Early Relations hetzveen the United States and China. 131 



Foreign Affairs, and by them to Adams. ^^® The report of the 

 committee was read January 24th, 1843, and recommended an 

 appropriation of forty thousand dollars with which to open up 

 diplomatic intercourse with China. It did not specify the exact 

 way in which the sum should be used, except that it should be 

 accounted for by the President in the manner prescribed by the 

 Act of July 1st, 1790/^^ The amount proposed was a large one. 

 It had been fixed at Webster's suggestion, his opinion being that 

 it should be large enough to provide a salary equal to that of a 

 minister to a European country. ^-"^ There was much opposition 

 to the size of the appropriation.^-^ It passed the House, however, 

 February 21st, by a vote of 96 to 59 with a slight amendment 

 suggested by Webster through Adams. ^-- The bill was reported 

 favorably in the Senate without amendment, but some of the oppo- 

 nents of the administration thought that they saw in it a deep laid 

 plot to give too much power to the President. Benton especially 

 was virulent in his opposition. To his mind it withdrew the 

 accounting of money from the Secretary of the Treasury, appro- 

 priated it for an unnecessary mission, and gave the President a 

 chance to appoint some of his henchmen to a pleasant trip to the 

 Orient without the consent of the Senate. Finally on March 3d, 

 the last day of the session, the bill passed the upper house with 

 amendments providing that no agent should be appointed under it 

 without the consent of the Senate, and that no one person 

 employed under it should be given more than $9,000 exclusive of 



"*NiIes Register, 63:378, Feb. 11, 1863, gives the report. The Act of 

 July I, 1790, is in Statutes at Large, i : 128. 



"'Adams, Diary, 11:290. 



'=* Webster to J. Q. Adams, Jan. 9, 1843, C. H. Van Tyne [editor], 

 The Letters of Daniel Webster, from documents owned principally by 

 the New Hampshire Historical Society, New York, 1902, p. 285. Curiously 

 Adams' diary seems ■ to be in error here. An entry on the same day 

 (Jan. 9), p. 290, says that he called on Webster to find the amount that 

 the latter had wished, and that Webster told him that he thought $4,000 

 enough for the mission, and a consul salaried at $3,000. The error may 

 be a tj-pographical one, or due to forgetfulness on Adams' part. 



^-^ Cong. Globe, 27 Cong., 3 Sess., pp. 323-325. 



^" Adams, Diary, 11:305, Jan. 31, 1843. Other amendments to substi- 

 tute for the mission a commercial agency and an appropriation of $10,000, 

 and to limit the salary of the commissioner to $6,000, that of the minister 

 to Turkey, were rejected. Cong. Globe, 27 Cong., 3 Sess., p. 325. 



