Page:American Diplomacy in the Orient - Foster (1903).djvu/114

 subjects at Canton, have evinced far better diplomacy, and more attention to substantial interests than we have done, although it has not cost them as many groats as we have spent guineas, while their position in China is really more advantageous and respected than that of England, after all our sacrifices of blood and treasure."

But it was not the good fortune of the American envoy to escape criticism entirely. His intercourse with the Chinese plenipotentiary seemed to have been of a very satisfactory character, but when Tsiyeng came to send his report to the emperor he was neither polite nor complimentary in the use of language, as the following extracts from his memorial show: "The original copy of the treaty, presented by the said barbarian envoy, contained forty-seven stipulations. Of these some were difficult of execution, others foolish demands; and the treaty was, moreover, so meanly and coarsely expressed, the words and sentences were so obscure, and there was such a variety of errors, that it was next to impossible to point them out. Your slave Tsiyeng, therefore, directed the treasurer Hwang and all the deputed mandarins to hold interviews with the Americans for days together. We clearly pointed out whatever was comprehensible to reason, in order to dispel their stupid ignorance, and to put a stop to delusive hopes; and we were obliged to polish those passages which were scarcely intelligible. … Some points have been discussed more than a thousand times at least, others five or six times. It was then that the said