Early Relations hctzvccn tlic United States and China. 87 



first plan of the /American Board was to work in conjunction 

 with the London Missionary Society, and in 181 1 Adoniram 

 Judson was sent to England to see if the latter organization 

 would give financial support, to arrange the relations between 

 the societies, and to obtain information about prospective fields 

 and missionary preparation and administration. The English 

 Society was cordial, but felt that mutual independence was pref- 

 erable, and the Americans later came to the same conclusion.'' 

 The American Board's first missionaries. Rice, Nott, Hall, Jud- 

 son, and Newell, were drawn closely to their English brethren 

 in India, and its first large stations were there. The American 

 Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, formed in 1814, and the 

 Episcopal and the Methodist societies, formed in 1820, were 

 influenced by the example of the earlier organization, and if not 

 daughters were at least granddaughters of the English societies.^" 

 In view of this early relationship between English and Ameri- 

 can missionary enterprises it was but natural that the first 

 American missionary efforts among the Chinese should be largely 

 a result of British influence, and only incidentally of American 

 commercial relations. The first Protestant worker resident in 

 China, Robert Morrison, was a representative of the London 

 Missionary Society. He arrived in Canton in September, 1807.^^ 

 In 1812 he was joined by Rev. William Milne of the same society, 

 who later settled at Malacca and was instrumental in founding 



^ Original letters and a nearly contemporary account are in the Panoplist 

 and Alissny. Mag., N. S., 4:178-185. 



'" It must not be thought, however, that British example was the only 

 cause of American missions. It was the immediate one, but it found a 

 ground ready for its seed. Much the same forces acted as in England. 

 Americans had ceased to turn their eyes inward and had begun to have 

 a world view. Trade had an indirect effect by bringing a knowledge of 

 the peoples of distant lands, and the quickened religious life produced by 

 the Wesleyan and kindred movements of the eighteenth century had 

 prepared the churches for action. 



^' Alemoir of Morrison, i : 91 et sqq. Samuel Wells Williams, The 

 Aliddle Kingdom, New York, 1904, 2:316-322. See too Carl Friedrich 

 August Giitzlaff, Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches, von den jiltesten 

 Zeiten bis auf den Frieden von Nanking, Karl^ Friedrich Newmann. 

 editor, p. 785. 



