tional services, granted to his legal representatives a belated requital.
Roberts was empowered to negotiate a treaty with Cochin-China, but in this task he made no progress. In all the vast Chinese Empire only one port—that of Canton—was accessible to foreign merchants. The first permanent breach in the wall of seclusion was made by the treaty between Great Britain and China, signed at Nanking, August 29, 1842, at the close of the opium war. By this treaty the ports of Canton, Amoy, Foo-chow, Ning-po, and Shanghai were opened to British subjects and their commerce, and the island of Hongkong was ceded to Great Britain as an entrepôt. A supplementary treaty of commerce and navigation was concluded in the following year. The United States soon appeared in the breach. By the act of Congress of March 3, 1843, the sum of forty thousand dollars was placed at the disposal of the President to enable him to establish commercial relations with China on terms of "national equal reciprocity."
On the 8th of May, Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, was appointed to the mission, with the title of minister plenipotentiary and commissioner. The choice was fortunate. No public character in America has possessed a mind more versatile or talents more varied than Cushing. When he set out for China, a squadron of three vessels was placed at his disposal. On February 27, 1844, writing from the nag-ship Brandy wine, in Macao Roads, he announced to the governor-general of the two Kwang provinces his arrival with full powers to make a treaty. He encountered the usual evasions; but, after an exchange of correspondence, he learned early in May that Tsiyeng, the negotiator of the treaties with Great Britain, had been appointed as Imperial commissioner to treat with him. A treaty was signed July 3, 1844. The point of diplomatic representation at Peking was yielded with the express understanding that in case it should be conceded to other Western powers the envoy of the United States should likewise be received. All the commercial privileges obtained by Great Britain for her subjects were, with some variations, extended to citizens of the United States; and American citizens were exempted from Chinese jurisdiction.
A new treaty was made in 1858; and ten years later a special Chinese embassy, headed by Anson Burlingame, signed at Washington the treaty that is known by his name. In entering the service of China, after a notable career of six years as American minister at Peking, Burlingame declared that he was governed by the interests of his country and of civilization; and his course was approved by his government. The rule that the United States will not receive as a diplomatic representative of a foreign power one of its own citizens was in his case gladly waived. As American minister at Peking he sought "to substitute fair diplomatic action in China for force," a policy which Mr. Seward "approved with much commendation." Through the vicissitudes of the years that have since elapsed the United States has, in its commercial dealings with China, uniformly adhered to that principle. In his celebrated circular of July 3, 1900, during the military advance of the powers for the relief of their beleaguered legations in Peking, Mr. Hay declared it to be the policy of the United States "to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve China's territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaties and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire."
This sums up what have been conceived to be the cardinal principles of American policy in the Far East. In the acquisition of the Philippines, the United States declared its purpose to maintain in those islands "an open door to the world's commerce." The phrase "open door" is but a condensed expression of "the principle of equal and impartial trade" for all nations. Its meaning was well illustrated by the stipulation in the treaty of peace with Spain that the United States would, for the term of ten years, "admit Spanish ships and merchandise to the ports of the Philippine Islands on the same terms as ships and merchandise of the United States."
