The flag of the United States first appeared in Chinese waters on a trading ship in 1785. From the beginning, Americans had less trouble with the Chinese than Europeans had experienced, partly because they had recently been at war with the English whom the Chinese hated and feared, and partly because they were less violently aggressive in dealing with the Chinese. By the treaties of July and October, 1844, the United States peacefully reaped the advantages which England had obtained at the cost of war. November 17, 1856, two American ships were fired upon by the Bogue Forts, but in spite of the hostilities which resulted, the representatives of the United States appeared to find more favour with the Chinese than those of any other power in the negotiations at Tien-tsin in 1858, and their treaty was signed a week before those of the French and the British. Article X provided that the ``United States shall have the right to appoint consuls and other commercial agents, to reside at such places in the dominions of China as shall be agreed to be opened''; and Article XXX that, ``should at any time the Ta-Tsing Empire grant to any nation or the merchants or citizens of any nation any right, privileges or favour connected with either navigation, commerce, political or other intercourse which is not conferred by this treaty, such right, privilege and favour shall at once freely inure to the benefit of the United States, its public officers, merchants and citizens.'' In the settlement of damages, the Chinese agreed to pay to the United States half a million taels, then worth $735,288. When the adjustments with individual claimants left a balance of $453,400 in the treasury, Congress, to the unbounded and grateful surprise of the Chinese, gave it back to them. Mr. Burlingame, the celebrated United States Minister to China, became the most popular foreign minister in Peking within a short time after his arrival in 1862, and so highly did the Chinese Government appreciate his efforts in its behalf that during the American Civil War it promptly complied with his request to issue an edict forbidding all Confederate ships of war from entering Chinese ports. Mr. Foster declares that ``such an order enforced by the governments of Europe would have saved the American commercial marine from destruction and shortened the Civil War.''[44] [44] Foster, ``American Diplomacy in the Orient,'' p. 259.