Early Relations between the United States and China. 141 



English treaty, the consuls were made responsible for the pay- 

 ment of duties, but in the American treaty this was avoided by 

 stipulating that these should be paid in cash. (3) A new pro- 

 vision was made allowing goods to be shipped from one port 

 to another without paying double duty. (4) To secure the dignity 

 of consuls the privilege was given to them of complaining to 

 the superior officers of any disrespectful treatment. (5) Duties 

 were to be paid only as the cargo was landed, and a ship remain- 

 ing for forty-eight hours without breaking bulk was free from 

 tonnage and other duties. (6) Citizens of the United States 

 were to have accommodations in all five ports, and the privilege 

 of renting sites for houses and places of business, hospitals, 

 churches, and cemeteries. ^^'^ (7) It was permitted to foreigners, 

 contrary to the former Chinese law, to hire persons to teach 

 them the language, and to buy any kind of book. (8) A prin- 

 ciple of more than ordinary importance was that of exterri- 

 toriality, one of the distinct contributions of the treaty to the 

 diplomacy of the Far East. In the letter to Calhoun, September 

 29th, 1844, Cushing traced the reasons which led him to introduce 

 it.^"° He showed how to his mind, it had originated in the Italian 

 settlements in the Levant, and had been the rule in semi-barbarous 

 and Mohammedan states. The states of Christendom "acknowl- 

 edge the authority of certain maxims and usages, received among 

 them by common consent, and called the law of nations, . . . 

 but which is in fact, only the international law of Christen- 

 dom. . . . [They] have a common origin, a common religion, 

 a common intellectuality," allowing free residence and travel in 

 each other's domains to citizens of the other, "and they hold a 

 regular and systematic intercourse as governments. . . . All 

 these facts impart to the states of Christendom many of the 

 qualities of one confederate republic." China, not because she 

 was inferior in civilization, but because she was not of the family 

 of Christendom, was neither recognized nor could be treated 

 according to this law, and so the citizens of European powers 

 should not be made subject to her laws. The Chinese had been 

 partly prepared for the step by the Portuguese jurisdiction at 



^"^ The last three were added as a special favor to Peter Parker. 

 Stevens, Life of Parker, p. 234. 



'*^' In House Ex. Doc. 69, 28 Cong., 2 Sess., and in Sen. Doc. 58, 28 

 Cong., 2 Sess. 



