302 A. D. 1794. 



Mr. Dundas, in defcribing the flourifliing condition of the Britifli 

 poflefTions in India, obferved, that the only European power that could 

 rival us on the continent of India was annihilated, and the only native 

 power that could difturb us, humbled. He noticed the permanent 

 lecurity derived from the certain tenure of poflefling lands, the in- 

 creafe, by various means, of the quantity of circulating fpecie, and the 

 great increafe of the profperity and population of the country in confe- 

 quence of the regulation of the courts of juflice by Lord Cornwallis. 

 At home, he faid, the laft year's fales would have been much larger, 

 iDut for the embarralfed ftate of commercial credit : but notwithftand- 

 ing that deficiency, which an increafed demand this year would necef- 

 farily corapenfate, and the additional charges of the war, the company 

 had been enabled to pay off above half a million of their debt at home ; 

 and there was every realbn to believe, that their affairs were in a pro- 

 greffive ftate of increafmg profperity. 



For fome time after the Europeans began to refort to China, many 

 of the ports of that empire, perhaps all of them, were equally open to 

 their veflels. Complaints of the mifcondud of the ftrangers, tranfmit- 

 ted by the magiftrates to the emperor's court, (probably with exagger- 

 ations fuggefted by the jealous policy, which has in all. ages been the 

 charaderiftic of the Chinefe) produced fome reftridions upon the con- 

 dud and the commerce of all foreigners, together with an order that no 

 other port but Quang-Tchoo (which we call Canton) fhould be open for 

 their admiffion, and that only for a part of the year. 



The Portuguefe, who, in confequence of fome fervice done to the 

 empire, had obtained a fmall fettlement at Macao*, and a degree of 

 interefl with the government, were long the only Europeans who had 

 any commercial intercourfe wdth China. When the Engliih firft 

 attempted to open a trade with that empire, the Portuguefe ' fo beflan- 

 ' dered them to the Chinefe, reporting them to be rogues, thieves, beg- 

 ' gars, and what not, that they became very jealous of the good mean- 

 ' ing of the Englifli f.' And the Roman-catholic miffionaries (of other 

 nations as well as the Portuguefe) who, under the charader of men of 

 fcience, were favourably received at the Chinefe court, when the anti- 

 pathies of religious diftindions were more virulent than in the prefent 

 age, have, no doubt, contributed to ftrengthen the unfavourable opinion 

 conceived of the Englifh heretics if, of whom the Chinefe never law 

 any but merchants, and feamen in the fervice of merchants, whofe pro- 

 fellion the people in authority hold in the lowed degree of contempt. 



• Macao is fituated on a peninfula at the fouth- which work, I may here obferve, the account I give 



cm extremity of a large idand in the mouth of the of the embafly is wholely extratted. 

 i-iver which leads to Canton. ± The Portuguefe miffionaries in Jipan in the 



f Thefe are the words of the manufcript Ac- year 16 13 gave a charafter of the E'lglifh there 



count of Captain Wcddeh's voyage to China, almoll in the fame words which were ufed by their 



quoted in Sir George Staunton's Account of the countrymen in China. \_Piiri:has's Ph^rimcs, B. 



emlajfy to China, ^F. i, p. 10, /econd cd.'} from iiii,/. 3C8.] 



