Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 296

Adams Lærture on the War with China.

MAY

The Chinese recognize no such law. Their internal government is a hereditary patriarchal despotisin, and their own exclusive interest is the measure of all their relations with the rest of mankind. Their own government is founded upon the principle, that as a nation they are superior to the rest of mankind. They believe themselves and their country especially privileged over all others-that their domi. nion is the celestial empire, and their territory the flowery land. At a period of their history so remote that they have no authentic records of the_times,* to make their separation from the rest of the world more effectual, they built a wall 1500 miles long between themselves and their next neighbors, the Tartars, which how. ever has not saved them from being more than once conquered. The last time that this happened was in the year 1644, and the second contury is about closing upon the dominion of the Mantchou Tartars. That conquest however produced no other revolution of government than the transfer of the imperial sceptre from one family to another. It is a remark of Hume that if the conquest of France by Henry V. had been maintained by his successors, the result would have been to convert England into a French province; such in the natural course of events must be the result of the conquest of a larger by a smaller adjoining people. And this is precisely what has happened with China and Tartary. The principle of the Chinese government is, that the whole nation is one great family, of which the emperor is the father. His authority is unlimited, and he can, not only appoint such of his sons as he pleases to succeed him, but may even transfer the succession to another family. Idol worship, polygamy, infanticide, are the natural conse. quencest of such a system within the realin, and the assumption of a pretension to superiority over all other nations regulates their intercourse with foreigners.

To the Greeks and Romans of antiquity, the very existence of the Chinese nation was unknown. The first notice of them received by the Europeans of the middle ages, was from the Venetian Marco Palo in the 13th century. When the Portuguese two hundred years later found the way round the cape of Good Hope to India, they soon pushed forward their navigation and their enterprize along the whole coast of China. They were allowed to trade for several years at various ports; but abusing this privilege and their navigating power, they were excluded from all access to the empire. A few years later the coast was infested by pirates. One of these named Ching Chilung obtained possession of the island of Macao; others held the whole coast in a state of blockade, and besieged Canton, itself destitute of all naval power. The officers of the celestial empire were obliged to have recourse to those very Portuguese to defend and deliver their country from the depredation of a single bold and desperate pirate. They sent from Sancian, where they had a trading establishment, an expedition which raised the siege of Canton, and drove Ching Chílung back to Macao, where to escape from the fate which awaited him, had he fallen into the hands of his pursuers, he died by his own hands. In reward for this service, the emperor of

*

The Great Wall was built about B. c. 240, by the emperor Chí Hwangtí of the Tsin dynasty. He was cotemporary with Hannibal. The Chinese records of this event are among the most authentic they have, for this emperor stands pre- eminent for his power and his conquests.-Ed. Chi. Rep.

In our humble opinion, these consequences can hardly be said to follow, because the emperor's authority is unlimited, nor do we exactly see how they grow out of it at all: the power of the emperor of Russia is probably as unlimited as that of his imperial brother at Peking, but these evils are surely not general in ms domainions.--Ed. Chi. Rep