examination of it, will show that an extensive blockade has been and still is practiced in the east, unauthorized by law or equity. It is not to be expected that the American representative will take it upon himself to deny the right of conquest, or that he will abet insubordination even to usurped authority, when once established. But he will bear in mind, that independent self-government is the rule of right, and colonial dependence the forced and unnatural exception. When therefore force and fraud have failed to subjugate an independent people, and an emergency arises, precluding reference and calling for immediate choice between the aggressor and the defendant, he will prefer to respect the rights which nature and reason have conferred, and which violence has not been able to annihilate. More frequently the case for his election will be, whether the claims asserted on the one side have ever been admitted on the other, or whether he shall take the side of avarice seeking to enforce monopoly by the bayonet or of weakness clinging almost in vain to the just fruits of its labors.

6. In the colonial territories he will also bear in mind, that the breaking up of all such unnatural ties must sooner or later occur, and that the earliest indications of such changes approaching give his government a claim to extraordinary advices, while they entitle the American citizens resident therein to special naval protection.

7. Wherever the Archipelago still presents independent openings, he will feel a deep solicitude that aggression on such unsubjugated communities should be checked at last, and that their soil should become, under the guardianship of the United States, nurseries of civil and religious liberty.

8. In his intercourse with the colonial authorities he will of course be careful not to awaken needless suspicion or opposition, while he finds a satisfaction in exchanging official and other information, and coöperates heartily in the suppression of piracy and the slavetrade.

9. In approaching the continental powers he will feel that his movements acquire new importance. Should he find the royal power in Siam already passed into more liberal hands, it will be easy to amend the treaty lately made with that court, and especially to exchange the heavy charge now fixed on American ships, for one having more equitable reference to their actual lading. By representing the advantages accruing both to the people and the sovereign, from free industry and a well-constituted custom-house, he may also be able to induce the king to let go his hold on the commercial products of the soil-the reward of his subject's laborious industry.

10. By a series of mild and careful movements, he will probably be able to open a communication with the Cochinchinese, in which their jealousy of the Siamese may aid him. At the same time he may have a fair opportunity to render a service to both states, and to the cause of humanity, by acting as a mediator between them, and thus restoring peace to the wretched interval-ground of Camboja, so long desolated by their mutual incursions.

11. While extending the diplomatic code of the United States, filling his portfolio with new treaties of trade and navigation, he will employ all his opportunities to impart knowledge, and especially an acquaintance with those improvements, to which his own country owes so much of its prosperity.

12. When first brought into contact with the greatest of eastern empires with China-he will proceed to carry into effect his instructious, as to the vindication of the national character. The executive, in furnishing these, will have made its choice, and either suffer him, on the usual denial of more direct access, to confer with the Canton officers through the hong merchants, or direct him to appeal at once to the supreme government.

On this disputed point, we are ready to admit, that little or nothing has ever been got from discussions at Canton; but this is equally true of the northern embassies. To Peking we believe the American plenipotentiary must go at last, our only question is, shall he begin there? If the first, chief, only business of the agent were to claim and to get his claims allowed, our decision would be in the affirma. tive. But if it be made his duty to vindicate the character of his country from grave accusations, pretension may be waived until these are repelled, or if justly preferred, until the wrong is compensated. The business of acknowledgement, of explanation-all that is necessary to clear the way to the maintenance of right—should precede its assertion. Punctilio is out of place at the confessional. Besides, if the course of the American commerce with Canton, has been such as not only to tarnish the honor of our country, but to inflict a severe blow on the Chinese and to insult the local government, where the offense was, there should be the expiation. True, the adinission-that we the Americans have done wrong,—seems humiliating; but it is to the criminal acts, that we must charge our degraded state, not to the reparation. Such reparation once made, the wrong ouce put upon the local authorities, the appeal is safe and easy. The stain once wiped from the American flag-on the spot where the vile dirt' has sullied it,-unfurl it with pride and confidence in the breezes of the Yellow

sea, if necessary. Let the merchant flag cease to cover, along the coasts of China, what its government and people treat as the means of their degradation and the proof of ours, and you increase the probabilities that the naval flag will be welcomed and honored. The American plenipotentiary goes on an ill-starred' journey, when sent under a flag that is bought and sold for the worst purposes, and for the profit of those who are not of us.

It is agreed on all hands, that official communications are not safe in the hands of the hong merchants. Mangling done here' is the office-sign' of these honorable mediators. Nothing will therefore induce the American government to confer with them or through them, on any state-negotiations, except where publicity, not privacy is courted. But where open offense has been done and public reparation is the object, it will prefer to make its explanations not to the viceroy only, but to the merchants too, and to the whole Chinese people. When these ends are gained and private negotiation succeeds, it will claim that its communications be inviolate, and apply all needful safeguards not merely to the hong merchants, but to the whole tribe of manglers, commercial and official.

13. It cannot be expected that the American representative, will be able to delay, for a single hour after his arrival in China, an inquiry into the state of the trade generally, and especially into the affairs of the hongs and the insolvency-settlements now in progress. A reference to past adjustments of the same kind, and an hour's attention to those now in course, will afford him a new illustration of the old fable, of the lion carved under the feet of the man. He will see, that those settlements prior to 1834, were made under the control of the E. I. Company, and though he may be unable to ascertain the exact sums levied on the American trade, as compared with those paid to American creditors, he can have little doubt that the balance has been against his countrymen. Were he now landing in front of the factories, he would hear it proposed to draw more than half a million of dollars from the exports to the United States, in order to refund to American claimants under one hong settlement, less than $100,000. Moreover, he would find this to be but a prelude to other and more extensive adjustments; so that this has the additional force of a precedent! Would he assent to it? Would he admit the propriety of employing the cohong as a tool for the levying a tax on men of one foreign nation, for the benefit of another? Would he be willing to exhibit his government as sanctioning so gross an enfringement of national property, even for their own people's benefit? Would he be

willing that the Chinese be the witnesses of such an infringement? But the American agent is not landing among us. The denial of such a guardian of the American interests in Eastern Asia, is, we fear, an irreparable error; it is about to be mulcted at least, in this one port, ere it can be repaired, in half a million of dollars!! Perhaps there is one hope left: the self-incurred fine which Chinese justice must have remitted, if only asked, may be recovered back by an appeal to British generosity and honor. The American people, almost insolvent themselves, taunted with their inability to repay their British creditors, except in bankruptcies,' may humbly sue fo. the remission of this further debt, due under judgment of the competent court of hong-merchants, Houqua presiding, on the ground that it is not generous to levy execution on them in their poverty, for a further half million of dollars!

14. In all his negotiations, with eastern powers, the duty of the consul-general will never be interpreted to require him to seek exclusive favors. On the contrary, though acting under the commission and for the behalf of a single state, he will never decline-never fail-to embody in every treaty those noble clauses, out of the celebrated convention with France,-which, carefully avoiding all burdensome preferences,' and 'founding the advantage of commerce solely on reciprocal utility, and the just rules of free intercourse,' ' reserve to each party, the liberty of admitting, at its pleasure, other nations to a participation of the same advantages.' This generous spirit, which breathes in the first treaty of the United States, and has since animated the whole body of American diplomacy, will, we trust, be exhibited in many a compact-in every compact- made under their name in Ultra-Malayan Asia. As respects China particularly, it will induce the American negotiator to choose a new path, to avoid ex parte statements, the presentation of lofty claims, and the harping on petty grievances. On the contrary, he will present at once the whole basis of the mutual arrangement, taking what the United States are ready to grant as the standard of what they require, keeping above all selfish and unfair stipulations, and making the mutual interest, the equal benefit, everywhere apparent. Negotiations so conducted, cannot fail to make a due impression, sooner or later, on a government, always anxious to have equity on its side, and constantly appealing to the principles of justice, in all its public documents.

15. Remembering that the benefits of free and rapid intercommunication-domestic and foreign-have ever outrun all previous conception, the consul-general will take every proper opportunity to

point out to eastern princes and their ministers, the viability' of their states; and thus to hasten the era, when the countries washed by the Chinese sea shall share in the incalculable advantages now realized on the American shores; when the vallies of the Meinam, the Mekon, the Yangtsze keäng, &c., shall be traversed like the valley of the Mississippi. We are very much mistaken, if there be any sufficient reason for supposing, that real improvements will not be adopted by the Chinese government and people. It seems altogether probable that they will take the steamboat, as they have the fire-engine, so soon as they discover its value, and confess that they are indebted to foreigners for it. The opposition of a particular class thrown out of employ, will not prevent this. The Chinese cotton-spinners burned the English twist, when it was first imported, but the government did not listen to them, and the article has become a staple one. Let it be shown that the Yellow river-China's grief'—can be converted into a blessing, by the power of steam, and the boat will be permitted to try its rapid current. If called upon to negotiate, at the colonial and independent courts, for safe and regular stopping places, supplies, &c., for steamboats, he will cordially do so; the calm waters of the Archipelago being well adapted for such navigation, and it being certain that the great lines now forming between America, Great Bri tain, and India, will go on extending, until they connect Bengal with Java, Australia, the Phillipines, China, Japan, and Corea.

16. In his intercourse with his fellow citizens residing abroad as merchants—he will often remind them, that the national interests, not scripture morality only, require a constant regard to be had to the actual uses made of exchangeable articles; or în other words, to the practical effects of their commerce on the industry, the morals, and the happiness of men; as well as the views taken of all these, by the states with which we are in treaty. It is the right and duty of every government to consult these best interests of its people, and it must be the judge, whether the public sentiment is sufficiently strong and pure to repress the popular tendencies to vicious excess, or whether resort must be had to prohibitory legislation. The enlightened statesmen of Europe and America recognize the custom of specifying certain articles as contraband and illicit, nor can they deny the same right, because it is claimed under a more eastern parallel of longitude. The means of vice are not more sacred than munitions of war, neither can it matter much to a benevolent state, whether it see its people fall beneath the more insidious, or the more open, enemy. In either case, American diplomacy furnishes 110