Page 451 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

437.

talks in Cantonese, a dialect of Chinese, and Pidgin English.

Even the American missionaries who interpreted for Cushing

could barely understand Mandarin Chinese, the official Chinese

1
1
dialect. P an Shih-ch eng, reared at Canton, provided the link
79
between the Americans and his Chinese colleagues.

Official discussions for a treaty began on June 20.
1
Ch i-ying 9 through his negotiators, asked the Americans to

submit the basic points they desired in a treaty with the

Celestial Empire. In response Cushing returned an abstract of

such a treaty to the Imperial Commissioner. He explained that

this document "covers all questions, except two or three, of

a specific nature, and of great importance, which I desire to

present to your excellency separately at an early date. 11 Cush­

1
ing s abstract basically followed the Treaty of Nanking, al­
though the American envoy emphasized in reference to Hong Kong

that the United States did not seek to possess "any portion of

the territory of China. 11 Cushing therefore proposed several
different articles of commercial regulation for the security
11
of citizens of the United States residing or prosecuting trade

80
in China.11 Specifically, Cushing offered two new regulations:

(1) American vessels having anchored and paid tonnage duties at

79
I-wu-shiti-mo: Tao-kua:Q_g, LXXII, 1-4, and Swisher,
M<lnagement of American Barbarians, pp. 154-55.

80
Diplomatic Despatches; China, C. Cushing, Jul. 9, 1844.
Enclosed in this despatch is much of the correspondence between
1
Cushing and Ch'i-ying regarding the treaty. See Cushing s com­
munication to Ch'i-ying, Jun. 21, 1844. An undated outline, in
1
Cushing s :,andwriting, for discussion with the Chinese is in
Caleb Cushing MSS. The outline covered topics such as commerce,
blockade, opium and American diplomacy.