During his service, Seward played a key role in early treaty negotiations that would eventually become known as the Chinese Exclusion Act.
His successor at Shanghai, John C. Myers of Reading, Pennsylvania, had reported to State Department superiors that Seward and his vice-counsul Oliver Bradford had been engaging in private land and capital speculation in China that seemed to violate the noninterference provisions of the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 [REF].