occasion without first declaring the happiness I enjoy at meeting my friend of many years in the exalted position which he now holds.  Besides being my personal friend, 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.  Permit me to say that this splendid welcome, now offered by the municipal authorities of Boston, is only a natural expression of the sentiments which must prevail in this community.  Here his labors and triumphs began.  Here, 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 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 millions, 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 which it affords.  What we all ask is opportunity.  Here is opportunity on a surpassing scale—­to be employed, I am sure, so as 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.  For myself, I am less solicitous with regard to concessions or privileges, than with regard to that spirit of friendship and good neighborhood, which embraces alike the distant and the near, and, when once established, renders all else easy.

The necessary result of the present experiment in diplomacy will be to make the countries which it visits better known to the Chinese, and also to make the Chinese better known to them.  Each will know the other better and will better comprehend that condition of mutual dependence which is the law of humanity.  In the relations among nations, as in common life, this is of infinite value.  Thus far, I fear that the Chinese are poorly informed with regard to us.  I am sure that 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 as descending in his flight,

               ... on the barren plains
  Of Sericana, where Chineses drive,
  With sails and wind their cany wagons light.