382 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[May, 
becoming and highly impolitic subserviency, no nation can claim 
entire exemption, though the English may thank their company 
for having gone further than any other in running the race of dis- 
honour. 
It w^as the same miserable gain-saving policy which permitted 
the unfortunate gunner of the Lady Hughes to be delivered up 
and strangled by the Chinese, in seventeen hundred and eighty- 
four. From that moment they became more imperious ; for in 
that act they saw the company Would submit to any thing, even 
to the sacrifice of human life, rather than hazard a small deficit 
in their leger; that their trade was secure, whatever insults they 
might heap on the " barbarians," or however immoderately indulge 
in their affected superiority in publishing such edicts as the fol- 
lowing : — 
" Foreigners are not permitted voluntarily to present state- 
ments to government; they are indebted to the clemency of the 
emperor for their trade, as also for the permission to tread the 
ground and to eat the herbs in common with the Chinese. If, 
after the publication of this edict, it occurs, that foreigners pre- 
sume, of their own account, to make application, the viceroy will, 
on discovery, request his majesty's permission to punish them 
severely." 
What insufferable insolence ! Indebted to the clemency of the 
emperor for the trade ! and how long have foreigners acquiesced 
in this preposterous assumption ! Why, the truth is, the tea- 
trade has always been of equal or more importance to the Chinese 
than to any other people, indispensable as it has become. A trade 
which yields to the emperor at least one third of his revenue, — 
nearly all his circulating medium, and supports, directly or indi- 
rectly, millions of his subjects. — He stop the trade ! he cannot dc 
it if he would, for any considerable length of time, at a less price 
than the cost of his throne ! . 
" A man is needed in India," said Napoleon. A man has been 
there in the person of the late lamented Lord Napier, who has 
recently died amid the discharge of arduous duties at Canton. 
His name will be remembered as a benefactor to the commercial 
world. The English have made a good beginning, in battering 
down the Chinese forts on the river Canton ; we hope they will 
follow it up, and with increased forces teach the Chinese a still 
