MR. MAYOR,--I cannot speak on this interesting occasion without first
declaring the happiness I enjoy at meeting my friend of many years in
the exalted position he now holds. Besides this personal relation, he
was also an honored associate in representing the good people of this
community, and in advancing a great cause, which he championed with
memorable eloquence and fidelity. Such are no common ties.
The splendid welcome now offered by the municipal authorities of Boston
is only a natural expression of prevailing sentiments. Here his labors
and triumphs began. In your early applause and approving voices he
first tasted of that honor which is now his in such ample measure. He
is one of us, who, going forth into a strange country, has come back
with its highest trusts and dignities. Once the representative of a
single Congressional district, he now represents the most populous
nation of the globe. Once the representative of little more than a
third part of Boston, he is now the representative of more than a third
part of the human race. The population of the globe is estimated at
twelve hundred millions; that of China at more than four hundred and
sometimes even at five hundred millions.
If in this position there be much to excite wonder, there is still
more for gratitude in the unparalleled opportunity it affords. What
we all ask is opportunity. Here is opportunity on a surpassing
scale,--employed, I am sure, to advance the best interests of the
human family; and if these are advanced, no nation can suffer. Each
is contained in all. With justice and generosity as the reciprocal
rule,--and nothing else can be the aim of this great Embassy,--there
can be no limits to the immeasurable consequences. Nor can I hesitate
to say that concessions and privileges are of less consequence than
that spirit of friendship and good neighborhood, embracing alike the
distant and the near, which, once established, renders all else easy.
The necessary result of the present experiment in diplomacy will be to
make the countries it visits better known to the Chinese, and also to
make the Chinese better known to them. Each will know the other better,
and better comprehend that condition of mutual dependence which is
the law of humanity. In relations among nations, as in common life,
this is of infinite value. Thus far, I fear the Chinese are poorly
informed with regard to us. I am sure we are poorly informed with
regard to them. We know them through the porcelain on our tables, with
its lawless perspective, and the tea-chest, with its unintelligible
hieroglyphics. There are two pictures of them in the literature of
our language, which cannot fail to leave an impression. The first is
in “Paradise Lost,” where Milton, always learned, even in his poetry,
represents Satan descending in his flight
“on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where _Chineses_ drive
With sails and wind their cany wagons light.”[262]
The other is in that admirable “Discourse on the Study of the Law of
Nature and Nations,” where Sir James Mackintosh, in words of singular
felicity, points to “the tame, but ancient and immovable civilization
of China.”[263] It is for us at last to enlarge these pictures, and to
fill the canvas with life.
I do not know if it has occurred to our honored guest that he is not
the first stranger who, after sojourning in this distant, unknown
land, has come back loaded with its honors, and with messages to the
Christian powers. He is not without a predecessor in his mission.
There is another career as marvellous as his own. I refer to the
Venetian Marco Polo, whose reports, once discredited as the fables
of a traveller, are now recognized among the sources of history, and
especially of geographical knowledge. Nobody can read them without
feeling their verity. It was in the latter part of the far-away
thirteenth century that this enterprising Venetian, with his father
and uncle, all merchants, journeyed from Venice, by the way of
Constantinople, Trebizond on the Black Sea, and Central Asia, until
they reached first the land of Prester John, and then that golden
country known as Cathay, where the lofty ruler, Kublaï Khan, treated
them with gracious consideration, and employed young Polo as his
ambassador. This was none other than China, and the lofty ruler,
called the Grand Khan, was none other than the first of its Mongolian
dynasty, having his imperial residence in the immense city of Kambalu,
or Peking. After many years of illustrious service, the Venetian,
with his companions, was dismissed with splendor and riches, charged
with letters for European sovereigns, as our Bostonian is charged
with similar letters now. There were letters for the Pope, the King
of France, the King of Spain, and other Christian princes. It does
not appear that England was expressly designated. Her name, so great
now, was not at that time on the visiting list of the distant Emperor.
Such are the contrasts in national life. Marco Polo reached Venice,
on his return, in 1295, at the very time when Dante, in Florence,
was meditating his divine poem, and Roger Bacon, in England, was
astonishing the age with his knowledge. These were his two greatest
contemporaries, constituting with himself the triumvirate of the
century.
The return of the Venetian to his native city was attended by incidents
which have not occurred among us. Bronzed by long residence under the
sun of the East, wearing the dress of a Tartar, and speaking his native
language with difficulty, it was some time before his friends could be
persuaded of his identity. Happily there is no question on the identity
of our returned fellow-citizen; and surely it cannot be said that
he speaks his native language with difficulty. A dinner was spread
at Venice as here at Boston, and now, after the lapse of nearly six
hundred years, the Venetian dinner still lives in glowing description.
Marco Polo, with his companions, appeared first in long robes of
crimson satin reaching to the floor, which, when the guests had washed
their hands, were changed for other robes of crimson damask, and then
again, after the first course, for other robes of crimson velvet,
and at the conclusion of the banquet, for the ordinary dress worn by
the rest of the company. Meanwhile the other costly garments were
distributed among the attendants at the table. In all your magnificence
to-night, Mr. Mayor, I have seen no such largess. Then were brought
forward the coarse threadbare garments in which they had travelled,
when, on ripping the lining and patches with a knife, costly jewels,
in sparkling showers, leaped forth before the eyes of the company, who
for a time were motionless with wonder. Then at last, says the Italian
chronicler, every doubt was banished, and all were satisfied that these
were the valiant and honorable gentlemen of the house of Polo. I do not
relate this history to suggest any such operation on the dress of our
returned fellow-citizen. No such evidence is needed to assure us of his
identity.
The success of Marco Polo is amply attested. From his habit of speaking
of “millions” of people and “millions” of money, he was known as
_Messer Millioni_, or the millionaire, being the earliest instance in
history of a designation so common in our prosperous age. But better
than “millions” was the knowledge he imparted, and the impulse he
gave to that science which teaches the configuration of the globe and
the place of nations on its face. His travels, dictated by him, were
reproduced in various languages, and, after the invention of printing,
the book was multiplied in more than fifty editions. Unquestionably
it prepared the way for the two greatest geographical discoveries of
modern times,--the Cape of Good Hope, by Vasco da Gama, and the New
World, by Christopher Columbus. One of his admirers, a French _savant_,
does not hesitate to say, that, “when, in the long series of ages,
we seek the three men who, by the magnitude and influence of their
discoveries, have most contributed to the progress of geography or
the knowledge of the globe, the modest name of the Venetian traveller
finds a place in the same line with those of Alexander the Great and
Christopher Columbus.”[264] It is well known that the imagination of
the Genoese navigator was fired by the revelations of the Venetian, and
that, in his mind, the countries embraced by his transcendent discovery
were none other than the famed Cathay, with its various dependencies.
In his report to the Spanish sovereigns, Cuba was nothing else than
Zipangu, or Japan, as described by the Venetian, and he thought himself
near a Grand Khan,--meaning, as he says, a king of kings. Columbus
was mistaken. He had not reached Cathay or the Grand Khan; but he had
discovered a new world, destined in the history of civilization to be
more than Cathay, and, in the lapse of time, to welcome the Ambassador
of the Grand Khan.
The Venetian, returning home, journeyed out of the East, westward; our
Marco Polo, returning home, journeyed out of the West, eastward. And
yet they both came from the same region: their common starting-point
was Peking. This change is typical of the surpassing revolution under
whose influence the Orient will become the Occident. Journeying
westward, the first welcome is from the nations of Europe; journeying
eastward, the first welcome is from our Republic. It remains that this
welcome should be extended, until, opening a pathway for the mightiest
commerce of the world, it embraces within the sphere of American
activity that ancient ancestral empire, where population, industry, and
education, on an unprecedented scale, create resources and necessities
on an unprecedented scale also. See to it, merchants of the United
States, and you, merchants of Boston, that this opportunity is not lost.
And this brings me, Mr. Mayor, to the Treaty, which you invited me
to discuss. But I will not now enter upon this topic. If you did not
call me to order for speaking too long, I fear I should be called
to order in another place for undertaking to speak of a treaty not
yet proclaimed by the President. One remark I will make, and take
the consequences. The Treaty does not propose much; but it is an
excellent beginning, and, I trust, through the good offices of our
fellow-citizen, the honored plenipotentiary, will unlock those great
Chinese gates which have been bolted and barred for long centuries.
The Embassy is more than the Treaty, because it prepares the way for
further intercourse, and helps that new order of things which is among
the promises of the Future.
Mr. Burlingame’s sudden death, at St. Petersburg, February 23,
1870, arrested the remarkable career he had begun, leaving
uncertain what he might have accomplished for China with
European powers, and also uncertain the possible influence he
might have exercised with the great nation he represented, in
opening its avenues of approach, and bringing it within the
sphere of Western civilization.