Sending a diplomatic mission to the Ta Tsing Empire by the US was partly an aftermath of the First Anglo-Chinese War (AKA First Opium War, 1839-1842) and the events of signings of the Treaty of Nanking and the Supplementary Treaty. The US government intended to follow the trail of Great Britain to conclude a treaty of peace with China so as to enjoy, share or even broaden the mercantile interests and privileges which had been obtained by the Englishmen through waging a war against Ta Tsing Empire. Taking advantage of Ta Tsing Empire's precarious position, the first American mission to China arrived at Macau in February, 1844, when Commissioner Caleb Cushing, the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to China proposed to proceed to the city of Peking immediately to present his credentials to the August Emperor Taou Kwang and to negotiate with the officials concerning a treaty between the two countries. Confronting Cushing's coercion of possibly using military forces to wage a war against the Ta Tsing Empire exactly like Great Britain did and such an untimely request only one and a half years after the British government used its naval and gunnery power to defeat China, Ching Yutsai, the acting Governor General of Kwang Tung (Guangdong) and Kwang Se (Guangxi) of the Celestial Dynasty, tried his best to implement the emperor's expedient tactics and edicts to tenderly cherish men from afar and to prevent the US mission from going to Peking. Ching Yutsai managed to disillusion the mission to proceed to Peking by actively or passively sending and answering an array of public dispatches or Diplomatic Notes to the Commissioner Caleb Cushing. The confirmed 25 Diplomatic Notes found between the two sides, however, were full of conflicts, during which, for one reason or another, Ching Yutsai gave the opposing party many excuses that undermined the credibility of him and other Chinese high officials. Retrospectively, some incidents could be regarded as Ching's diplomatic faux pas including, among others, Ching Yutsai's first Diplomatic Note alleging that Cushing had stated in his public dispatch sent to him that ″the frigate Brandywine has gone to Manila to take in a full supply of provisions, and that, after about a month's delay, she may repair to Tien Tsin, etc.″ Such an allegation, surprisingly, was not from the Cushing's original note at all. Another example was related to the major changes and alterations made by Ching toward the copy of the Treaty of Nanking when Cushing asked for the original treaties concluded between Great Britain and the Ta Tsing Empire or between Portugal and the Ta Tsing Empire. Ching agreed to send the Chinese version of the Treaty of Nanking to Cushing but shortened the original 13 articles to 7 articles and no mention was made of the cession of Hong Kong. The original 3 articles about the payment of indemnities were reduced to only one article and the sum of the indemnities was changed to 3 million silver-dollars from 21 million silver-dollars. Even those 7 articles presented to Cushing were all abridged or altered. For example, he refused to use the word ″Great″ to address England. Such alterations incurred great dissatisfaction and distrust of Cushing and gave him a solid reason to quickly attack Ching and to make further negotiation hard for Keying. Consequently, to make sure the Chinese version of the Treaty of Wang-Hiya was a faithful copy, Cushing even had the characters of the original Chinese document numbered, and placed that number on record for remembrance and future observation. And Bridgman later back translated the Chinese version to English to make sure that the Chinese version was the equivalent of the English version of the Treaty. The Cushing mission perceived nearly all these problems and repeatedly counter-questioned Ching for explanations. To answer these examinations and make good cases for his mistakes, Ching chose either to keep mute or to excuse himself by blaming the translation for not being perspicuous. In addition, the translation of the Chinese phrase ″sanyue″(三月) into ″three months″ instead of ″March″ by the Chinese Secretary to Legation Peter Parker brought grave consequence to the talks between the two sides and nearly led to the breakdown of the negotiation. The conflicts and negotiations between the Ta Tsing Empire and the United States of America before the Treaty of Wang-Hiya were finally concluded were with intense dramatics. A deeper research of the history of this period using comparative textual and translation history studies on both English and Chinese versions of the very same historic event is beneficial for writing the very first page of the modern diplomatic history between the two countries.
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引用本文:
屈文生. 笔尖上的战争:《望厦条约》订立前顾圣与程矞采间照会交涉研究[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2017, 3(5): 100-117.
Qu Wensheng. War of Words: Translation and Textual Studies of Diplomatic Notes between Cushing and Ching before the Signing of the Treaty of Wang-Hiya. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2017, 3(5): 100-117.