intimate knowledge of the Chineſe empire. That empire was, on that occaſion, in ſome degree laid open to the view of perſons, whoſe talents and judgment were worthy of their country, and of an enlightened age; and who, it was natural to expect, would be diſpoſed to deſcribe the country and its inhabitants, as they really found them, and to ſtate the opionions they might be led to form on the different objects which occurred, with candour and ſincerity.—If, in eſtimating the credit due to their impartiality, ſome allowance for the national prejudices of Engliſhmen ſhould be deemed requiſite, the tendency of thoſe prejudices would, at all events, be very diſſimilar to that of the bias which had influenced their predeceſſors in the ſame field of enquiry. When alſo it is conſidered that, in paſſing rapidly over the narrow path to which they were confined, the opportunities of obſervation muſt have been comparatively few and limited, it will juſtly be deemed a ſubject of pride and ſatisfaction, and a very material addition to the immediate advantages which that expedition produced to this country, that it has, in ſo ſhort a time, and under ſuch unfavourable circumſtances, been the means of throwing an entire new light upon, and of correcting and extending our ideas of that extraodrinary and intereſting empire; that, in ſhort if it has not led tot he diſcovery of a new world, it has, as it were, enabled us to recover a portion of the old, by removing, in a conſiderable degree, thoſe obſtacles by which our contemplation of it had been intercepted.
The ſhort reſidence in China of Lord Macartney's Embaſſy, although it ſcarcely afforded any opportunity of either confirming or diſproving the various geographical, hiſtorical, and ſtatiſtical details, with which we had been furniſhed by the Miſſionaries, was amply ſufficient to diſcover that the ſuperiority over other nations, in point of knowledge and of virtue, which the Chineſe have long been accuſtomed to aſſume to themſelves, and which ſome of their European
