1864.] The Question of British Trade with Western China. 433 



spirit of enterprise that of old has characterised our commerce. There 

 are forty millions of people waiting to be clothed with British 

 piece-goods, and to be furnished with the handiworks of all the 

 manufactories of England, and ready to give, in return, silk, tea, and 

 the most valuable of the useful and precious metals, from mines that 

 European skill would make many-fold more productive than now. 



The barriers imposed by man are removed. There remain but 

 those of nature. To the conquest of these, our science and capital, 

 energjr and perseverance will march again as they have so often 

 marched before, and again will overcome them ; to British commerce 

 will accrue a new nation of buyers of our goods and sellers to our 

 wants ; to the cause of progress, a new opening for the living civilization 

 of Europe to compete with the sickly semi-barbarism of Asia ; to 

 the cause of religion and humanity, a new field for Christian truth and 

 beneficence to modify, alleviate and displace the cruelties of a fierce 

 fanaticism and the vices of a degraded infidelity. 



With the opening of this new way to China will be written a fresh 

 page in our already glorious commercial history ; will be taken another 

 step in our onward destiny, and will be given yet another proof that 

 Providence sanctions the mission we attribute to our race, 



Mandelay, April 25th, 1864. 



3 g 



