COCHINCHINA. 317 
They seemed to work in metals with a tolerable degree of 
neatness. The handles of the officers' swords were mostly 
of silver, and by no means ill finished ; and their articles of 
fillagree were equal to those of the Chinese. In fact, both 
the one and the other possess quick and comprehensive 
talents and, under due encouragement, are already in that 
advanced stage to make a very rapid progress in the arts, 
sciences, and manufactures. Under every disadvantage of a 
bad government, their ingenuity occasionally breaks forth in a 
surprizing manner. The man at Canton who could make a watch 
at first sight had neither a weak head nor an unskilful hand. 
Their arts and manufactures did not, however, appear to 
be in a state of progressive improvement. There is in all the 
Oriental governments a radical defect, which no advantages 
df soil or climate or other favourable circumstances can com- 
pensate, and which must for ever operate against their at- 
taining the character and the condition of a great and happy 
people. This insuperable bar to their grandeur and felicity 
is owing to the want of a permanent security to property. 
Where the right of inheritance is a weaker claim than the 
state of possession ; Avhere the hand of arbitrary power can 
at any time, without the forms of legal process, dispossess a 
man of the piece of ground on which the support of himself 
and his family wholly depends ; where only the law of the 
strongest is acknowledged, and Avliere neitlier person nor 
property has any effectual protection against the designs of 
the vindictive or the rapacious entrusted with power, — what 
possible encouragement can the subject have to build an 
elegant house, to improve the cultivation of his land, to aim 
7 
