19 February 1868 • (1st of 2) • Washington, D.C. (Cyril Clemens, 18–19, UCCL 00194)
Don’t neglect or refuse to keep a gorgeous secretaryship or a high interpretership for me in your great embassy—for pilgrim as I am, I have not entirely exhausted Europe yet, & Ⓐemendationmay want to get converse with some of those Kings again, by & bye.2explanatory note
I am writing a prodigious 600-page book, Ⓐemendationnow—a seductive book with pictures on every page—for the great subscription Publishing Co., of Hartford, who publish for Greeley & I exclusively Ⓐemendation 3explanatory note—but I shall have this book done before autumn, & then I think I shall want to be an interpreter. I always did want to be an interpreter. It is the only ambition I have.
Please remember me most kindly & respectfully to Mrs. Burlingame, & tell that boy of yours to drop me a line, for I doubt not you are too busy to write to people yourself.4explanatory note
The manuscript of the next letter, a “duplicate” of this one, shows that the date was probably 19 February. It is not known whether this letter ever reached Burlingame; its provenance and current location are likewise unknown.
In June 1866 in Honolulu, Burlingame (1820–70), who had been “envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from the United States to China” since 1861, met and befriended Clemens, inviting him to come and stay with him in Peking. Burlingame resigned as minister in November 1867, and thereupon accepted a post offered him by the emperor of China as “envoy on behalf of the Chinese government to all the treaty powers,” charged with visiting these nations in order to express China’s “sincere desire to be friendly and progressive” and to discuss its position on renewal or revision of treaties in effect since 1858 (SLC to JLC and PAM, 27 June 66click to open link, L1 , 347–48; Burlingame to William H. Seward, 21 Nov 67 and 14 Dec 67, Congress, 1:493–94; S. Wells Williams to Seward, 23 Dec 67, Congress, 1:495–96). At the time of this letter, which Clemens probably directed to San Francisco, Burlingame was about to leave Hong Kong on his way to Washington (via San Francisco), the first stop on his tour of the capitals of western nations, which was to include (among others) London, Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg (“Arrival of the ‘China’ from China and Japan,” San Francisco Alta California, 1 Apr 68, 1). Clemens did not accompany or later join Burlingame; he did, however, publish an article in the New York Tribune about the Chinese mission (SLC 1868). Burlingame died of pneumonia in Russia in 1870, on the verge of completing his diplomatic assignment.
Burlingame married Jane Cornelia Livermore in June 1847. Their son, Edward Livermore Burlingame (1848–1922), left Harvard College in his first year and accompanied his father as a secretary upon the latter’s return to China in the summer of 1866, when Clemens met both of them in Honolulu. Clemens later recalled Edward as “a handsome boy of nineteen, and overflowing with animation, activity, energy, and the pure joy of being alive” (AD, 20 Feb 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA , 2:125).
Cyril Clemens, 18–19.
L2 , 186–187; none known except the source text.
In 1932, when Cyril Clemens published the letter, it belonged to Frederick A. Burlingame. The MS has not since been found.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.