o f the government. A fhort refidence in the imperial palace o f
Yuen-min-yuen, a greater ihare o f liberty than is ufually permitted
to ftrangers in this country, with the affiftance o f ibme
little knowledge o f the language, afforded me the means o f collecting
the fads and obfervations which I now lay before the
public; and in the relation o f which I have endeavoured to adhere
to that excellent rule o f our immortal poet,
— ------«* Nothing extenuate,
Nor fet down aught in malice.**
And as the qualities o f good and evil, excellence and mediocrity,
in any nation, can only be fairly eftimated by a comparifon with
thofe o f the fame kind in others, wherever a fimilitude or a contrait
in the Chinefe character or cuftoms with thofe o f any other
people ancient Or modern occurred to my recollection, I have
confidered it as not wholly uninterefting to note the relation or
difagreement.
T h e difpatches from China, received by the Britifh Embaffa-
dor on his arrival at Batavia, communicated the agreeable intelligence
that his Imperial Majefty had been pleafed, by a public
ed iâ , not only to declare his entire fatisfa&ion with the intended
embaify, but that he had likewife iffued ftriCt orders to the commanding
officers o f the fevcral ports along the coaft o f the Ye llow
Sea, to be particularly careful that Pilots ihould be ready,
at a moment’s notice, to conduct the Englifh fquadron to Tien-
ftng, the neareft port to the capital, or to any other which
might be confidered as more convenient and fuitable for the
Britifh fhips.
B y
B y this communication a point o f fome difficulty was now confidered
to be removed. It was deemed a defireable circumftance
to be furnifhed with the means o f proceeding direCtly to Pekin
through the Yellow Sea, and thus to avoid any intercourfe with the
port o f Canton; as it was well known the principal officers o f the
government there were prepared to throw every obftacle in the
way o f the embaify, and if not effeaually to prevent, at leaft to
counteract, any reprefentations that might be made at the imperial
court, with regard to the abufes that exift in the adminiftra-
tion o f the public affairs at that place, and more efpecially to the
exaCtions and impofitions to which the commercial eftablifh-
ments are liable o f the different nations whofe fubjeCts have efta-
blifhed factories in this fouthern emporium of-China. It could
not be fuppofed, indeed, that their endeavours would be lefs exerted,
in this particular inftance, than on all former occafions o f
a fimilar nature.
T h e navigation o f the Yellow Sea, as yet entirely unknown
to any European nation, was confidered as a fubjeCt o f fome
importance, from the information it would afford the means o f
fupplying, and which, on any future occafion, might not only
leffen the dangers o f an-unknown paffage, but prevent alfo much
delay b y fuperfeding the neceffity o f running into different ports
in fearch o f Chinefe Pilots, whom, by experience, we afterwards
found to be more dangerous than ufeful.
W e paired, through the ftreight o f Formofa without feeing
any part o f the main land o f China, or o f the ifland from
whence the ftreight derives its name, except a high point
p towards