Early Relations between the United States and China. 99 



interpreter to the Perry expedition, and some foreign books were 

 translated into Japanese and printed. '^^ 



The year intervening" between this expedition and the outbreak 

 of the opium troubles was one of quiet growth. The Ophthalmic 

 Hospital continued its work with increasing success. '^'^ Bridg- 

 man had seen the completion of the revision of the Scriptures 

 in 1836''' and was working on various pieces of translation and 

 composition, among them a Chinese history of the United States, 

 a Chrestomathy and Tonic Dictionary, and the ever-present 

 Chinese Repository. **** Preaching services were conducted for 

 foreigners, distribution of books and tracts went on among 

 the Chinese, and small schools for boys were still continuing.'^^ 

 Abeel was back for part of the time, and in 1839 Mr. and Mrs. 

 S. R. Brown came out as reenforcements. 



Closely connected with the work of the missionaries sent from 

 the United States and Great Britain were a number of societies 

 organized in China by the foreign residents. Under the stimulus 

 of the compact community life and of the missionaries and a 

 few earnestly religious merchants the decade preceding the 

 opium troubles saw a number of these begun. Although formed 

 and carried on partly by the British and partly by the Ameri- 

 cans, they obtained most of their men from the United States. 

 The first society was the "Christian Union at Canton." It was 

 organized in the latter part of 1830 by Robert and John Morrison, 

 Abeel, King (a nephew of Olyphant), a Moravian surgeon on an 

 East India Company's ship, a young British midshipman, and 

 Bridgman."" As the latter wrote : it "was formed to give more 



*^ Four accounts of this voyage by men who shared in it are by C. W. 

 King, in the first volume of the Claims of Japan and Malaysia upon 

 Christendom, Exhibited in Notes of Voyages made in 1837, 2 v., New 

 York, 1839, by S. Wells Williams in the Chinese Rep., 6 : 209-229, in a 

 letter by him to Anderson in Williams, Life and Letters of S. W. Wil- 

 liams, pp. 94-98, and in Stevens, Life of Parker, p. 141 et sqq. Among 

 the other accounts are brief ones in Callahan, Am. Rel. in the Pacific, 

 p. 74, and Foster, Am. Dip. in Orient, pp. 137-140. 



^^ See reports in Ch. Rep., 4:461-473 and passim. 



^ Williams, Mid. King., 2 : 363-364. 



^ AIissn^^ Herald, 34: 17, 339, 349. 



^^ Ibid.. 35 : 212-214. 



""Corres. of the A. B. C. F. M., China, 1831-7, No. 37, Bridgman to 

 Evarts, Jan. 27, 1831. 



