Page 433 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

419.

After the House received Tyler's special message, it

routinely referred the document to the Committee on Foreign

Affairs. The Committee's chairman, John Quincy Adams, character-

ized the message as "an elaborate and able argument. II

Through the month of January 1843, Adams worked to prepare a

bill in his Committee. He conferred with Secretary Webster on

the amount of the appropriation and agreed with Webster's sug­

gestion of forty thousand dollars. The subsequent proposed bill,

received the Committee's unanimous recommendation, and on Jan­
47
uary 24 Adams reported it to the House. Within a month the

Committee of the "Whole took up H.R. 720, "A bill providing the

means of future intercourse between the United States and China."

After some heated discussion and two unsuccessful attempts to

reduce the appropriation, the bill passed ninety-six to fifty­

48
nine. The House immediately transmitted the bill to the Senate
for concurrent approval.

interest. Consequently, Tyler warned, the United States would
not accept any intention of another power "to take possession of
the islands, colonize them, and subvert the native Government."
The President also requested appropriations to support a resident
consul at the Islands. This bill passed easily. U.S., Congress,
House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sandwich Islands and China,
Dec. 31, 1842, H. Doc. 35, 27th Cong., 3rd sess., 1842-43. Harold
Bradley, The American Frontier in Hawaii: The Pioneers, 1789-1843
(Stanford, 1942), pp. 444-45.
7
-
f
d
.
.
d
4 John Quincy A ams, Memoirs o Jo,1.n Quincy A ams, Com-
1
.
prising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, ed. by Charles
Francis Adams (12 vols.; Philadelphia, 1876), XI, 284, 289-90, 300.
U.S., Congress, House, 27th Cong., 3rd., Jan. 24, 1843, Congres­
sional Globe, p. 195.
48
U.S., Congress, House, 27th Cong.u 3rd sess., Feb. 21,
1843, Congressional Globe, pp. 323, 325.