TIBET. 
367 
And probably, their nearest concern was a speedy return to Tibet, 
fearful, lest so great an event should produce a revolution in the go¬ 
vernment, injurious to their interests, or subversive of their power. 
If they were deterred from a personal application to the Emperor, 
when present at his court, other considerations have since influenced 
them to suspend, for a time, all further solicitation, which can only be 
urged with propriety and effect by Teshoo Lama himself; and, they 
say, that at the age of three years, he will be perfectly qualified to 
exert the proper means for accomplishing this design. I have found in 
the Regent, the best dispositions for encouraging, and assisting, by the 
authority he possesses, the proposed plans of commercial intercourse; 
but being neither so able, nor so decided in his character as the former 
Lama, he is cautious of avowedly and publicly sanctioning a measure, 
which might possibly raise up some inveterate enemies against him, in 
the Chinese administration. 
Teshoo Lama, from his respectable character, and superior talents, 
was peculiarly well qualified to obviate popular prejudices against new 
schemes, to reconcile the Tibetians to an alliance with Europeans, and 
to remove those jealous apprehensions, which, in a greater or less de¬ 
gree, are cherished by every Asiatic state, in consequence of the vast 
a 
and accumulating power of the English. 
AsTartary, until it became united under the Chinese dominion, was 
constantly harassed by foreign invasion, by religious feuds, and by 
intestine broils, its inhabitants are intimidated from entering into new 
connections, as affording, in their apprehensions, an inlet to war and 
devastation. Having, by repeated revolutions, been accustomed to 
