my abode. I had hardly reached it when I received two cards
from my poor mandarins, thanking me for having gone so far to meet
them, &c.

_June 12th._--I have gone through a good deal since we parted.
Certainly I have seen more to disgust me with my fellow-countrymen
than I saw during the whole course of my previous life, since I have
found them in the East among populations too timid to resist and too
ignorant to complain. I have an instinct in me which loves
righteousness and hates iniquity, and all this keeps me in a perpetual
boil.

[Sidenote: Treaty signed.]

_June 29th._--I have not written for some days, but they have been
busy ones.... We went on fighting and bullying, and getting the poor
Commissioners to concede one point after another, till Friday the
25th, when we had reason to believe all was settled, and that the
signature was to take place on the following day.... On Friday
afternoon, however, Baron Gros came to me with a message from the
Russian and American Ministers, to induce me to recede from two of my
demands--1. A resident minister at Pekin; and, 2. Permission to our
people to trade in the interior of China; because, as they said, the
Chinese Plenipotentiaries had told them that they had received a
decree from the Emperor, stating that they should infallibly lose
their heads if they gave way on these points.... The resident minister
at Pekin I consider far the most important matter gained by the
Treaty; the power to trade in the interior hardly less so.... I had at
stake not only these important points in my treaty, for which I had
fought so hard, but I know not what behind. For the Chinese are such
fools, that it was impossible to tell, if we gave way on one point,
whether they would not raise difficulties on every other. I sent for
the Admiral; gave him a hint that there was a great opportunity for
England; that all the Powers were deserting me on a point which they
had _all_, in their original applications to Pekin, demanded, and
which they all intended to claim if I got it; that therefore we had it
in our power to claim our place of priority in the East, by obtaining
this when others would not insist on it? Would he back me?... This was
the forenoon of Saturday, 26th. The Treaty was to be signed in the
evening. I may mention, as a proof of the state of p