3fcU /. 1 ? E U 1j 1. X, 



The Chlcde naticn is capaLIe of the moll ftupendous worki. ir. 

 point of labor I oever obferved their equals in the woiU. Every day i i 

 ihc year is a working day; except the firft, deftineJ for paying re- 

 ciprocal vifics ; and the laft, which is confecrated lo the ceremoniai 

 duties they pay to tl>eir anceftors. An idile rnan would be treat- 

 ed with the moft fovcrcigti cente.Tpt, and regarde*! as a paralytic 

 n.eBtber. * * * An ancient Emperor of-China, in a public inftrudion ex- 

 horting the people tolabor, obferved that if in one corner of ine empire 

 there was a man who did noth'>ng> there muft in another quarter be fome ons 

 deprived of the necelTaiies of l,h. This wife noaxim is fixed in the brcaft 

 of every Chirefe j and with this people fo open to reafon, he vi^ho pro. 

 liounces a wife oiaxinm pronounces a law, . » , 



From thefe obfervations u is obvious that agriculture flourifhes in Chi- 

 na mcT!; than in sny other country in the world. Yet it is not lo any pro- 

 cefs peculiar to their labor, it Is not to ihe (nrm of their plough, or their 

 method of fjwiag, that this happy ftt ;e and the plenty confcquent on it i ^ 

 to be attributed. It iKuft chiefly be derived froo) their mode of governinet)i. 

 the immoveab4e fi>nndations of which have been laid deep by !he haad i ' 

 reafon alone, coeval almoft with the beginning of time; and from iheis 

 J;iws, dilated by nature to the firft of the human race and facrcdly pre- 

 ferved from generation to generation, engraved in the hearts of a grg^' 

 people. [Sec M. le Foivre's woik as above 1 



F I N I 



