S3 Dutch EmbaJTy to China. 



Though the embafladors remained more than a month 

 at Pekin, Citizen van Braam fays nothing of the manners, 

 commerce, or monuments of that city. This will not appear 

 aftonifhing, when it is known that the members of the em- 

 bafly, like thofe which preceded them from England, were 

 confined to their hotel, as if they had been in prifon ; 

 that they were narrowly watched ; that the letters which 

 they fent to fome miffionaries of their acquaintance were 

 infpected at the poft-omce ; and that they never went out 

 in order to go to court, at three or four o'clock in the morn- 

 ing in the middle of winter, without being efcorted by con- 

 ductors. Such is the jealoufy which the Chinefe entertain 

 of Europeans of every defcription, ever fince a former 

 emperor, expreffing his furprife to a Spanifh jefuit, who 

 had lefs cunning than his affociates, at the immenfe power 

 and territory which the king of Spain had acquired in 

 South America, was informed by the latter, that, having 

 once gained an eftablifhment in the country, miffionaries 

 were fent among the people to convert them to the Roman 

 Catholic faith, after which their fubjugaihn followed as a 

 matter of courfe ! 



The people to whom Confucius preached his fimple and 

 fublime morality, the people who erefted temples to that 

 philofopher, ought to be rational in their worfhip : but they 

 are vilified and degraded by the mod abfurd idolatry ; their 

 pagods are filled with idols of the mod monftrous and 

 whimfical figures. 



If the Chinefe, however, are idolaters, they are not into- 

 lerant; for Citizen van Braam fpeaks of a Chriftian to 

 whom they have erected temples, and whom they ftyle a 

 faint. 



XXI. Chemh 



