my thanks for the honor conferred upon me by your invita- tion, and to the gentlemen present for the kind recep- tion they have given to the mention of my name by you. I am happy to confirm what has been said by so many gentlemen in regard to the great advantages which the 56 RECEPTION OF THE connection consummated by this treaty is likely to bring to the United States of America. But I go a little further than any yet have gone ; and I claim for -the distinguished head of this Embassy, whom we have known so long and so well, more of the gratitude that is due for the successful initiation and completion of this great movement than has yet been accorded to him. It is my belief, sir, — and I speak from long and inti- mate personal knowledge of him — that it is not only to his sagacity and his experience, but especially by the profound kindness of heart and generosity of nature, that he has won the confidence of the Chinese nation ; and that out of this kindness of heart and this generosity of nature he returns to us with the high commission which he bears, and shows to us in the future the great advantages which the two nations are to win from the consummation of the closer connection which has been initiated. There are one or two points of resemblance between the Chinese nation and the people of the United States which ought not to pass without observation on such an occasion as this. The distinguished gentleman on my right (Mr. Emerson), has alluded, as other gentlemen have done, to the fact, that one is the oldest nation of history and the other the newest republic of the world. But there are other important resemblances. The Chinese nation is a government without force. The United States is a government with no power except the consent of the people who are governed, All other nations differ in this respect. Every government, in every age and in every clime, has sustained, and now CHINESE EMBASSY. 57 sustains, its authority by physical force, while the gov- ernments of China and of the United States alone trust for their authority to the recognition and the con- sent of the people whom they govern. Much has been said of the civilization which that great and ancient nation has attained, and much more might be said, resting upon human authority, to confirm the statement ; but, in my judgment, there is one proof, greater, stronger and clearer than any that has yet been offered, and it exists in this fact — that a nation of four hundred millions, which has maintained itself for five thousand years, and, as has been already said, is likely to perpetuate its power to the end of time, and which governs its people without other force than their con- sent, must have greater qualities than any other nation that has yet existed. There is a lesson for Americans and for Europeans, for civilized nations or for barba- rians. In any government that has this moral power to control these hundreds of millions of citizens for these thousands of years, there must be a degree of wisdom on the part of the people, and a capacity on the part of the rulers, for which human history elsewhere and at other times has made no note or record ; and I welcome the association and connection which they offer us as an opportunity of attaining information in the science of government, which we have not yet been able to derive from any other family or any other example among the nations of the earth. There is a single other resemblance to which I will call your attention, and then relieve you from further trespass upon your time. The Chinese nation asks the 58 RECEPTION OF THE maintenance of the integrity of its empire. The Chi- nese nation asserts by its Ambassadors, if not by its philosophy, the great doctrine of non-intervention, upon the assertion of which the Government of the United States was founded. They come now, as has been said, not merely to ask admission upon the roll of civilized States, but to assert a doctrine grander than any that has yet been proclaimed by men or by nations; a higher than any of American civilization, or than Eu- ropean civilization has ever been able to announce. We claim great merit to ourselves, Mr. Mayor and gentle- men, because, in the establishment of our theories of government, w^e recognized the doctrine of the frater- nity and equality of man. The liberties of all men is the great lesson that we have taught the world, and in our day and our time, it is, perhaps, as much as might have been expected of us. We are only two hundred years old. That is all that we have learned, and that is all that we have taught the nations of the earth. But there is a grander doctrine than this, never yet announced in authoritative form to the nations of the earth, and never yet read upon the pages of human history. The State is the creation of God. The individual man is necessary to a state of po- litical society. The creation of the State is necessary to the progress of man and the civilization of the human race. The State, therefore, is the grander creation of the two, and though man be the immediate creation of Divine Providence, the State is not less the creation of that power, and its eminence and its power are not less necessary to work out the destiny and purposes of Prov- CHINESE EMBASSY. 59 ideiice. The State, sir, hitherto, has been regarded as the work of man. Governments have claimed the right to make and to destroy, and the strongest in the course of human history, has been ready and wilHng, and chiimed the right, to destroy those who Averc not less able to defend themselves. But here come the representatives of this ancient na- tion, that we have been accustomed to class among bar- barian States, with the great doctrine, not merely of the brotherhood of man, but the higher and nobler result of civilization, which is the fraternity of nations ; and if in their mission, whether it springs from necessity or from wisdom, it shall be their destiny to accomplish the recognition of this principle of the fraternity of nations, as the American people have consummated the doctrine of the fraternity of men, there is little more left for man to do in the way of perfecting the human race in mat- ters of government, or of extending the beneficient ad- vantages of human civilization. That they will do this, sir, I can have no doubt whatever. Although in differ- ent parts of the world their theories may be resisted, and the States of Europe may insist, now and hereafter, as heretofore, upon the right of intervention, we must re- member that they resisted also our doctrine which has been consummated, of the equality and fraternity of man ; and so much clearer and stronger is the recognition of the grander doctrine of the fraternity of nations, that the reason and justice of the philosophy alone will carry it onward, as has been said by the distinguished Senator who has preceded me, as triumphant as the march of the sun in heaven. 60 RECEPTION OF THE I read this morning, in one of the city journals, the letter of a Massachusetts man from the southern part of Europe, where, in speaking of many important matters that had fallen under his observation, lie alludes to one which cannot be mentioned without touching the heart of an American, especially of a Massachasetts man, particularly the heart of a citizen of Boston — that the commercial flag of the United States had been swept from the seas of the world. Here, sir, where we re- member that, within our own times, within the time of the youngest among us, the Grays, the Lymans, the Sturgis's, and many others of the merchant princes of Boston, who were the fathers and founders of American commerce — who gave this city its prestige, its prosper- ity, its power, its wealth ; where we saw that infant com- merce, founded by the fathers of our own neighborhood, grow to such a power, equalling, if not surpassing, that of the most successful nations of the earth — we can but grieve, ay, sir, deeply grieve, that any one travelling over any portion of the earth should be compelled to say that the commercial flag of the United States had been swept from the seas and was to be seen no more. But, sir, I see in the mission of my friend, Mr. Burlin- game, and his associate ministers, the recovery of that commercial prestige and power which we have lost. I need not allude to the sad events which have led to this change in the commercial power of the United States. They are too well known, too deeply engraved upon the hearts of all present, to need any reference whatever. It was upon the Atlantic, sir, that we had achieved our power, and where otir commerce had sway, CHINESE EMBASSY. 61 and when the maritime nations of the old world, either out of distrust of our own purposes, or jealous of our power, seized a fitting opportunity for them, and an unfortunate one for us, to sweep the American flag from the seas, it seemed as if it were impossible for us ever to recover our power. I don't know that it is to be expected, or that we shall ever regain our power there. But the Atlantic Ocean is only a tenth part of the surface of the globe, land and water. On the other side of our continent, which we reach in a few days by our railroads, Ave stand in view of the Pacific Ocean, that covers one-third of the surface of the globe, land and water ; that is controlled on the west by six or seven or eight hundred millions of people, with a suflicient number on this side, I think, to keep up our end of the matter in our little portion ; and with the friendly na- tions of Russia, China, Japan, and ultimately, perhaps, of the Indies, we shall reinstate the commercial flag of the United States and raise our power, prestige and prosperity in that line of human enterprise to an ele- vation which the mind of man has never yet been able to conceive. We may, sir, return the compliment which has been paid to us by the European nations. And when our fleets are fixed, and our fiag planted upon the Pa- cific Ocean, sharing in the industry and the commerce of these hundreds of millions of people, we may return the compliment paid to us by our European friends, and, as Grant did in Virginia, as Sherman did at Atlanta, flank the enemy, and take possession of the field. And this, sir, we do with the aid of this Embassy and that of the great, intelligent and just people that it represents. 62 RECEPTION OF THE I remember, sir, reading in that most delicate, beau- tiful, and too short biography of Mr. Sheil, the Irish barrister, an account of his tutor, of the Jesuit profes- sion, who, by the goodness of his nature, and the wis- dom of his intellect, had won the affections of this youth- ful student in the monasteries of Ireland. He says, (and there is significance in the remark he makes,) that his tutor was taken away from him without an instant's pre- paration or notice. This Jesuit was ordered to Siberia, with instructions to work his way into China by any means in his power, for the purpose of giving to the governments he represented the benefit of his discover- ies in that far-distant and little known land. This shows what effort, what care, what pains have been taken by the European nations to make themselves ac- quainted with the Chinese people. We, sir, have been careless of thes^ things ; and that Providence which has taken care of us in so many great trials has opened the way to us for a greater advantage than the European nations have ever yet acquired. These men, the Chi- nese — the representatives of four hundred millions of people — come to us and offer to us their interest, their in- dustry and the profits of their commerce. They ask nothing from us but the kindness and friendship which we are ready to show to every nation. And I trust, sir, that the American people and the American Govern- ment will not be unwilling to do whatever is necessary to sustain the proffer of friendship which they have made ; that we shall be willing to say to the Chinese, that, so far as moral influence goes, the integrity of their nation shall be maintained, as we say to ourselves that CHINESE EMBASSY. 63 the integrity of our nation shall be maintained. Whether it be against domestic or foreign foes, we will maintain our power till this continent shall be all American and our flag known, as heretofore, upon every sea. Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens, not to trespass upon your attention any farther, I will close with a sentiment, which I could wish to have embodied in my speech, a sentiment that reflects my OAvn feelings, I trust may also reflect your own judgment. The Ministers and Associate Officers of the Chinese Embassy of 1868. The representatives of the political society of widely difl"erent periods of history, and politi- cal powers of opposite parts of the globe ; the agents of a civilization whose mission it is to prevent the isola- tion and intervention of States, and establish the frater- nity of nations. May God give them health, strength and wisdom, and success commensurate with the mag- nitude and justice of the great cause they represent ! The eighth regular toast, — " The Commercial Eelations between China and the United States," was responded to by Charles G. Nazro, Esq., President of the Boston Board of Trade. SPEECH OF CHARLES G. NAZRO, ESQUIRE. Mr. Mayor: The topic upon which you have called me to speak, is one which not only commends itself to every merchant and every business man, but also finds a response in the heart of every citizen of our land. We have arrived, sir, at a new epoch in the aff"airs of the 64 RECEPTION OF THE world. Old prejudices are being overcome, and en- lightened minds are beginning to have control, where heretofore, darkness has prevailed. The discoveries, through modern science, of the forces of nature, have rendered achievements practicable at the present day, which, in times past, have been considered utterly im- possible. The power of steam and of electricity ; the improvement in machinery, and the increased facilities and speed of transportation and of locomotion, have brought the distant countries of the world in close prox- imity ; and nations which before were separated by an impassable wall of partition, are now brought together as friends and neighbors. And this is only the first act in the great drama, and we, who are upon the stage at the present time, are only a small portion of the actors who are to take a part in it. Sir, there is more in this than appears upon the sur- face ; there is a depth of meaning which it is well for us to ponder and understand. Who, sir, is competent to foretell the future ] Who has imagination sufficiently vivid to depict the effect of these new movements upon the human race even for the next fifty years ] Already do we see the great Empire of China, abounding as she does in wealth, and containing one-third of the popula- tion of the globe, emerging from that state of isolation in which she has been kept, and reciprocating with us, and the other nations of the western world, overtures of kind and friendly relations ; — and to-night we have as guests her honored representatives ; and soon will all the nations of the earth be bound in the indissoluble ties of friendship, 'Christian sympathy and love. CHINESE EMBASSY. 65 What then, sir, are the lessons we are to draw from these events ? First, and naturally as a commercial nation, we see enlargement of our commerce ; more ex- tended commercial relations with those distant empires ; greater profit in trade and large pecuniary gain. And I think, sir, at the present moment we can hardly esti- mate the great importance of this aspect of the subject. But while all the world will be benefited, it appears to me that our own country will derive peculiar advan- tage. If we are true to ourselves, we shall take our place in the front rank of nations. From our geograph- ical position, our Continent forms, as it were, a direct highway between the nations of the east and those of the west. We have youth, energy, natural advantages, a virgin soil, mineral wealth, inland seas and rivers for transportation, and every thing that goes to make up a great country. But we must be true to ourselves. The flag which we so much venerate and beneath whose folds we feel so entirely secure from the assaults of foes from abroad or traitors at home, must float without a spot or blemish. Its azure field must be as pure as the ethereal heavens, of which it is the emblem ; its stars must be as bright as the celestial luminaries which they repre- sent, and not a foul spot be allowed upon our escutcheon. If our government in time of peril pledges its word in good faith for the payment of money, that pledge must - be redeemed when the danger is passed — not in the letter only, but in the spirit. Better, sir, pay the na- tional debt twice over, than by any mean subterfuge seek to filch a single dollar from any one who has trusted to the national honor ; nor let us sanction in our govern- 66 RECEPTION OF THE ment acts, which, if performed by individuals, would expose them to the contempt of all honorable men. If, then, we thus perform our duty to ourselves and to the world, we may expect great advantages from these commercial alliances. But, Mr. Mayor, important as is this view of the subject — and we can hardly over- estimate it — there is a higher and nobler plane from which to view it. We learn by it, that an unseen hand is moulding and guiding our destiny — and that we are merely instruments in working out the great problem in the divine government. We see that the nations of the earth, drawn and directed by that Providence, are seeking a closer and more friendly alliance with each other, and that soon the sword will cease to be the arbiter through which the national questions will be determined, but that mutual forbearance and Christian courtesy will take its place ; we see in it civilization with all its ennobling and elevating influences spreading further and wider ; and we see that, following in the track of our commerce, the Christian religion will flow in copious streams ; and that while we send our ships to those shores laden with the rich products of our land, they will also be freighted with the glorious gospel of our blessed Redeemer ; and notwithstanding unchristian and wdcked acts may have been done to the people of those countries (although, so far as my knowledge extends, our own country has not been guilty in this particular), we may thus atone for the wrong, and be instrumental in guiding them into the way of eternal life. Then, Mr. Mayor, if these views be correct, and if CHINESE EMBASSY. 67" these results are to follow the present movement, should we not thank God for it, not only as merchants, but as philanthropists and Christians, and do all in our power to promote it? I think, it is a matter of no small significance that the present representative of the great Empire of China is not a foreigner, who does not understand our institutions, but one of our own esteemed fellow-citizens ; and that while we receive him most cordially in his official capacity, we also receive him as a friend and neighbor, and bid him a warm welcome to his home ; and although the gentlemen associated with him in the Embassy cannot be expected so fully to appreciate us as one of our own citizens, yet their intelligence will compensate the want of experience ; and we trust, that when they return to their home, they will bear with them kind remembrances of us, and we wish them God speed in their important mission. Mr. Mayor, permit me, in closing, to ofi'er as a sentiment : "TAe friendly intercourse of nations: The aid to in- dustry, the promoter of civilization, and the handmaid of religion." The Mayor then introduced Mr. Edwin P. Whipple to respond to the ninth regular toast, — "The Press." MR. Whipple's speech. One cannot attempt, Mr. Mayor, to respond here for the press, without being reminded that the press and 68 RECEPTION OF THE the Chinese Embassy have been on singularly good terms from the start. To record the progress, applaud the object, extend the influence, and cordially eulogize the members of that Embassy, have been for months no inconsiderable part of the business of all newspapers ; and if China anticipated us, by some five hu.ndred years, in the invention of printing, our Chinese guests will still admit that, in the minute account we have given both of what they have, and of what they have not, said and done, since they arrived in the coun- try, we have carried the invention to a perfection of which they never dreamed, — having not only invented printing, but invented a great deal of what we print. But, apart from the rich material they have furnished the press in the way of news, there is something strangely alluring and inspiring to the editorial imagi- nation in the comprehensive purpose which has prompt- ed their mission to the civilized nations of the West. That purpose is doubly peaceful, for it includes a two- fold commerce of material products and of immaterial ideas. Probably the vastest conception which ever en- tered into the mind of a conqueror \v^as that which was profoundly meditated, and, in its initial steps, practi- cally carried out, by Alexander the Great. He was engaged in a clearly-defined project of assimilating the populations of Europe and Asia, when, at the early age of thirty-three, he was killed — I tremble to state it here — - by a too eager indulgence in an altogether too muni- ficent public dinner ! Alexander s weapon was force, but it was at least the force of genius, and it was ex- erted in the service of a magnificent idea. His sue- CHINESE EMBASSY. 69 cessors in modern times have but too often availed themselves of force divested of all ideas, except the idea of bullying or outwitting the Asiatics in a trade. As to China, this conduct roused an insurrection of Chinese conceit against European conceit. The Chi- nese were guilty of the offence of calling the represent- atives of the proudest and most supercilious of all civil- izations, " outside barbarians " ; illustrating in this that too common conservative w^eakness of human nature, of holding fixedly to an opinion long after the facts which justified it have changed or passed away. It certainly cannot be questioned that at a period which, when compared with the long date of Chinese annals, may be called recent, we were outside barbarians as con- trasted wdth that highly civilized and ingenious people. At the time when our European ancestors were squalid, swinish, w^olfish savages, digging with their hands into the earth for roots to allay the pangs of hunger, with- out arts, letters, or written speech, China rejoiced in an old, refined, complicated civilization ; was rich, popu- lous, enlightened, cultivated, humane ; was fertile in savans, poets, moralists, metaphysicians, saints ; had in- vented printing, gunpowder, the mariner's compass, the sage's rule of life ; had, in one of her three State re- ligions — that of Confucius — presented a code of morals wiiich, being as immortal as the human conscience, can never become obsolete ; and had, in another of her State religions — that of Buddha — solemnly professed her allegiance to that doctrine of the equality of men, which Buddha taught twenty-four hundred years before our Jefferson was born, and had at the same time vig- 70 RECEPTION OF THE ■i orously grappled with that problem of existence which our Emerson finds as insolvable now as it was then. Well, sir, after all this had relatively changed, after the Western nations had made their marvellous ad- vances in civilization, they were too apt to exhibit to China only their barbaric side — that is, their ravenous cupidity backed by their insolent strength. We judge for example, of England by the poetry of Shakespeare, tiie science of Newton, the ethics of Butler, the religion of Taylor, the philanthropy of Wilberforce ; but what poetry, science, ethics, religion or philanthropy was she accustomed to show in her intercourse with China] Did not John Bull, in his rough methods with the Ce- lestial Empire, sometimes literally act " like a bull in a China shop '? " You remember, sir, that " intelligent contraband " who, when asked his opinion of an offending white brother, delicately hinted his distrust by replying : " Sar, if I was a chicken, and that man was about, I should take care to roost high." Well, all that we can say of China is, that for a long time she " roosted high " — withdrew suspiciously into her own civilization to escape the rough contact with the harsh- er side of ours. But, by a sudden inspiration of almost miraculous confidence, springing from a faith in the nobler qualities of our Caucasian civilization, she has changed her pol- icy. She has learned that in the language, and on the lips, and in the hearts of most members of the English race, there is such a word as equity, and at the magic of that word she has eagerly emerged from her isolation. And, sir, what we see here to-day reminds me that, some CHINESE EMBASSY. 71 thirty years ago, Boston confined one of her citizens in a lunatic asylum, for the offence of being possessed by a too intensified Boston " notion." He had discovered a new and expeditious way of getting to China. " All agree," he said, " that the earth revolves daily on its own axis. If you desire," he therefore contended, "to go to China, all you have to do is to go up in a balloon, wait till China comes round, then let off the gas, and drop softly down." Now I will put it to you, Mr. Mayor, if you are not bound to release that philosopher from con- finement, for has not his conception been realized 1 — has not China, to-day, unmistakably come round to us ? And now, sir, a word as to the distinguished gen- tleman at the head of the Embassy — a gentleman spe- cially dear to the press. Judging from the eagerness with which the position is sought, I am led to believe that the loftiest compliment which can be paid to a hu- man being is, that he has once represented Boston in the national House of Representatives. After such a distinction as that, all other distinctions, however great, must still show a sensible decline from political grace. But I trust that you will all admit, that next to the hon- or of representing Boston in the House of Representa- tives comes the honor of representing the vast Empire of China in " The Parliament of man, the Federation of the World." Having enjoyed both distinctions, Mr. Burlingame may be better qualified than we are to dis- criminate between the exultant feelings which each is caculated to excite in the human breast. But we must remember that the population, all brought up on a system of universal education, of the empire he repre- 72 RECEPTION OF THE sents, is greater than the combined population of all the nations to which he is accredited. Most Bostonians have, or think they have, a " mission " ; but certainly no other Bostonian ever had such a " mission " as he ; for it extends all round the planet ; makes him the most universal Am- bassador and Minister Plenipotentiary the world ever saw; is, in fact, a " mission " from everybody to every- body, and one by which it is proposed that everybody shall be benefited. To doubt its success would be to doubt the moral soundness of Christian civilization. It implies that Christian doctrines will find no opponents provided that Christian nations set a decent example of Christianity. Its virtue heralds the peaceful triumph of reason over prejudice, of justice over force, of humanity over the hatreds of class and race, of the good of all over the selfish blindness of each, of the " fraternity of the great Commonwealth of Nations over the insolent " liberty " of any one of them to despise, oppress, and rob the rest. Letters were received from a uumber of distinguished gentle- men whose engagements prevented their attendance at the ban- quet. Among others, from the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, late Minister to the Court of St. James ; the Hon. J. Lothrop Motley, late Minister to the Court of Vienna; Prof. Louis Agassiz, the Hon. Hugh McCulloch, the Hon. Wm. M. Evarts, Bishop Eastburn, Bishop Williams, the Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., the Hon. Henry Wilson, and the Hon. Wm. Claflin. OTHER ENTERTAINMENTS. I OTHER ENTERTAINMENTS. On Saturday, the twenty-second of August, the City Council entertained the Embassy with an excursion in Boston Harbor, in the United States Revenue Cutter •' McCuUoch." At Fort Warren the guests were received with a salute, and were con- ducted through the Fortress by Major A. A. Gibson, 3d U. S. Artillery, commanding the post. The company afterwards vis- ited Deer Island, and inspected the City Institutions. After partaking of a collation at that place they returned to the city. On Monday following, Mr. Burlingame and his associates were formally received and entertained by the Municipal au- thorities of Cambridge. On Tuesday, the Embassy visited Lawrence, with the Boston Committee of Arrangements, for the purpose of inspecting the great manufacturing establishments in that city. A special train was furnished by the President of the Boston & Maine Rail- road Corporation, which started at ten o'clock, A. M, The guests were shown through the Watjliington Woollen Mills and the Pacific Cotton Mills. After partaking of a collation at the Pacific Mills they returned to Boston. On Wednesday, the Embassy were formally received by His Excellency the Governor, at the State House. The Indepen- dent Corps of Cadets, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel John Jefiries, Jr., were drawn up in front of the building, and saluted the distinguished visitors as they entered. The Sergeaut-at-Aruis escorted them to the Council Chamber, 76 RECEPTION OF THE where tlie Governor welcomed the Embassy in the following words ; Your Excellencies : I welcome you to Massachusetts. The objects of the mission which brings you hither find a ready response in this Commonwealth, whose com- mercial relations with the country you represent have been constant and friendly. Gushing, Parker and Bur- lingame went from our schools to their high and peace- ful work in China. I am glad that, coming from one of the ancient em- pires of the East, you are tarrying among us long enough to observe something of the spirit and mode of the civilization of the West. The traditions and cus- toms of the old world can take no harm from contact with the active and aggressive life of the new. Your nationality and ours ought to become assimilated in fraternal feeling for the part they may bear in the future of history. Your chief, Mr. Burlingame, is no stranger in this capital where his public life and distinction began. I offer to him a special and personal greeting among the friends of former days, of which the memory is still fresh and pleasant to us all. Mr. Burlingame responded as follows : Your Excellency : Permit me to thank you for this warm welcome, to thank you for the beautiful language in which it is expressed, to thank you for the high thoughts in which it is conveyed. This good- will we take to be the decision of the highest civilization in the CHINESE EMBASSY. '77 world ill behalf of the mission on which we arc here. Massachusetts was the first to send out messengers of peace, and to establish relations with China. May the spirit in which she first established those relations con- tinue to the end ! And I invoke the aid of all here to unite in the eff'ort we are making to realize the unification of all the people. Thanking you, feeling deeply touched by your personal allusions, I will bring my remarks to a close, trusting that you may have all prosperity, and that the Commonwealth over which you preside may be prosperous also. Mr. Burlingamc then advanced, and taking the Governor's hand, said : I now grasp your hand in friendship, and I trust that to you and to the people who are here, this grasp of friendship will be continued to all ages. The Embassy remained in Boston nntil the 2d of September, and were entertained in an informal way by the Committee of Arrangements, and by private individuals. They visited the City Hall, the Institute of Technology, the Public Library, the City Hospital, Bunker Hill Monument and the Waltham Watch Factory. Thqy were also entertained by the Municipality of Chelsea. On Wednesday morning, at half past eight o'clock, they left Boston for New York, in a special car attached to the regular train on the Boston and Albany Railroad.