Page 459 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

445.

ments. He concluded that the position of Westerners in Confucian
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China was similar to their status in Mohammedan states.

In his abstract Cushing included an article of extra­

territoriality which provided that Chinese and Americans, "charged

with crimes, shall be subject only to the exclusive jurisdiction,

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each of the laws and officers of their respective Governments.11
At the time Cushing proposed this article, the affair involving

Hsu A-man's death had not yet been settled. Ch'i-ying had

already asked that the guilty American be surrendered to Chinese

authorities. Cushing did not want a repetition of the Terranovia

Affair of 1821. Circumstances had changed with the end of the

"Canton system" and the beginning of support by the United States

government for American residents in China. The American envoy

had determined not to compromise on this issue. Ch'i-ying did

not ask him to do so, as he accepted Cushing's article without

comment. The Chinese, in their relations with "barbarians"

in previous centuries, had allowed them to govern themselves

without interference. This form of extraterritoriality was not

as sweeping as that proposed by Cushing, because it was an act

of benevolence, not a right. Nevertheless, Ch'i-ying was not

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cushing first noted the concept of extraterritoriality
as practiced in Arabian ports in Dec. 1843. He later wrote a
full exposition of his views on the matter to Secretary of State
John C. Calhoun as a defense of the article on extraterritoriality
in the Treaty. Diplomatic Despatches: China, C. Cushing, Dec. 1,
1843, Sep. 29, 1814.
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An abstract of the Treaty is printed in U.S., Congress,
Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Abstract of the Treaty
between the United States of America and the Chinese Empire, S.
Doc. 58, 28th Cong., 2nd sess., 1844-45.