THE EAST INDIA EXCRESCENCE. 519 



from this branch of their commercial transactions have amounted to 

 an annual sum of 1,500,OOOJ. even under the wasteful management of 

 a great incorporated body, in the fair field of competition, the advan- 

 tages to our merchants would be vastly greater. The argument that 

 the Company possesses any advantage whatever above individual mer- 

 chants in the market of China, is unquestionably false and hollow. 

 Even the Hong merchants of Canton are in reality a mere cabal, 

 whose pretended exclusive right to the foreign trade has no founda- 

 tion in authority. The pretended prudential management by the 

 factory at Canton has certainly little foundation in truth, for the 

 meanest and most trivial personal causes, as the building of a wall, or 

 the clearing of a plot of ground for a needless promenade, have 

 very recently proved sufficient with the undignified and puffed up 

 agents of the Company, to hazard the suspension of our trade with the 

 entire Celestial Empire. 



Our relative political position with the government of the Celestial 

 Empire is too little understood by the statesmen of this country. 

 The continuation of our commerce is now so indispensible to the 

 existence of the peace and internal tranquillity of China that very 

 important priveliges might at the present period be readily obtained. 

 A cessation of the trade with Great Britain, by throwing out of em- 

 ployment the twenty- five millions of persons engaged in the cultiva- 

 tion and sale of tea, would inevitably tend to revolutionize the empire. 

 An apprehension of this result is known to be perpetually present to 

 the Emperor and principal officers of the government ; and though 

 most desirous to prevent the introduction and contact of foreign liberal 

 opinions and manners, yet in no event would the authorities proceed 

 to the extremity of closmg a trade now indispensible to the stability 

 of the throne itself. The history of China presents, indeed, a remark- 

 able scene of revolution following after revolution, in very rapid suc- 

 cession, and twenty-two dynasties have been numbered in the annals 

 of this great hive of the human race, each founded by the chief of a 

 successful insurrection in the provinces, the result of hunger and op- 

 pression upon an exasperated people. So rapid has been the increase 

 of population in this singular community, that, since the accession of 

 the Tartar dynasty, it has risen from seventy millions the rem- 

 nant of ferocious wars to the present eKtraordinary number of 

 361,000,000. The superabundance of population, and scarcity of 

 food, give warning of a vast and furious convulsion; and a few years 

 or months will, perhaps, produce extraordinary changes in the political 

 condition of the Chinese people. The proclamations of the Emperor 

 discover his anxiety for the future, and the annual exhortations to the 

 people to economise the supplies of food, with the laws against the 

 existence of all useless quadrupeds, give evidence of a most precarious 

 and dangerous condition of affairs. The present rebellion in the moun- 

 tain districts, though partially suppressed, will be inevitably followed 

 by insurrectionary movements in the adjoining provinces ; and it is not 

 improbable that at an early day a simultaneous and general rising will 

 be the result of the deficiency of food, and an overflowing population. 

 We would here remind our Ministers of the advantages of a final 

 determination upon the long projected passage by the Mediterranean, 



