Wells Williams to G. H. C Salter, July 28, 1868

Mr. Williams to Mr. Salter

Sir: I beg to acknowledge your dispatch of the 2d instant, giving your reasons for not assenting to my decree of June 1, 1868, forbidding the use of the Straw Shoe channel to American steamers.

As these reasons (some of which are hypothetical) do not in my view outweigh those in favor of the measure, I shall publish the decree, and send it, with all the papers, to the Secretary of State, to be submitted to Congress.

In your dispatch you very properly refer to your long acquaintance with the ports and navigation of the Yangtsze river as entitling your opinion on this decree to much weight. It is possible, indeed, if care be taken, that there is no particular danger in navigating the Straw Shoe channel; yet here has been the scene of the only two serious collisions on the river which I now remember. In one of them, on April 5, 1865, by the American steamer Hukwang three women were drowned; and in another one last year, by a French steamer, a score of men were precipitated into the water as their junk was crushed, but happily no lives were lost.

So long ago as 1861, the use of this cut-off by foreign steamers was deemed to be so dangerous to the native crafts lying there, that the Taipings, then in possession of Nanking, prohibited it; and Governor-General Li, on reoccupying the city; complained of the danger of collision. In the spring of 1865, when the British and French commissioners accompanied the Chinese officers in their visit to Nanking preparatory to opening it as a new port, the latter drew the attention of their associates to the risk attending the constant passage of steamers through this channel. The governor-general says “the channel varies much in width, and the water at times runs deep and strong, and at other times with less force. Hitherto, native vessels trading up and down the river, and among them salt junks and timber rafts, have used this reach; and as these last are clumsy, if steamers pass up and down by them, they cannot easily move out of the way.”

These arguments, based on facts of constant occurrence, are worthy of consideration on grounds of humanity. By cooperating with the Chinese authorities in restricting this channel to native craft, we show a desire not to unnecessarily incommode them; and it appears by your table of the various cut-offs that our steamers only lose seven miles in the whole trip to Hankow by avoiding this one—no great sacrifice for them, if thereby life and property are rendered more secure.

There is no power in the Chinese government to close the others without our assent. You allude to strategic and other reasons which have induced them to close this; but only one reason has ever been brought forward by them, viz, a desire to prevent accidents in future, and relieve the fears of the native boatmen; and I have no idea that they have had any other motive or object.

They have issued no edict about the matter, for it could not affect us; they have, in the exercise of their guardianship of their own territory, shown the danger of this channel, and I have issued a decree supporting and enforcing the regulation over American steamers. The British minister has done the same, and the French, Russian, and Prussian ministers all approve the propriety of this rule, which does not close the navigation of the river in any way, and merely requires steamers to take the safest of two channels.

If the Chinese steamers use the forbidden passage, they should be reported and required to keep to the main channel.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,