[2] During this period, he co-authored a biography of the Buddha with Nanjo Bunyu and Ernst Leumann, and completed a French language translation of the Prātimokṣa sūtra, published in 1884 under the title Prâtimoksha sutra; ou, Le traité d'émancipation selon la version tibétaine: avec notes et extraits du Dulva (Vinaya).

[2] He sent an account of his travels to the Smithsonian Institution for publication (as The Land of the Lamas (1891)), and in 1893, he was awarded the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.

[11] In 1897, President William McKinley named Rockhill U.S. Minister to Greece, a position he held from September 25, 1897, to April 27, 1899.

[citation needed] With the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay, who knew little of the Far East, turned to Rockhill for guidance.

[4] As such, Rockhill drafted a memorandum that spelled out the famous Open Door Policy towards China; this memorandum was circulated to Russia, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, and Italy and in March 1900, Secretary Hay announced that all the Great Powers had signed off on the Open Door Policy.

[4] Rockhill was then despatched as President McKinley's special envoy, where he represented the U.S. in the Conference of Ministers that followed the ending of the Boxer Rebellion.

[12] Afflicted by a severe cold he contracted in San Francisco, he developed pleurisy on the voyage, and had to leave the ship on arrival at Honolulu for treatment.

Four days later, the pleurisy overcome, the ordeal occasioned him heart failure and he died in a Honolulu hospital on 8 December 1914, aged 60.