3 August 1868 • New York, N.Y. (MS, damage emended: CSmH, UCCL 02743)
I wrote you Wednesday last, when I arrived—I have the letter in my pocket yet—forgot to mail it. I wrote my other mother at the same time. I have both letters in my pocket. I am always particular to write to my friends. Don’t scold. I have met many friends, & have been very, very busy. I have not seen Capt. Duncan, or Ⓐemendationthe Beaches, but have Dan & ⒶemendationJack Van Nostrand.
I have worked hard on an Ⓐemendationarticle for the Tribune, concerning Ⓐemendationthe Chinese Treaty, & I Ⓐemendationpromised to send it down to-day. It isn’t finished. If I don’t finish it to-day I shall not finish it at all.1explanatory note I did not come east to work, except on the book. I expect to go to Hartford tomorrow, & begin.2explanatory note
I wish I could go immediately West, & comply with your kind invitation, but I suppose it will be impossible to do it before 1st October. Written contracts are pretty binding, you know.
Dan says you were in Elmira a short time ago. I wish I could have arrived soon enough to see you. Cannot you come East now? You haven’t got anything to do.
I knew that dog would die. I knew perfectly well you had invoked a fatal disaster for him when you gave him my name. He received all my sins along with the name, perhaps, & no dog could survive that.
Remember me most kindly, to all the family, & herewith know that I hold you to an extension of your invitation, to take effect two months hence. Whereupon, you will please stand ready to trot out your fatted calf.3explanatory note
closing and signature cut away
The next day, a six-thousand-word article, “The Treaty with China,” signed “Mark Twain,” appeared on the front page of the New York Tribune, explicating the treaty just ratified by the Senate on 24 July. By Clemens’s own admission, the article was “concocted” by him with the Burlingame family and J. McLeavy Brown, first secretary of Burlingame’s Chinese mission (SLC 1868; Senate 1887, 16:355–56; 7 Oct 68 to Burlingameclick to open link; Anson Burlingame to William H. Seward, 14 Dec 67, Congress, 1:494). Alert to Clemens’s close personal relationship with Burlingame, the Tribune evidently commissioned the article on 30 July, the day after his arrival at the Westminster Hotel, where Burlingame and the Chinese delegation also arrived on 29 July, “at a late hour” (“The Chinese Embassy,” New York Evening Post, 30 July 68, 2). John Russell Young, still the Tribune’s managing editor, noted in his diary for 30 July: “Came down late, and called on Anson Burlingame and Mark Twain. Chatted for an hour and had a pleasant chat.” It may have been Young who explained that the article was “furnished ... by a gentleman who thoroughly understands whereof he writes” (John Russell Young, entry for 30 July; “A full explanation ...,” New York Tribune, 4 Aug 68, 4). The chief makers of the Burlingame treaty, as it came to be known, were Secretary of State William Seward, who drafted the eight articles, and Burlingame, who, as Chinese envoy to the West, was empowered to negotiate on behalf of the Chinese government. The main provisions of the treaty
recognized China’s right to unmolested dominion over her own territories, with China conceding her control over inland trade and navigation; granted China the right to appoint consuls to American ports; insured freedom from persecution or followers of foregin religions in either country; allowed unrestricted voluntary migration between China and the United States; and admitted reciprocal rights of travel and residence. (Tsai, 28)
In his impassioned analysis, Clemens expressed a strong belief that the treaty would help to prevent persecution of Chinese immigrants, since a Chinese consul could “call to a strict account all who wrong them”:
It affords me infinite satisfaction to call particular attention to this Consul clause, and think of the howl that will go up from the cooks, the railroad graders, and the cobble-stone artists of California, when they read it. They can never beat and bang and set the dogs on the Chinamen any more. These pastimes are lost to them forever. In San Francisco, a large part of the most interesting local news in the daily papers consists of gorgeous compliments to the “able and efficient” Officer This and That for arresting Ah Foo, or Ching Wang, or Song Hi for stealing a chicken; but when some white brute breaks an unoffending Chinaman’s head with a brick, the paper does not compliment any officer for arresting the assaulter, for the simple reason that the officer does not make the arrest; the shedding of Chinese blood only makes him laugh; he considers it fun of the most entertaining description.... I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature, but I never saw a policeman interfere in the matter and I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done him. (SLC 1868)
Clemens also understood the purpose of making emigration easier:
Chinamen work hard, and with tireless perseverance; other foreigners get out of work, and labor exchanges must look out for them. Chinamen look out for themselves, and are never idle a week at a time; they make excellent cooks, washers, ironers, and house servants.... The Chinamen, able to work for half wages, will take their rough manual labor off the hands of ... white men. (SLC 1868)
On the day of his arrival, 29 July, Clemens telegraphed Elisha Bliss, apparently indicating that he was on his way to Hartford. But Bliss was about to release Richardson’s new book, A Personal History of Ulysses S. Grant, and therefore suggested postponing Clemens’s Hartford visit:
Your favors have been received & your telegraph, today. How are you? Glad to hear of your safe arrival Expected to see you tonight, but not neccessary to discomode yourself. I replied “I shall be in N.Y. on Monday” to your dispatch— Now what I wish to say is we are just bringing out Richardson’s “Grant” Book will make its appearance tomorrow—Therefore we do not need to press this business unless you wish it. I thought perhaps you would prefer to send your manuscript up by Express to me, let me look it over—& see you on Monday in N.Y. & arrange things there. I should then be able to express an opinion as to the thing, & whether any alterations would suggest themselves to my mind. I mean of course minor ones such as arrangements of chapters, styles &c.— I could talk with you more knowingly as to our future steps &c— Having seen you there, you would probably find it neccessary to come to Hartford soon after & stay perhaps a few days with us. (Bliss to SLC, 29 July 68, CU-MARK)
Clemens probably did not send his manuscript, and he did postpone the trip. Bliss and Clemens could have met in New York anytime between 3 and 7 August, when Clemens evidently traveled to Hartford (SLC 1868).
Luke 15:23.
MS, damage emended, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (CSmH, call no. HM 14230). A photographic facsimile of the MS is on pp. 463–64. Clemens wrote this letter in black ink on both sides of a single unruled sheet of white wove Westminster Hotel stationery, measuring approximately 9 by 10⅞ inches (22.8 by 27.5 cm), before folding it to make a single folder, approximately 5⅜ by 9 inches. The closing and signature have been cut away, which in turn caused the loss of several words on the other side of the sheet, as well as all but the last line of the printed letterhead. The damage has been conjecturally repaired by emendation. The text of the printed letterhead has been supplied from Westminster Hotel stationery used in a dozen earlier letters in 1867, even though it is clear from the last three words of the source text letterhead, which are preserved, that the original was not necessarily identical with the earlier examples. The earlier examples all name “Roberts & Palmer” as proprietors, not “Roberts, Palmer & Ferrin,’ as the source text does.
L2 , 237–239; MTMF , 34–35.
see Huntington Library, p. 512. □
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.