SIR, -The refusal on the part of Lord Amherst to perform the Tartar ceremony of the Ko tou is the alleged cause of the rejection of the late embassy at the court of Pekin. It is certainly on many accounts to be regretted that the mission ended in so abrupt a manner. I am, however, much disposed to think, that unforeseen as the circumstances which led to itsermination have been, yet good nevertheless result from it. In the first place it is to be observed, that the embassy was not dismissed from China in an ungracious manner; presents from the respective sovereigns were interchanged; edicts were issued commanding the utmost respect to be paid to it through whatever towns it past; and finally, the imperial commissioners accepted an invitation to a public entertainment given by the ambassador at his departure from China, as a pledge and in honor of the good understanding which subsisted between the two monarchs. The ceremony of the Ko tou, though to a European and an Englishman absurd and degrading to a degree, would not have been made the sine qua non with Asiatic Journ.-No. 25.

Lord Amherst, but for the pernicious influence which the performance of it might have had on our concerns at Canton; on the other hand, the resolute and dignified rejection of it, in spite of arts, threats, bullyings and entreaties, has upheld the honor of the British name even among that arrogant people, and has done more to confound their lofty pretensions to universal pre-eminence than any thing that has occurred from the remotest periods of their boasted antiquity.

In Lord Amherst's instructions from the Secretary of State for foreign affairs, he was especially directed to conform to the ceremony of the Ko tou if expedient; but the precedent of Lord Macartney, who only kneeled on one knee and bowed the required number of times, added to the decided opinion of Sir George Staunton and all the other gentlemen of the Factory, of the pernicious effect such a marked submission would have on our commercial relations with the Chinese, induced his lordship very wisely to resist every attempt to enforce his compliance. It is true, that the Emperor positively asserted that Lord Macartney had fully VOL. V.

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complied with it, and that he, the Emperor, saw it done. This imperial assertion it was not, of course, prudent for Sir George to take further notice of, than to plead his extreme youth at the time, and a treacherous memory.

The family now on the throne have never been popular with the Chinese; it is well known that it is of Tartar origin, and the continual attempts to engraft the customs of that nation on those of China have never ceased to vex the prejudices and mortify the national pride of this haughty people. The present Emperor is a man of a weak understanding, with all the caprice and insolence which weak men in so high a situation may naturally be supposed to possess. It is painful to reflect, that through all ranks of this great empire, a well managed deception is considered as the perfection of education, and that to deceive with address is the only touchstone of polite manners and good breeding. His imperial Majesty has taken good care that the court of Pekin should peculiarly excel in this truly national as well as courtly accomplishment. Kia king is merely respected by his subjects as their emperor, but neither beloved as the father of his people nor considered in any other fight than a link in the imperial chain, which from the remotest periods has bound them to the doctrine of perfect and passive obedience to the Celestial Dy

nasty."

The recollection of the rebellion of 1810, the substance of which is recorded in your first volume, is still rankling in the minds of the Emperor and his favourites, as well as of the remains of the party who fostered it, and who are at this time possessed of considerable influence at Pekin. Some of them loudly expressed their opinion, that the Prince Regent of England was too powerful a prince not to take revenge on the Emperor for

the affront offered to the embassy, and that next year another embassy, backed with English ships of war ofimmense size, would enter the gulph of Pe che lee to enforce more respectful treatment. It is quite certain that after the refusal of Lord Amherst to perform the ceremony, all ranks of people from Pekin to Canton seemed to contemplate the members of the embassy as beings of a far superior order to what they were before considered. The haughty insolence of the Mandarins was changed to the most assiduous and respectful attention; the edicts of the Emperor were more than literally obeyed; and had his Imperial Majesty conferred the highest and most conspicuous honors on the embassy, he would, in all probability, have failed in procuring it that universal and marked respect, which the dignified rejcction of the degrading Ko tou so evidently obtained for it.

The decisive, gallant, and judicious conduct of Capt. Murray Maxwell, whose broadside at once silenced the batteries and insolence of the Viceroy of Canton, must not here be lost sight of. On the final departure of the embassy, that person was the very first to pay his court to Capt. Maxwell, and actually ordered out the same men who fired at the Alceste, on that vessel attempting to pass up the river, to present arms to Capt. M. and his officers, as well as to make the forts salute the embassy. The conduct of Capt. Maxwell * well known at Pekin; but the same haughty court, which could not dispense with a single tittle of ceremony, gravely pocketed the open affront of a British frigate battering about at pleasure the imperial forts; and the very man who was the cause of the insult, seemed to be sent from China as him whom the "Emperor de

was

* Captain Maxwell fired with his own hand the first gun in this affair. See Mr. Macleod's interesting Narrative of the Voyage of the Alceste to China and the Yellow Sea.

lighted to honor." That after this the Chinese are to be accounted the high-minded and noble nation which many writers are found of describing them, will, I think, be scarcely conceded.

The established religion of China is that of Baudhism, but a toleration of all religions is permitted; so long as the sectarian does not intermeddle with the affairs of the state, he is perfectly safe in the exercise of his profession. The disciples of Buddha in China are of course subject to the same absurd dogmas and deplorable delusions as his followers in India: but Baudhism is inculcated in a much milder manner in China; and though the Chinese are in general attentive to the offices of devotion, yet they give themselves very little trouble in strictly practising its precepts. The religion of a Chinese does not affect his heart, nor does he suffer his understanding to startle at its mysteries or question its orthodoxy; it is enough for him that it was the faith of his forefathers, and it is his glory to resist innovation and change, whether in matters spiritual or temporal. Vol. taire and his followers have been fond of holding up this people as an example to Europeans, probably from the great indifference they shew in matters of religion, and what is a most natural consequence, the tolerant spirit of their government towards all sects; and this alone was sufficient to ensure them the encomiums of the infidel philosopher.

The literature of the Chinese,* so highly vaunted by former writers, has lately, and with reason, begun to be questioned. Imperial libraries, composed of millions of volumes of illustrations of Confucius and books on religion and divination, may bespeak a nation of writers, but is no proof of sound learning. The late specimens of Chinese

See Asiatic Journal, Vol. I. No. 1., for specimens of Chinese poetry.

literature which have come into our hands, present us with no fresh materials to form a more favorable judgment of this part of their national character; and till other proofs arise, we must be compelled to take the number of their books as the only attainable standard of the quantum of their literary merit.

But the Chinese cover a thousand defects by the decorum of their manners and a strict propriety of public behaviour; in appearance they are indeed a nation of sages.' The populace or mob of China have no characteristic vices, or even indiscretions; the same continuous line, both of physiognomy and of action, marks their proceedings on all occasions; there is no "people in China, all are the subjects and the property of the "Son of Heaven.' This acquired command of passion and of feeling prevents, in a great measure, the frequent occurrence of flagitious crimes, and to that may be ascribed the general mildness of their laws. But the Chinese code is not that of a free people: despotism, in its purest meaning, is the letter and spirit of every act of the legisla ture, supported by one single, though mighty pillar, viz. that progressive submission which rises from the bosom of the meanest family to the imperial throne.

Those who have written on the character of this people, especially Voltaire and the Abbé Grozier, have been disposed to think more favorably of them than perhaps the present or future ages will do; but those writers spoke from very deficient sources of knowledge, they judged entirely from the appearance of things and from report, and in no place are appearances more deceitful than in China. The experience of the embassies of Lords Macartney and Amherst begin now to open the eyes of the world at large; and though there is much hidden from our view, we plainly see that the inhabitants