Early Relations between the United States and China. 83 



Chinese restrictions were somewhat relaxed, and the greater 

 leisure of out-of-season months gave more time for recreation. 

 The little peninsula was a bit of the \\'est, a Portuguese colony, 

 and during the winter months it would have been difficult to 

 discover a gayer society anywhere short of Europe. ^"^ 



On the part of the United States Government the years fol- 

 lowing the War of 1812 were ones of gradually increasing inter- 

 est in China. We have seen that it was one of the factors of the 

 Oregon agitation in Congress. In addition to this, in March, 

 1822, the House committee on commerce took occasion in its 

 report to notice the importance of the American trade in China : 

 "It is inferior to that of no nation. Great Britain excepted. "^'^'^ 

 In November, 1819, the frigate "Congress," the first of the 

 United States navy to visit the port, anchored off Lintin. She 

 was tolerated by the Chinese as a convoy to merchant ships, but 

 was ordered "not to linger about on the coast" after the mer- 

 chantmen had sailed.^''' She stayed on, however, with two 

 absences of some months, until early in 1821. The Chinese 

 after some protest allowed her to take on supplies.^"' In 1830 

 the "Vincennes," the first American ship to circumnavigate the 

 globe, called at Macao. Early in 1832 the frigate "Potomac" 

 visited Canton after having punished the natives at Quallah 

 Battoo in Sumatra for the plunder of the ship "Friendship" of 

 Salem the year before. The consul was ordered to "compel 

 her to set sail and to return to her own country."^*** In 1832 the 

 expedition of Edmund Roberts, composed of the ship "Peacock" 



"' Occasional references to this society occur in various narratives, and 

 the journal of a Salem girl who spent four years there (1823-1833) gives 

 us an intimate picture of this gay Occidental life in its Oriental setting: 

 My Mother's Journal, A Young Lady's Diary of Five Years Spent in 

 Manila, Macao, and the Cape of Good Hope, from 1829- 1834, Katherine 

 Hillard, editor, Boston, 1900. See also on Macao, Letters and Recollec- 

 tions of J. M. Forbes, i : 82, and for a description of the place, Missionarj' 

 Herald (article by S. W. Williams), 35:52-55, Milburn, Oriental Com- 

 merce, p. 451, Shaw's Journals, pp. 236-241, La Perouse, Voyages, 

 2 : 280-285. 



^*^ Am. State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, 2 : 6^7. 



^" Niles, Register, 19:74. Paullin, Diplomatic Negotiations of American 

 Naval Officers, pp. 168-181. 



"* Reynolds, Voyage of the Potomac, pp. 343-344, Ch. Rep., 11:9, 10. 



