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 under the most trying circumstances, wrote: "He is the most learned man in his varied information I have ever met. . . . He is the most habitually religious man I have ever seen." The American missionaries, by whom his life was best known, well said of him: "It is not often that the providence of God allots to any one man so long and so distinguished a term of service."

The special feature of the Burlingame treaty of 1868 with the United States was in its emigration stipulations. Although the ancient penal code of China visited expatriation of its subjects with severe penalties upon the resident relatives of offenders, and emigration was prohibited by law and was discouraged by the government, yet the overflowing Chinese population in and adjacent to the seaports having intercourse with foreigners had not been deterred from seeking to better their lot in foreign lands. For centuries the Chinese had resorted to the Philippine Islands, and even bitter persecution and slaughter had not prevented many thousands of them from maintaining their residence there. They had likewise gone in large numbers to Annam, Siam, Java, the Malay Peninsula, and the British Straits Settlements, where their industrious and abstemious habits had enabled them to supplant largely the less energetic inhabitants.

About the time of the acquisition of California by the United States and the discovery of gold there, a fresh incentive was given to Chinese emigration, and it assumed a new aspect. A large demand for labor arose in Peru, where efforts were being made to restore to cultivation the lands which had lain idle since the