COLTON SALTER, Consul of the United States, Hankow and Kukiang to S. Wells Williams , United States Chargé d’affaires ad interim, July 2, 1868

Mr. Salter to Mr. Williams

Sir: I have received from George F. Seward, esq., United States consul-general, your regulation of June 1, 1868, relative to the edict of the Chinese government prohibiting the use of the Straw Shoe channel, extending from Theodolite Point to Swallow Rock on the Yangtsze-Kiang. Mr. Seward says, in his dispatch No. 37: “Should the closing of this channel (generally known to navigators on the river as the Nanking cut-off) meet with your approval, please sign and return.”

I came out to China in 1863, and have had consular charge of the three ports on the Yang-Tse. I think I may safely say that I am more familiar with the accidents on the river than any other consul in China; and I speak from actual observation when I assert that there is no more probability or possibility of collision in this Straw Shoe channel than on the main channel of the river, if ordinary diligence and care be used.

The Chinese government speaks “of the danger incurred by the native shipping from steamers, and collisions having already occurred resulting in loss of life and property.” In 1865, the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company’s steamer Hukwang collided with a junk in this channel; no lives were lost, and the consul-general at Shanghai awarded full damages to the Chinese owners, I have carefully interrogated the different captains now running on the river, and their testimony is uniform that “no other collisions have occurred in this cut-off, and no lives have been lost.”

I look upon this edict of the imperial government as emanating from the fertile brain of Tsang Kwohfan, who, as one of the guardians of the throne, wields immense influence at Peking. His object, I think, is a strategic one, to divert the foreign steamers from one of the approaches to Nanking. If he succeeds in this step, what is to prevent him from asserting that frequent accidents have occurred in the other cut-offs, “resulting in loss of life and property,” and close them also? I will enumerate the principal cutoffs in order, and it is only following the idea to a logical conclusion, if the imperial government close one cut-off, they may close all the cut-offs on the Yangtsze-Kiang from Chin-Kian to Hankow:

If this fatal concession is made, it will be one insidious step towards closing the river altogether. It is quite a significant fact that this Straw Shoe channel, or Nanking cut-off, is the only one of the nine above mentioned navigable during the entire year, in mid-winter the lead showing three to three and a half fathoms. In the narrowest part, if 200 junks were moored three deep on each side, there would still be room for the two largest steamers on the river (the Plymouth Rock, of 2,380 tons, and the Fire Queen, of 2,886 tons) to pass each other.

There are other cut-offs on the river Yangtsze; if they were all closed it would involve a loss to the American steamers now on the river of $50,000 per annum in coal alone. The pecuniary sacrifice, however, is nothing compared with the surrender, as I consider it, of a treaty right.

Looking dispassionately on the subject, with the light of five years’ experience, I am constrained to return the regulation without my approval. I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,