An Authentic Account of the Embassy of the Dutch East-India Company, to the Court of the Emperor of China, in the Years 1974 and 1795/Advertisement
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OF
THE EDITOR.
THE more distant the Regions which the Traveller describes, the more they differ in their moral and physical nature from the nations for whose instruction and gratification he destines his observations, the more important is it to the reader to know in what degree his confidence is due to the man who speaks to him of what is passing in remote countries, and almost at the other end of the world.
It is particularly in respect to China that the Fear of receiving the productions of an imagination more or less fertile for a true recital is easily awakened. That immense Empire is so little known; the prejudices of its inhabitants, or rather the wisdom of its government, has thrown so many obstacles in the way of those Europeans who might feel a desire to penetrate into the country in order to satisfy their curiosity and to examine what imperfect and hasty sketches have given them a faint idea of, that if it is easy to give imaginary details for certain facts, it is at the same time difficult to secure a true relation, from the existing distrust, which puts the Reader upon his guard against the Narrator.
Accordingly, to expect always extraordinary things from a Traveller who speaks of China, and to doubt his veracity merely because he relates things which seem extraordinary — is the disposition of mind of those, who read any thing written concerning that astonishing country.
It is to shew the well-informed reader what degree of confidence he may place in the Travels now submitted to his inspection, that the Editor has thought it adviseable to give him some idea of the character of the person who presents them to the public.
M. André Everard Van-Braam Houckgeest, born in 1739, in the province of Utrecht, in Holland, first served his country in the Dutch navy, in which two of his brothers, still alive, have more than once displayed great talents, and have both obtained the rank of Admiral, as a just reward for their services.
Determined by circumstances, which a state whose peculiar characteristic it is to be commercial, often affords, M. Van-Braam quitted the navy in 1758, and went to China, in quality of Supercargo of the Dutch East-India Company. He resided at Macao and Canton till 1773, except during two very short voyages to Europe.Returning to his native land after an effective residence of eight years in a country where in that length of time he could not sail to acquire great information, M. Van-Braam settled in Guelderland, and remained there till 1783.
At the last mentioned epoch the Independence of America had just been solemnly acknowledged by the powers of the old world. This event, which re echoed throughout Europe, and awakened ideas almost as new as itself, inspired M. Van-Braam with the desire of inhabiting a country which had been represented to him in the most enthusiastic terms.
Of all the United States he gave the preference to South Carolina; and in 1783 became a merchant, and a cultivator of rice in that State. He was even naturalized as a citizen of the United States in 1784; and was living there in peace and happiness, when one of those dreadful fatalities of which the climate of that province affords but too many examples, deprived him, in the course of a single month, of four of his children.
This loss, for which a paternal heart has never been able to console itself, together with that of his fortune occasioned by a false friend, were the motives that induced M. Van-Braam to listen to the propositions transmitted to him by one of his brothers in the name of the Dutch East-India Company, who wished him to undertake the management of their affairs at Canton, in quality of Chief of the Factory.
This new mark of confidence shewn him by his primitive country, and his desire to turn his eyes from 2 quarter of the globe in which his two only sons and two of his daughters had found an untimely grave, determined M. Van Braam to accept what was offered him. He returned to Holland, and set off immediately after for Canton.
A knowledge of several countries, and a consequent habit of observing their opposite characters, inspired M. Van-Braam with a desire of more attentively examining all that he was allowed to see of China. With this desire was combined that rational curiosity which seeks to penetrate into mysteries under which it imagines useful truths to lie concealed; and, lastly, that sentiment so natural to a European, of wishing to acquire further knowledge of a nation of which the little already known furnishes matter of so much well-founded astonishment.
As soon as this project was conceived, M. Van-Braam made it one of his principal concerns. Industrious both by habit and disposition; led by his very duties to make observations; having opportunities more or less frequent of questioning Chinese; able himself to sketch every thing that came in his way; enabled by the increase of his fortune, a consequence of his successful administration of the Company's affairs, to pay intelligent artists; and never tired of waiting in order that he might see things better, and hazard nothing upon mere conjecture, he every day added to what I shall call his Chinese riches.
But one of those uncommon events, such as it were to be wished might fall in the way of all true friends to useful science, occurred most opportunely to savour M. Van-Braam's inclinations and plan.
Appointed Second in the Embassy sent by the Dutch, East-India Company to the Emperor of China in 1794, a vast extent of country was laid open to his view. Thus converting into personal experience what had been little more than oral tradition, he had the most favourable opportunity of verifying all that had been related; to him, and, what was still more fortunate, of forming a judgment of things which he had not even had an idea of enquiring into, because nothing had given him reason to suspect their existence.
Astonished by what he saw, M. Van-Braam did not lose a single moment in making the inhabitants of the other parts of the world, as far as it depended upon him, partakers in the sensations he experienced, and in the well-founded admiration he felt on more than one occasion. Doubly a painter, his pen and his pencil were constantly employed in depicting whatever he saw; and sparing neither pains nor expence, he may be said not to have suffered anything to escape him which was worthy of the attention of a discerning public.
The narrative of his journey may even be considered, in some degree, as an official account of the Dutch Embassy, since having been submitted to the inspection of the persons belonging to that Embassy, it did not afford them the least room for criticism, and since the Ambassador himself took copies of it, with a view of sending them to the Regency of Batavia, and to the Prince Stadtholder.
The age of M. Van-Braam, the success that attended his undertakings, the ties of nature, and those of friendship, at last induced him to quit Canton on the sixth of December 1795, with a view to pass the rest of his days in the United States of America, He arrived at Philadelphia on the 24th of April 1796.
Never, I will venture to assert, did a foreigner leave China with a like treasure, or with so many testimonies of his veracity; and if M. Van-Braam had only exhibited his numerous drawings of every thing which that Empire presented to him as worthy of a place in his immense collection, China would be better known by them alone than by all that has been written concerning it till the present day. To give an idea of what is experienced upon a sight of all the drawings which M. Van-Braam has collected, and which represent China in every shape, and in every point of view, I will only say, that after the curiosity of the most acute and inquisitive spectator is satiated, a multitude of things still remain to be examined, which excite his surprise anew.
Finally, as if it were M. Van-Braam's destiny to signalize his abode in China by the most striking circumstances, he has brought over with him several Chinese, who seem to be come purposely to attest the truth of what he has related concerning their country, or has represented in his collection of drawings: a collection which he exposed for several months at Philadelphia to the view of all amateurs of the sciences. It was even impossible to avoid fancying ourselves in China, while surrounded at once by living Chinese, and by representations of their manners, their usages, their monuments, and their arts.
Such are M. Van Braam's claims upon the goodwill of his readers, and, I had almost said, upon their gratitude.
As to the Editor's labours, they have been executed with the greatest care; and he at least deserves the praise of fidelity, since there is not a single line that has not been submitted to the examination of the Author, who is sufficiently master of the French to be an excellent judge of every thing written in that language.
Persuaded that a few explanatory notes would add to the interest of the work, the Author and Editor have placed several at the head of each of the two volumes to which they more particularly belong[1]. The same motive has suggested them all — a desire to gratify the public.
It is with the same intention that the Editor has thought proper to subjoin to the work a notice of the valuable collection of drawings made by M. Van-Braam, who during five years constantly employed two Chinese draughtsmen in forming this numerous and curious assemblage of all kinds of objects. But how much does the Editor regret, that he cannot by this brief notice enable the Reader to participate in the pleasure resulting from a sight of the drawings; a pleasure which increases in proportion as the examination of the details is more dleiberate, or is taken by eyes accustomed to find out beauties which elude, as it were, the first hasty view.
The Editor will indulge in no observations concerning the work itself, except that it every where exhibits a character of candour, which is that of the Author. There is nothing, even to the repetitions which the occurrence of similar matters must necessarily produce in a work written in the form of a journal, that does not prove his veracity. The frankness with which M. Van-Braam confesses, in two or three places, that he was mistaken as to points of which he thought himself assured by preceding circumstances, is a valuable testimony of his literary probity, which in a traveller cannot be too highly prized.
The Editor will conclude this Advertisement by a reflection which will no doubt strike the Reader as it does him: it is, that M. Van Braam's journal, not being a work undertaken with a view to reason upon China in a systematic manner, but to give an account of what he has met with and perceived, it cannot be supposed or expected that he should reduce facts to an agreement with any particular opinions. It is simple facts that he relates; he commits them to paper in the order in which they present themselves; he even does it with a sort of eagerness admitting of no studied arrangement, or combination over which the usual vanity, of an Author might have exerted its influence: all these circumstances are so many vouchers that his relation has been dictated by truth.
To exhibit this Journal in the French language in all its original purity has been the uniform study of the Editor; and the suffrage of the Author, under whose immediate inspection his labours have been carried on, is a favourable omen of his success. He shall esteem himself happy, if his feeble efforts are honoured with the approbation of the Reader.
- ↑ This arrangement would certainly have been the most judicious; but, for some reason unknown to the English Editor, it has not been adopted. In the original the notes were all placed at the end of the last Volume; in the English edition they have been prefixed to the first.