174 REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 



The History of the Early Relations between the United States 

 and China. 1784-1844. By Kenneth Scott Latourette. 

 Yale University Press, 1917. 



In little over 200 pages Prof. Latourette tells the story of 

 American relations with China between the dates given, "a cycle of 

 Cathay." His work is one of that most useful sort which goes into 

 the records of the past, gives the gist of their most valuable portions, 

 and so paves the way for the correction of those hasty opinions formed 

 amidst the heat of action and controversy without that full knowledge 

 which is essential to the formation of just judgment. 



It is a story worth the telling. To Americans, and especially to 

 those interested in China, it comes with more authoritative backing 

 than anything before written on the same topic, for our author has 

 ransacked the libraries of universities, the minutes of institutes, the 

 records of Custom-houses, the sanctums of State Departments, and the 

 rich accumulations of mission libraries. "Practically all the known 

 available material on the subject has been examined," the list including 

 MSS. as well as printed matter. 



It will be noted that the American people had been independent 

 scarcely a year before they had started on the first beginnings of their 

 trade with China. Very appropriately their first ship was named 

 "Empress of China." Her officers and crew spoke the English tongue, 

 of course, and, to avoid the "squeeze" levied on new comers at Canton, 

 they easily passed for English, and it is on record that they found the 

 real English very friendly and "anxious to forget the recent war." 

 But they found a curious combination at Canton, a combination of 

 Chinese fear, contempt, cupidity, and corruption on the one side, and, 

 on the other, one of the last of British monopolies, which hitherto had 

 opposed American entrance into the China trade as it had that of the 

 unlicensed Briton. 



What Mr. Morse has told us regarding the import of silver into 

 China, and the welcome which was extended to opium by everybody, 

 Americans included, because it lessened the amount of the white metal 

 needed to carry on trade, is fully borne out by the researches of 

 Mr. Latourette ; and we have no doubt that the general opinion of the 

 world concerning what has been mis-called the Opium War would have 

 been very different from what it was, if plain facts, such as are here 

 recorded, had been as widely known as the warm-hearted but one-sided 

 statements of missionaries were. John Quincy Adams, son of the 

 second American President, and himself sixth President, would not 

 have been subjected to the insult of having the MS. of his lecture 

 refused by the North American Revieiv because he held that "Britain 

 had the righteous cause" in that war. 



