Early Relations between the United States and China. 129 



tion, and felt that war with China must if possible be avoided, 

 especially since the past friendliness of Americans, or as the 

 proud Chinese would have put it, their obedience, had created 

 such a favorable impression. On the other hand, when the 

 administration came to understand the situation, it became con- 

 vinced that when England should have finished the war America 

 must do what she could to obtain by peaceful means a just 

 share of its results. In December, 1840, John Quincy Adams 

 proposed resolutions in Congress asking the President to com- 

 municate information about the past and present relations of the 

 United States and China, but the motion to adopt them was lost."^ 

 The following month Peter Parker came to Washington and saw 

 President Van Buren and Secretary of State Forsyth, but admin- 

 istrations were just changing, and he was referred to Webster, 

 the incoming Secretary of State, and to others of the new regime. 

 W^ebster received him courteously and asked him to put his views 

 in writing. Parker did so, urging the sending of a "minister 

 plenipotentiary direct and without delay to the court of Taou 

 Kwang."^^- In March, after the new administration had come 

 in, Parker saw Adams and asked him whether he would under- 

 take the mission if it were instituted. Hawes and Cushing of the 

 Committee of Foreign Affairs had asked Adams the same ques- 

 tion, but he had given an evasive answer. He records in his 

 faithful diary that he thought the time for such an action had 

 not yet arrived, and that considering the then existing relations 

 between the United States and Great Britain, Parker's suggestion 

 that the former offer her mediation was impracticable. ^^^ In 

 September Parker saw the President and Webster and found 

 that Tyler had as yet taken no action because he had .been in 



"^ Cong. Globe, 26 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 24, Dec. 15 and 16, 1840. 



"" Stevens, Life of Parker, pp. 184-188. He urged it on the grounds 

 that the war had unsettled American affairs, that an American minister 

 might act as a mediator between the Chinese and the English, that there 

 was a strong desire in China for foreign trade, that the Chinese merely 

 wished for a pacification by which they would not "lose face," that 

 if not soon attended to they might close up like Japan, and that the 

 American nation was more acceptable to the Chinese than any other. 



"HIemoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary 

 from 1795-1848, edited by Charles Francis Adams. Philadelphia, 1876. 

 10:444-445. Mar. 15, 1841. 

 Trans. Conn. Acad., Vol. XXH 9 1917 



