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128 they succumbed to Spain ; since which time Macao has fallen into deserved decay, not so much from Chinese opposition, as from its vices and obsolete ecclesiastical institutions.

America cannot complain of her relations with the Cen- of the tral Kingdom, Our earliest trade to her ports was Amencans. [^ ^]-^g f^j-g q£ ^^q sca-ottcr ; opcucd by the discov- eries of Captain Cook, it became at once one of the most lucrative fields of traffic* then known. Owing to the failure of furs in Siberia, this peltry of the Pacific coast, and especially fox-skins, brought such incredible prices in Canton, that in 1792 there were twenty-one vessels, mostly Bostonian, trading on that coast for cargoes, to be exchanged in China for cottons and teas.

The results of the first opium war with England facilitated the Cushing treaty of 1844, at Wanghai; in which full freedom of religious teaching was accorded in return for the just promise of the United States to give no countenance to the opium trade. After the war, in 1857, these provisions were renewed. Mr. Burlingame's appointment, in 1867, to direct an institution for instruction in the arts and sciences of the West, and as Minister Plenipotentiary of China to the Western world, was an event of the highest significance, as the immediate results revealed. Mr. Seward's Treaty of July, 1868, while it secured for China eminent domain over her own land and waters, and consulates in American ports, guaranteed perfect freedom of faith in both countries, the right of emigration, penalties for illegal and treacherous trade in laborers, and permission for the youth of each nation to attend the schools and colleges of the other ; at the same time leaving naturalization laws an open question, and proposing aid in constructing railroads and telegraphic

Montfort's Voyage en Chine, p. 60.

Irving's Astoria, I. 32; Silliman's Journal^ 1834.