Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 297

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Adams Lecture on the War with Ching.

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China gave to the Portuguese the island of Macao, which they hold to this day, and from which station they, and the other navigating nations of Christendʊmı, have carried on their commercial intercourse with the interior of China.”

This grant, in full sovereignty of an island at the very entrance of the China seas, to a foreign and Christian power, would seem to be a wide departure from the fundamental system of excluding all foreigners from admission within the empire, but it was in truth a necessary consequence of that system. The seclu- sion of the empire from all other nations was a necessary renunciation of all maritime enterprise, and all naval armament. The coast was thus left defense- less against the assaults of single desperate adventurers. The traffic which the Portuguese solicited, was altogether advantageous to the Chinese. The Portu- guese brought gold, silver, and precious stones. They took away silks, nankeens, porcelain, varnish, medicinal plants and tea, the produce of the soil and manu- facturing industry of the country. A small island upon the coast as a perma- nent abode for the Portuguese traders, given to them as a possession, was a compromise for thoir claim of admission to the territory necessary for carrying on that importation of the precious metals, and that exportation of Chinese in- dustry, the benefits of which could not but be felt, and could not be overlooked. Other navigating Christian nations followed in the wake of the Portuguese. The Spaniards, the Dutch, the English, the French, and the Danes,—successive. ly came as rival competitors for the lucrative commerce. It was chiefly, though not always confined to the port of Canton, but no European was ever admitted within the walls of that city. The several trading nations were allowed to esta blish small factorics, as counting-houses, on the banks of the river without the city; but they were never suffered to enter within the gates, they were not per- mitted to introduce even a woman into their factory. All their intercourse with the subordinate government of the province was carried on through the me. dium of a dozen Chinese traders denominated the hong-merchants. All their remonstrances against wrong, or claims of right, must be transmitted not directly to the government, but through the hong, in the form of humble supplication called by the Chinese a pin-and all must be content to receive the answers of the viceroys in the form of edicts in which they, their sovereigns, and their nations, were invariably styled "outside barbarians;”—and the highest compliment to their kings was to declare them reverently submissive to his imperial majesty, monarch of the Celestial empire,-and father of the Flowery land. It is humiliating to think that not only the proudest monarch of Europe, but the most spirited and enlight. ened and valorous nations of Christendom have submitted to this tone, and these principles of intercourse, so long as to have given them, if prescription could give them, a claim of right, and a color of conformity to the law of nature.

There are three principles of the law of nature applied to nations, laid down in the preliminary chapter to Vattel's treatise, a close attention to which is indispen-

For notices of the travelers who visited China before Marco Polo, and the intercourse carried on with this people, see Chi. Rep., vol. III., page 107. There is, also, in this paragraph some confusion regarding the doings of the pirates, one or two of whom are confounded. Ching Chilung died in Peking. But see Chi. Rep. vol. III., page 64, and Ljungstedt's Macao, page 12, for an account of this and other pirates, and the tenure by which the Portuguese obtained and still hold Macao. Nor is it from this port alone that the other navigating nations of Chris. tendomi have carried on their commercial intercourse with China.-Ed. Chr. Rep: