WE had no fooner paffed the fummit of the high mountain Me-lin, and entered the province of Quan-tung, or Canton, than a very fenfible difference was perceived in the conduct of the inhabitants. Hitherto the Embaffy had met with the greateft: refpect and civility from all claffes of the natives, but now even the peafantry ran out of their houfes, as we paffed, and bawled after us Queitze-fan-quei, which, in their language, are opprobrious and contemptuous expreffions, fignifying foreign devils, imps; epithets that are beftowed by the enlightened Chinefe on all foreigners. It was obvious, that the haughty and infolent manner in which all Europeans refiding at, or trading to, the port of Canton are treated, had extended itfelf to the northern frontier of the province, but it had not croffed the mountain Me-lin; the natives of Kiang-fee being a quiet, civil, and inoffenfive people. In Quan-tung the farther we advanced, the more rude and infolent they became. A timely rebuke, however, given to the governor of Nau-fheun-foo by Van-ta-gin, for applying the above-mentioned opporbrious epithets to the Britifh Embaffy, had a good effect on the Canton officers, who were now to be our conductors through their province.

This contempt of foreigners is not confined to the upper ranks, or men in office, but pervades the very loweft clafs who, whilft they make no fcruple of entering into the fervice of foreign merchants refiding in the country, and accepting the moft menial employments under them, performing the duties of their feveral offices with diligence, punctuality, and fidelity, affect, at the fame time, to defpife their employers, and to confider them as placed, in the fcale of human beings, many degrees below them.

THE late period at which the nations of Europe became firft acquainted with the exiftence even of that vaft extent of country comprehended under the name of China, the difficulties of accefs to any part of it when known, the peculiar nature of the language which, as I have endeavoured to prove, has no relation with any other either ancient or modern, the extreme jealoufy of the government towards foreigners, and the contempt in which they were held by the loweft of the people, may ferve, among other caufes, to account for the very limited and imperfect knowledge we have hitherto obtained of the real hiftory of this extraordinary empire: for their records, it feems, are by no means deficient, for two centuries at lead before the Chriftian era, down to the prefent time, the tranfactions of each reign are amply detailed without any interruption. They have even preferved collections of copper coins, forming a regular feries of the different Emperors that have filled the throne of China for the laft two thoufand years. Such a collection, though not quite complete, Sir George Staunton brought with him to England.

Before this time, when China confifted of a number of petty ftates or principalities, the annals of the country are faid to abound with recitals of wars and battles and bloodfhed, like thofe of every other part of the world.

“IF any man fhould make a collection of all the inventions, “and all the productions, that every nation, which now is, “or ever has been, upon the face of the globe, the whole “would fall far fhort, either as to number or quality, of what “is to be met with in China.” Thefe, or fomething fimilar, are the words of the learned Ifaac Voffius.

The teftimony given by the celebrated authors of the Encyclopedie des Connoiffances humaines is almoft equally ftrong: “The Chinefe who, by common content, are fuperior to all “the Afiatic nations, in antiquity, in genius, in the profrefs “of the fciences, in wifdom, in government, and, in true phi-“lofophy; may, moreover, in the opinion of fome authors, “enter the lifts, on all thefe points, with the moft enlightened “nations of Europe.”

How flattering, then, and gratifying muft it have been to the feelings of thofe few favoured perfons, who had the good fortune to be admitted into the fuite of the Britifh Embaffador, then preparing to proceed to the court of that Sovereign who held the government of fuch an extraordinary nation; how greatly muft they have enjoyed the profpect of experiencing, in their own perfons, all that was virtuous, and powerful, and grand, and magnificent, concentrated in one point—in the city of Pekin!