CO CHIN CHIN A. 289 
ference to the performers ; all their concern being the receipt 
of their pay on the finishing of their work. 
The whole of that division of Cochinchina in which Turon ba}' 
is situated was, at this time, in the possession of young Quang- 
timg, the son of the rebel General who defeated the Viceroy 
of Canton, and afterwards played the successful trick on the 
Emperor of China which I have related in the preceding 
chapter. His residence was at the city of Hue, about forty 
miles to the northward of Turon. No sooner had the welcome 
intelligence of our being friends, or, in the strictest sense of the 
word, neutrals, reached that place than a Mandarin of high 
rank was dispatched to the Ambassador, with an invitation 
to his Excellency to proceed to Court which, however, he 
found expedient to decline on many accounts, and parti- 
cularly on the score of the delay which would thereby be oc- 
casioned. However desirable a journey might have been to 
the capital of northern Cochinchina, as furnishing an oppor- 
tunity of seeing the state of the country in the interior, it is 
probable the loss which curiosity sustained, in not witnessing 
the ceremonies and festivities of the Court of Hue, is scarcely 
to be regretted, especially as we were about to be present at 
those of Pekin which, though of the same kind, must be in- 
finitely more splendid than what Cochinchina could exhibit. 
It would have been more gratifying had an opportunity pre- 
sented itself of passing a few days in the towns, the villages, and 
the cottages. " The true state of every nation," as Dr. Johnson 
observes, " is the state of common life. Public happiness is 
not to be estimated by the assemblies of the gay, or the 
" banquets of the rich. The great mass of nations is neither 
