THE AMERICANS IN PEKIN.
The North China Mail brings us an account of Mr. Ward's visit to Pekin, evidently from the pen of Mr. Ward himself, or that of one of his assistants. It is a full, able, and interesting document, and can be found at length by our readers in the Times of Thursday. Mr. Ward sailed from Woosung on the 17th, and entered the Pei-ho on the 21st of June. ,,On the 24th hirr-Wird'-and Commodore Tattnall
entered the Pei-ho, and found no proper officer to meet them at the forts ; but were referred to Pehtang, a place to them unknown. The battle of Taku occurred the next day, when the two American officers acted in a manner that will always render their names dear to English- men. On the 26th Mr. Ward went to Pehtang, and after much trouble had an interview with a Chinese official on the 8th. The result was that Mr. Ward was further detained at Pehtang until the 20th, when he was sent forward first in " covered carts" to Petsang, a place on the Pei-ho five miles above Tien-tsin, and thence in boats to within twelve miles of Pekin. The remainder of the journey was performed on horse- back ; the embassy not being able to bear any longer the springleas carts and stone roads. They entered Pekin through a Chinese crowd on the 27th of July, and proceeded to the quarters allotted to them in the Mantchou part of the city. The next day they began a long series of
negotiations ; extracts from some passages of which will show their pur- port. On the 29th Mr. Ward met the Imperial Commissioners, and Kweiliang made a statement to show that the English and not the Chinese had broken the treaty.
" He then proceeded to state that, as the Emperor had a regard to the Americans, he wished to do them honour by granting them an audience, and it only remained for the parties then present to settle upon the manner of approaching the throne. Without going into needless details upon the interesting conversations which ensued on this topic at this and subsequent interviews, it will be better to recapitulate the main arguments used by the Chinese functionaries in explaining and urging their views, es these show most clearly the real nature of the ceremony used at the Chinese court. The different estimation in which the Emperor regarded a friendly and equal nation like the United States, whose chief magistrate was in every respect equal to himself, from tributary nations like Siam, Corea, Lewchow, or Annam, was repeatedly referred to by Kweiliang. He sometimes styled the President ta-hwangti,' or Great Emperor, and sometimes President'
(a word which he has learnt), and occasionally or Princely Ruler, to prove his respect for him. Such being the relations between the two countries, the ko-tau or regular form of obeisance required of envoys from these nations, i. e., san-kwei-kid-hoh, three kneelings and nine knocks,' would not be expected ; but,' said the judge, one kneeling and three knocks will do fora friendly Power.' This remark was not taken up by the Commissioners, nor was the ceremony even in this mitigated form again referred to, so that it cannot be said that the ko-tau in any shape was de- manded of Mr. Ward by the Chinese as a preliminary to his audience of their Sovereign.
"To this Mr. Ward replied, that while he entertained the greatest re- spect for his Majesty, and in that only felt what the President himself had expressed in the letter of which he was the bearer, he wished to declare in the plainest terms, that, highly as he would regard an audience, and important as he deemed it under the present circumstances, still he had never asked it, and the treaty said nothing about it ; but he would not kneel when he came before the throne ; he could only salute his Majesty as he did his own ruler, and as Ministers of the United States did the Sovereigns of all other nations when they saw them ; he knelt only as an act of worship before God, and would never do so before any man. They were subjects of the Emperor and must obey his ritual, but he represented a nation whose dignity he could not compromise by such a compliance; and, furthermore, true respect must always proceed from the heart, and if the outward ceremony was not voluntary it was hypocrisy. He would bow very low, and even nine times, if that would add to the solemnity in their view ; or he would stand uncovered during the whole audience, while the Emperor sat. More than this he would never willingly perform. While this form of salutation exhibited all the respect he felt towards the President, which they must themselves acknowledge was quite as great as he could feel towards the Emperor of China. " The Commissioners answered that if they were in the United States they would conform to any requirements made of them at an audience with the President, and that the American Minister ought to act on that principle in their country; that they could not show respect to their Sovereign other- wise than by kneeling, for anything short of that was absolutely nothing in their estimation, and would be deemed so by the Emperor. He would regard it as an indignity for a Minister from a friendly nation to cometo his capital and refuse to see him when he required so much less of him than he did of his own courtiers, besides which, the President would be offended with him for not showing proper respect to his Envoy. In some European Courts, even in the English, persons knelt before the Sovereign when presented to him, and it is no more derogatory to do so here than there. They did not hesitate to say that they regarded the homage paid their monarch as of the same sort as that given to gods, and would even burn incense to the Presi- dent, as well as make the ko-tau to him, if required at Washington, in order to manifest entire respect. You are a Plenipotentiary,' said Hwashana, turning to Mr. Ward, and certainly have full powers to do such an act.'
"' I am not invested with powers sufficient to enable me to change the laws and usages of my country, and cannot do anything to degrade it,' was Mr. Ward's reply." There were more of these discussions, in the course of which the Chi- nese quoted precedents for kneeling from the ceremonies at the Papal Court ; and in the meantime, although not confined, the Americans were under a guard "to keep off the people," and were prevented from seeing the Russians. The Chinese then hit on this device.
"The Chinese Commissioners were obliged to go out twelve miles to the summer residence of Yuen-ming-yuen to report to his Majesty, who was passing the hot weather there, and no reply was expected from them till the 4th; but the next morning the judge, with countenance anything but joy- ful, unexpectedly appeared. He had come from the summer palace, where he and the Commissioners had been all night, with a plan which he thought would succeed. This was that they should address Mr. Ward a letter, stating that the Emperor intended to honour him with an audience to re- ceive the President's letter ; he should then reply that he was willing, if granted the honour, to make his respects to his Majesty in the same manner that he would before the President, neither diminishing nor adding thereto. There was of course no objection to this procedure, and the draughts of both documents were made out, and the judge took copies away with him. The detail of the expedient to be observed was also explained, which was, that when the Minister came towards the throne, the table on which the Presi- dent's letter was to be placed standing between the two, he should bow as low as he had represented, and then two Chamberlains would approach, and
raise him up, with the exclamation, Don't kneel ! ' He would then pre- sent the letter by placing it on the table, whence it would be taken by another Chamberlain, who on his knees would hnnd it to the Emperor?: This came to nothing. The Emperor decided that unless the American Minister would either touch one knee or his fingers to the ground he would not see him. "While this concession was refused as being much more than an American representative ever performed before his own or any other ruler, it was again declared that in this persistence of our own usages there was no disrespect intended to the Emperor, who must of course be the final
judge of what he deemed suitable to his own dignity. The question of an audience was thus settled, so far as the American embassy was interested, after five days' earnest discussion. During the whole of it the Chinese Commissioners made use of nothing but fair argument. They never even alluded to the helpless position of twenty foreigners, as a reason for their complying with a ceremony which seemed to them, doubtless, the extreme of liberality. It is impossible to decide the question satisfactorily, but the final obstacle to the audience seems to have been the conviction in the minds of the Chinese, that Mr. Ward would not do what was really done at European Courts ; and what they declared the English Minister had pro- mised last year he would do—namely, perform the same ceremony before the Emperor which he would before the Queen.
"The next despatch from the Prime Minister was very characteristic of Chinese diplomacy, for in it he referred to the unsatisfactory discussion about the ntual, and then asked the American Envoy what he had come to Pekin for ; he took the whole argument for granted, that every Minister ex- pected to see a Sovereign when he came to his capital, and that as he would not see the Emperor, the President's letter could not be received ; and then what was the next step ? There was a deadlock, for, until this was over, how and where could the treaty be exchanged ? The reply conveyed to Kweiliang a brief recapitulation of the circumstances under which Mr. Ward had accepted his own invitation at Shanghai to come up, and quoted the Emperor's rescript as communicated by the Governor-General at Pehtang, permitting him to do so ; and then proposed to deliver the Presi- dent's letter to him, after which the treaty could be exchanged. The answer of the Chinese came late on Saturday night. It was short, and stated that the Commissioners were awaiting his Majesty's rescript fixing the place for exchanging the treaty ; but added that, as the audience could not take place, so the letter could not be received, and that it would be un- suitable to exchange ratifications in the capital." Pehtang was fixed as the place for the exchange ; President Buchanan's letter was presented to Kweiliang; and the Americans returned to Pehtang, there to exchange the treaties. " After the exchange was over the Chinese proposed to deliver one of the two prisoners taken from the Eng- lish, who had declared himself to be an American, to the Minister, and brought him forward for that purpose. He proved to be a Canadian by birth, and it required some time to explain to the two Chinese officials the political difference between Canada and the United States and their geo- graphical proximity, the more so as no maps were accessible. After a full explanation of all the points of the case they concluded to deliver the man over to Mr. Ward entirely on grounds of humanity, and he was thus re- ceived. The next day, August 17, the Toeywan returned to the outer an- chorage, where her arrival was gladly hailed by the Commodore and his officers, and on the evening of the 18th the Powhattan sailed for Shanghai."
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