F. F. Low to C. G. Beebe, January 15, 1873

Mr. Low to Mr. Beebe.

Dear Sir: Your note of the 16th ultimo, inquiring what rights missionaries have in regard to the purchase or renting of land and buildings at places other than the open ports, only came yesterday.

In reply, I have to say that, according to the interpretation placed on the treaties by the Government of the United States, all American citizens are placed on an equality, and that no rights will be claimed for missionaries that are denied to merchants. It therefore logically follows—

• That there is no authority under the treaties for citizens of the United States to purchase land outside of the limits of the treaty-ports.
• If property be purchased, and buildings erected thereon, and they should be damaged or destroyed “by mob or other violence of the Chinese,” the claim for damages would be an equitable, rather than a legal one; and, if the local, or the imperial, authorities should refuse to respond, upon the ground that the property was purchased in violation of treaty-rights, it is extremely doubtful if our Government would sanction any proceedings which might be instituted by its diplomatic or consular officers to collect it.
• Merchants and missionaries are permitted by treaty to travel in the interior under passports. Any property which may be necessary for their temporary use and occupation, during such travel, it would be competent and lawful to rent, and they should be fully protected in the use and occupation thereof. If, on the other hand, property be rented for permanent residence inland, it would be subject to the same rules and liable to the same disabilities as purchased property.

To sum up the whole question in a few words, there is no provision in any of the treaties which, honestly construed, will permit of permanent residence away from the open ports. The right has been claimed under the 6th article of the French treaty of 1860, and many honestly believed, until recently, that it was legal and proper so to do. The fact is now proven that all that part of article 6, before referred to, on which missionaries have hitherto relied for their protection, is an interpolation in the Chinese text, for which there is no equivalent in the French version, which must be taken and held to be the original in cases of dispute.

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There are, at the present time, a considerable number of missionaries in the interior, who went there in the full belief that they had a right to do so, and I shall do nothing which may endanger their safety or injure their usefulness. But while I shall try and protect, to the utmost of my ability, the people before referred to, my opinion is clear and decided that no further efforts should be made to establish stations inland, until we have a clear and undisputed right to do so by treaty.

Yours, very truly,