The quick little interpreter, Miguel, said that this was agreeable to reason, a point which the deputies were less ready to admit. They could not allow the comparison. “Such,” said they, “are our laws. They must be implicitly obeyed.” “Had there been an imperial order,” it was resumed, “or a written answer from the minister, then the business of the mission might be communicated to you; but how can it be communicated to persons of whose names and rank we are ignorant? The objects of the mission have, therefore, been stated in the letter, which it will be well for you to forward. This obstinacy in requiring to know our objects is insulting.” Mr. Morrison was now pressed to return to the ship, to receive the envoy’s permission for them to see the contents of the packet, and correct the phraseology of the letters. Finding them determined not to receive it as it was, he accordingly left, after having repeated the necessity of paying for their presents, should their continual opposition cause the failure of the mission. They appeared personally desirous of conciliation, though their national vanity and prejudices would not suffer them to see any thing absurd or improper in the conduct which their orders obliged them to adopt. In the evening Mr. Morrison again went on shore, with Chinese copies of the President’s letter to the emperor, and the envoy’s letter to the minister. Having required that the crowd of attendants, who usually stood round, listening to the conversation, should be dismissed, the envoy’s letter was shown to the deputies. They immediately proceeded to criticise every word and sentence, making several alterations and corrections, which, though of small importance, and generally unobjectionable, occupied considerable time. During the conversation, which the remarks, made on various parts of the letter, occasioned, the interpreter Miguel, apparently of his own accord, though probably prompted by his employers, remarked, that the President was equal to a _king_; but that the emperor was superior to a king. The natural inference, that the emperor of Cochin-China is superior to the President of the United States, he left to be deduced by others. The remark arose from an endeavour, on the part of the deputies, to have the President’s title placed lower than that of the emperor; not, they would have it believed, from an idea of inequality, but on account of the humbler style, which they insisted, the writing party must adopt in speaking of themselves. The envoy, it was answered, had taken that station, which courtesy to the person he addressed, required; but to place the President lower than the emperor, was a point of a different nature--a point which courtesy did not require, and which, the President and emperor being in every respect equal in rank, could never be complied with. Having at length concluded with the letter to the minister, every correction which could be considered derogatory or