ii6 Kenneth S. Latourctte, 



completed the Chrestomathy.^^ Mrs. Shuck opened a charity 

 school in Macao which proved very popular^^ and which even 

 attracted the favorable comment of a critical observer.*'' When 

 actual hostilities began, however, work in Canton stopped. 



During the two years of war American commerce and mis- 

 sions w^ere so interrupted as to be of little relative importance. 

 In only two incidents, the attack on the boat of the "Morrison" 

 and the visit of Commodore Kearney, is attention drawn to the 

 Americans. The first of these took place May 22d, 1841. The 

 English had retaken the factories in March, a truce hatl been 

 agreed upon, and trade had been reopened. But soon afterward 

 the arrival of a new governor and the "rebel-quelling general" 

 Yih Shan*^ seemed to presage trouble, and on May 21st Captain 

 Elliot, the British superintendent, advised the foreigners to leave 

 the city. Practically all did so at once, but a small party of 

 American merchants, among them Mr. Cooledge, relying on an 

 edict of the acting prefect of Canton which assured all neutral 

 foreign merchants of safety, stayed over night.*- The next 

 morning, in attempting to get away, Cooledge was captured and 

 taken before the magistrate. He found there the crew of a 

 boat of the ship "Morrison," which, although it had had a chop 

 or pass, had been fired on by the Chinese. One of the party, the 

 boy Sherry, had been killed, some of the others had been wounded, 

 and all were made prisoners. The entire party was kept in 

 confinement for about two days, when the hong merchants 

 released them and took them to the factories, where they left 

 them to be rescued by the English.*'^ In the spring of 1842, 

 Commodore Kearney, of the U. S. East India squadron, arrived 

 in China, and at once brought the matter to the attention of the 

 native officials. He refused to treat through the hong merchants, 

 as former American officers had been compelled to do, but sent 

 his demands for indemnity directly to the provincial government. 

 Quite a correspondence followed, in which the governor explained 



^ Ibid., and Missny. Herald, 36:81, letter from mission, July 14, 1839. 

 '" Corres. of A. B. M. U., letter of Mrs. Shuck to J. Peck, Mar. 1.4, 1839. 

 ^^ Henshaw, Around the World, 2:231. 

 ■" Williams, Hist, of China, p. 169. 

 *^ Ch. Rep., 10:293-295, May, 1841. 



*^ Letter of Cooledge and Account of Morss, Ch. Rep., 10:416-420, 

 July. 1 841. 



