present their case, the Chinese wasted no words on ceremony. There is an appealing dignity and brevity about their announcement of the mission.
"The envoy Anson Burlingame manages affairs in a friendly and peaceful manner, and is fully acquainted with the general relations between this and other countries; let him, therefore, now be sent to all the Treaty Powers as the high minister, empowered to attend to every question arising between China and those countries. This from the Emperor."
Resigning as minister from the United States and assuming the extraordinary rôle as Chinese ambassador to all creation, the Yankee set out to Tientsin in a cart. He was accompanied on the expedition by a suite of thirty persons. Two of those were secretaries—J. McLeavy Brown, Chinese secretary of the British Legation, and M. Deschamps, a Frenchman in high esteem in Pekin. Two others were members of the Chinese 400, sent as official "learners" for to see and to admire.
