Mr. Tsui to Mr. Blaine.
Washington, October 1, 1890.
Sir: Under date of March 26 last, I was impelled by an urgent sense of duty to send you a note of some length, citing the notes which my predecessor had addressed to the late Secretary of State and to yourself respecting the status of our treaty relations as affected by the action of the last Congress of your country, and giving some additional reasons why, in my opinion, it was the imperative duty of your Government to furnish an early and comprehensive reply to the several notes of this legation.
It has filled me with wonder that neither an acknowledgment of its receipt, nor a reply thereto, has up to this time been received. Knowing how carefully and courteously you observe all the requirements of diplomatic intercourse, I have not attributed this neglect to any personal choice on your part. I have persuaded myself that your silence has been enforced by some controlling reasons of state which have, in your opinion, made it prudent that you should still defer for a time the answer which my Government has for many months past been very anxious to receive.
I would continue, out of personal regard to you, to exercise patience on the subject if I were permitted to do so. But I am sorry to say that this I can not do. Upon receipt of a copy of my note to you of March 26, 1890, my Government, so fully persuaded of the justice of the representations made by this legation, communicated with His Excellency, Minister Denby, and urged him to present to his Government the lively desire of the Chinese Government for an early reply to these representations, and that steps be taken to undo the wrongs being inflicted on Chinese subjects as a result of the act of October 1, 1838. And I have been instructed by the Tsung-li yamên to likewise again ask that early attention be given to the cited notes of this legation. In addition to this instruction, the losses and injuries being suffered by thousands of my countrymen, on account of the rigorous enforcement of the exclusion law of 1888, impel me to redouble my efforts to secure some redress and restore our treaties to respect and observance.
I beg you, Mr. Secretary, to regard this, my present note, not as an act of embarrassment to you, but as a friendly effort on my part to restore and reaffirm the former cordial relations which have existed between our two countries. The old nation, with its hundreds of millions of people, on the other side of the ocean, extends its hand across the great waters to the young nation in front of it, with its wonderful development in population and resources, and asks for a continuance of friendship and commercial intercourse upon the basis of treaty rights and reciprocal justice. Our sages and statesmen for ages past have taught our nation principles of justice and good faith, which, upon establishing diplomatic relations with the nations of the western world, we found to agree with the code of international law as framed by the writers and statesmen of your country; and having learned, through the disinterested friendship which hitherto had marked the conduct of your Government in its relations to China, to regard your nation as a model in the practice which should control governments in their reciprocal intercourse, we accepted its code of international law; and to this code we appeal in the settlement of the difficulties which have unhappily arisen between us, and which it is the anxious desire of the Imperial [Page 229] Government to have adjusted in the speediest manner possible. In the interest, therefore, of our past friendship, and to promote and cement more firmly our good relations, I again communicate to you the respectful request of my Government that the cited notes of this legation may have your early attention, and that I may be favored as promptly as possible with the views and instructions of the Government of the United States.
I improve this opportunity, etc.,