43<5 
A VOYAGE TO 
1779. me little reafon to lament the very narrow limits, within 
December which the policy of the Chinefe obliges every European at 
Canton to confine his curiofity. I fhould otherwife have 
felt exceedingly tantalized with living under the walls of fo 
great a city, full of objects of novelty, without being able 
to enter it. The accounts given of this place by Peres le 
Comte and Du Halde, are in every one’s hand. Thefe au¬ 
thors have lately been accufed of great exaggeration by M. 
Sonnerat; for which reafon the following obfervations, 
collected from the information with which I have been 
obligingly furnifhed by feveral Englilh gentlemen, who 
were a long time refident at Canton, may not be unaccept¬ 
able to the Public. 
Canton, including the old and new town, and the fub- 
urbs, is about ten miles in circuit. With refpect to its po¬ 
pulation, if one may judge of the whole, from what is feen 
in the fuburbs, I fhould conceive it to fall confiderably fhort 
of an European town of the fame magnitude. Le Comte 
eftimated the number of inhabitants at one million five 
hundred thoufand ; Du Halde at one million ; and M. Son¬ 
nerat fays he has afcertained them to be no more than 
feventy-five thoufand *: but, as this gentleman has not fa¬ 
voured us with the grounds on which his calculation was 
founded; and, befides, appears as defirous of depreciating 
every thing that relates to the Chinefe, as the Jefuits may 
be of magnifying, his opinion certainly admits of fome 
doubt. The following circumfiances may perhaps lead the 
reader to form a judgment with tolerable accuracy on this 
fubjedl. 
* J’ai verijie moi-meme, avec plufieurs Chinois, la population de Canton, de la 
viUe de Tartare, & de celle de Battaux, &c. Voyage aux Indes , C 5 >, par M. Sonnerat, 
Tom. II. p. 14. 
A Chinefe 
