Early Relations behveen the United States and China. 143 



In addition to these points enumerated by Gushing may be 

 mentioned the privilege of hiring servants; the careful regula- 

 tion of port charges; the provision for standard weights and 

 measures ; the non-responsibility of either government for debts 

 due by its subjects to those of the other; the careful provision 

 against fraud; the apprehension and delivery of deserters and 

 mutineers by the Chinese government ; and the provision for the 

 revision of the treaty after twelve years. Most of the points of 

 the treaty covered questions which had long been sources of 

 dispute and irritation, and show the thoroughness with which 

 Gushing had studied the situation. 



On the whole the treaty was a very creditable piece of work. 

 As Gurtis said,"^ "The selection of Galeb Gushing as the first 

 diplomatic representative of the country was most fortunate and 

 wise. Looking over the correspondence conducted by him with 

 the Ghinese officials in the light of after years of experience in 

 dealing with those personages, one can not but feel impressed 

 with the keen insight into their strange character and 

 motives. . . . He was firm in maintaining the dignity and 

 power of the United States." 



While negotiations were still in progress an occasion arose 

 for testing the exterritoriality clause. On June 15th some Ameri- 

 cans fired in self-defense on a Ghinese mob which was troubling 

 the factories, and one of the assailants, Sue Anam, was killed. 

 Ghing, the acting viceroy, asked the consul to deliver the man 

 who had fired the shot, but Forbes refused and Gushing instructed 

 him to stand by his position, insisting that American citizens in 

 Ghina should be responsible only to their own government. There 

 was a short correspondence between Kiying and Gushing, the 

 former asking that the man be given up, and the latter refusing, 

 reviving as a counter claim the death of Sherry. The matter was 

 dropped for a time but late in July Kiying again took it up. 

 Gushing still held that the shooting was in self-defense, for a 

 committee of American residents in Ganton had so decided it, 

 and the complaint was finally dropped. The outcome of the inci- 

 dent was in sharp contrast to that of the Terranova aifair, and 

 was a fortunate precedent. ^"^^ 



'"' William Eleroy Curtis, The United States and Foreign Powers. 

 Meadville. Pa., 1892, p. 256. 



^"^ The documents are all in Sen. Doc. 67, 28 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 63-67, 

 73, 95, 96. 



