Office of the Historian

No. 248.
Mr. Chang Yen Hoon to Mr. Bayard.

Chinese Legation,
Washington, D. C., January 9, 1888. (Received January 9.)

Sir: I have the honor to inform you that during the last autumn and the present winter I repeatedly received from the foreign office in Peking and his excellency Viceroy Li Hung Chang, official dispatches and cablegrams relative to the accrediting of an envoy to the United States of America by Corea. The cablegram of the 11th of November, 1887, communicated to me the statement of a note from the Corean Government, to the effect that the Corean envoy would report his arrival to the Chinese legation here when he arrived in the United States, and would request the Chinese minister to present him at the State Department; that afterwards no further presentation would be necessary, and that the Chinese minister should interest himself in all matters whenever he should be asked to do so by the Corean envoy.

As Corea is a vassal state of China, and on the occasion of the treaty [Page 381] between the United States and Corea being made and entered into, a communication relative to the subject was made to your Government, it is right, therefore, that I should interest myself on behalf of the Corean envoy, who is on this occasion accredited to this country by his Government.

Yesterday I received a telegram from the Chinese consul-general at San Francisco, advising me of the departure, on the 4th instant, of the Corean envoy, Mr. Pak Ting Yung, from that port for this capital, and that he might be expected to arrive here in a day or two.

In due time I will present him to your excellency, only with a view of strengthening the bond of friendship of the three countries. With regard to the appointment of a date for the presentation of his credentials to the President of the United States, it is right that the Corean envoy himself should make the application to your excellency, in which it is hoped your excellency will kindly interest yourself, and that my company with him on his presentation to the President may be dispensed with.

Accept, etc.,

Chang Yen Hoon.