Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/488

456 Subsequently another American steamer, the &ldquo;Island Queen,&rdquo; was captured by Burley and his party, and after her passengers, including twenty-five U. S. soldiers, had been made prisoners and transferred to the &ldquo;Philo Parsons,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Island Queen&rdquo; was sent adrift. The &ldquo;Philo Parsons&rdquo; was afterward taken to Sandwich, on the Canadian shore, and left there. Burley was arrested, and the evidence produced at the extradition trial at Toronto in his case rendered it manifest that he was acting under the authority of the southern confederacy in the capture of the steamers; that the immediate object was the capture of the U. S. war-vessel &ldquo;Michigan,&rdquo; guarding Johnson's island: and the ultimate object, the taking of Johnson's island and the liberation of the 3,000 Confederate soldiers imprisoned there. That all this was not attempted by Burley and his comrades was probably owing to the fact of his discovery of the hazardous and seemingly impossible character of the undertaking, after he had captured the &ldquo;Philo Parsons&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Island Queen.&rdquo; After some diplomatic correspondence between the British government and that of the United States, Burley was surrendered to the authorities of the latter, under the provisions of the extradition treaty, the plea of &ldquo;belligerent rights&rdquo; in his behalf by Jefferson Davis not being regarded by the court as sufficient to free him from the crime of robbery charged against him in the indictment.

BURLING, Gilbert, painter, b. in 1843 ; d. in 1875. At the beginning of his artistic career he painted almost exclusively in oil-colors ; but his later and best work is in water-colors, which expe- rience proved to be a better medium for his style. He excelled in studies of game-birds, and contrib- uted to the illustrated publications several articles on this subject, accompanied with his own draw- ings. He was one of the founders of the American society of painters in water-colors, and was always represented in their exhibitions. His last, aiid perhaps his best, works were exhibited in the year of his death. They were entitled " Normandy Sketches," " Beach below Easthampton," and " A Canadian Lake."

BURLINGAME, Anson, diplomatist, b. in New Berlin, Chenango co., N. Y., 14 Nov., 1820; d. in St. Petersburg, Russia, 23 Feb., 1870. He was the descendant of a family who were among the early settlers of Rhode Island. His father, a farmer, removed, when Anson was three years old, to a farm in Seneca co., Ohio, where they lived for ten years, and in 1833 again removed to Detroit, and after two years more to a farm at Branch, Mich. In 1837 Anson was admitted to the University of Michigan, and six years later went to Cambridge, Mass., and entered the law-school of Harvard university, where he was graduated in 1846. He began the practice of the law in Boston, and a year or two later became an active member and a

popular orator of the free-soil party, then recently formed. In the political campaign of 1848 he acquired a wide reputation as a public speaker in behalf of the election of Van Buren and Adams. In 1849-'50 he visited Europe. In 1852 he was elected to the Massachusetts senate, and in 1853 he served as a member of the state constitutional convention, to which he was elected by the town of Northborough, though he resided in Cambridge. He joined the American party on its formation in 1854, and in that year was elected by it to the 34th congress. In the following year he co-operated in the formation of the republican party, to which he ever afterward steadily adhered. In congress he bore himself with courage and address, and was recognized as one of the ablest debaters on the anti-slavery side of the house. For the severe terms in which he denounced the assault committed by Preston S. Brooks upon Senator Sumner, in 1856, he was challenged by Brooks. He promptly accepted the challenge, and named rifles as the weapons, and Navy island, just above Niagara Falls, as the place. To the latter proposition Mr. Brooks demurred, alleging that, in order to meet his opponent in Canada, in the then excited state of public feeling, he would have to expose himself to popular violence in passing through &ldquo;the enemy's country,&rdquo; as he called the northern states. The matter fell through, but the manner in which Mr. Burlingame had conducted himself greatly raised him in the estimation of his friends and of his party; and on his return to Boston, at the end of his term, he was received with distinguished honors. He was re-elected to the 35th and 36th congresses; but failing, after an animated and close contest, to be returned to the 37th, his legislative career ended in March, 1861. He was immediately appointed by President Lincoln minister to Austria; but that government declined to receive, in a diplomatic capacity, a man who had spoken often and eloquently in favor of Hungarian independence, and had moved in congress the recognition of Sardinia as a first-class power. He was then sent as minister to China. In 1865 he returned to the United States with the intention of resigning his office; but the secretary of state urged him to resume his functions for the purpose of carrying out important projects and negotiations that he had initiated. To this he finally consented. When, in 1867, he announced his intention of returning home, Prince Kung, regent of the empire, offered to appoint him special envoy to the United States and the great European powers, for the purpose of framing treaties of amity with those nations &mdash; an honor never before conferred on a foreigner. This place Mr. Burlingame accepted, and, at the head of a numerous mission, he arrived in the United States in March, 1868. On 28 July supplementary articles to the treaty of 1858 were signed at Washington, and soon afterward ratified by the Chinese government. These articles, afterward known as &ldquo;The Burlingame Treaty,&rdquo; marked the first official acceptance by China of the principles of international law, and provided, in general, that the privileges enjoyed by western nations under that law &mdash; the right of eminent domain, the right of appointing consuls at the ports of the United States, and the power of the government to grantor withhold commercial privileges and immunities at their own discretion, subject to treaty &mdash; should be secured to China; that nation undertaking to observe the corresponding obligations prescribed by international law toward other peoples. Special provisions also stipulated for entire liberty of