Travels in China - Sir John Barrow (drm ebook reader .TXT) 📗

with the Emperor and his ministers in the capital. The various toys, automatons, moving and musical figures from Coxe's museum, the mathematical and astronomical instruments, clocks, watches, machinery, jewellery, all made in London, and now in the different palaces of the Emperor of China, are said to be valued at no less a sum than two millions sterling, all presents from Canton. The principal officers of this government are invariably sent down from Pekin; they arrive poor and, in the course of three years, return with immense riches. How much of the enormous wealth of Ho-tchung-tang came from the same quarter it is difficult to say, but the great influence he possessed over the Emperor, and his intimacy with the viceroy of Canton, who was superseded in 1793, leave no doubt, that a very considerable part of it was drawn from this port. The large pearl, which forms one of the charges preferred against him, was a present from Canton, of which I have been told a curious history by a gentleman who was on the spot at the time it happened. An Armenian merchant brought this pearl to Canton, in the expectation of making his fortune. Its size and beauty soon became known and attracted the attention of the officers and the merchants, who paid their daily visits to the Armenian, offering him prices far inadequate to its value. At length, however, after minute and repeated examinations, a price was agreed upon and a deposit made, but the Armenian was to keep possession of the pearl till the remaining part of the purchase-money should be ready; and in order to obviate any possibility of trick, the box in which it was kept was sealed with the purchaser's seal. Several days elapsed without his hearing any thing further from the Chinese; and, at length, the time approached when all foreign merchants are ordered down to Macao. The Armenian, in vain, endeavoured to find out the people who had purchased his pearl, but he contented himself with the reflection that, although he had been disappointed in the main object of his journey, he still had his property, and that the deposit was more than sufficient to defray his expences. On reaching his home, he had no longer any scruple in breaking open the seal; but his mortification may easily be supposed, on discovering that his real pearl had been exchanged for an artificial one, so very like as not to be detected but by the most critical examination. The daily visits of these people, it seems, were for no other purpose than to enable them to forge an accurate imitation, which they had dexterously substituted for the real one, when they proposed the cunning expedient of sealing the box in which it was inclosed. The Armenians, however, were determined not to be outdone by the Chinese. A noted character, of the name of Baboom, equally well known in Bengal and Madras as in Canton, just before his failure in about half a million sterling, deposited a valuable casket of pearls, as he represented them, in the hands of one of the Hong merchants, as a pledge for a large sum of money, which, when opened, instead of pearls was found to be a casket of peas.

It has always been considered that a foreigner has little chance of obtaining justice at Canton. The import and export duties, which by the law of the country ought to be levied ad valorem, are arbitrarily fixed according to the fancy of the collector. And although the court is at all times ready to punish, by confiscation of their property, such as have been guilty of corruption and oppression, yet by accepting their presents, it seems to lend them its encouragement. Besides, the distance from Canton to the metropolis is so great, the temptations so strong, and the chances of impunity so much in their favour, that to be honest, when power and opportunity lend their aid to roguery, is a virtue not within the pale of Chinese morality. A striking instance of their peculation appeared in a circumstance that was connected with the British Embassy. In consideration of the Hindostan having carried presents for the Emperor, an order was issued from Court that she should be exempt from duties at any of the ports where she might take in a cargo. It happened that the Hong merchants had already paid the Hindostan's duties with those of the other ships, of which her particular share was 30,000 ounces of silver. The Hoo-poo or collector was therefore requested to return this sum agreeably to the order from court, but he refunded only into Mr. Browne's hands 14,000 dollars, which can be reckoned as little more than 11,000 ounces, observing, that so much was the exact amount of the Emperor's duties. As in this instance of a public nature the collector could not be supposed to act without circumspection, we may conclude how very small a proportion of the duties, extorted from foreigners trading to Canton, finds its way into the Imperial treasury.

Thus the taxes, which, if we may judge of them from those paid by their own countrymen, are extremely moderate, by the abuses of the administration become serious grievances to the foreign merchant who, however, has never hitherto employed the only probable mean of obtaining redress—that of making himself acquainted with the language of the country, so as to be able to remonstrate to the high officers of state, against the oppressions and impositions of those who act in inferior capacities; for, however rapacious and corrupt the first in authority may be, his timid nature would shrink immediately from a bold, clamorous, and able complainant, who possessed the means of making his delinquency notorious. This observation has been verified by a recent occurrence. A fraudulent suppression of a bankruptcy, for which the government stood responsible, and by which the interests of the East India Company, as well as of several individuals in India and Canton, would materially have suffered, was completely frustrated by the simple circumstance of Mr. Drummond, the chief of the factory, rushing into the city of Canton, and repeating aloud a few words which he had got by heart whilst, at the same time, he held up a written memorial; the consequence of which was, that the memorial was immediately carried to the viceroy, and the grievance complained of therein redressed. It would have been in vain to convey it through any of the inferior officers or the Hong merchants, as they were all interested in keeping it from the knowledge of government.

The supposed difficulty of acquiring the Chinese language has hitherto intimidated the residents in Canton from making the attempt. Satisfied in transacting the Company's concerns through the medium of a jargon of broken English, which all the Hong merchants and even the inferior tradesmen and mechanics find it worth their while to acquire, they have totally neglected the language, as well as every other branch of information respecting the most interesting and extraordinary empire on the face of the globe. The attainment in fact of four or five thousand characters, which are sufficient to write clearly and copiously on any subject, is much less difficult than usually has been imagined, but it would require great attention and unremitting perseverance, such perhaps as few are willing to bestow, who are placed in situations which enable them to calculate, almost to a certainly, on realizing a fixed sum in a given number of years. The climate may also be adverse to intense application, but if the foundation was laid in England, much of the difficulty would thus be obviated. The French, aware of the solid advantages that result from the knowledge of languages, are at this moment holding out every encouragement to the study of Chinese literature; obviously not without design. They know that the Chinese character is understood from the Gulph of Siam to the Tartarian Sea, and over a very considerable part of the great Eastern Archipelago; that the Cochin Chinese, with whom they have already firmly rooted themselves, use no other writing than the pure Chinese character, which is also the case with the Japanese. It is to be hoped therefore that the British nation will not neglect the means of being able to meet the French, if necessary, even on this ground. The method of accomplishing this desirable object appears to be extremely simple. If the Directors of the East India Company were to make it a rule that no writer should be appointed to China until he had made himself acquainted with five hundred or a thousand characters of the language[69], I will be bold to say that, where the number sent out is so few (the establishment not exceeding twenty) and the emoluments so very liberal, there would be as little danger as at present, by such a regulation, of the appointments being made out of their own families. The noble Marquis at the head of their affairs in India has established an institution, which seems to bid fair for producing a mutual benefit to the parent state and the native Indians. The exertions of Sir William Jones and a few others had, indeed, long before this, been productive of the happiest effects; and great numbers, both on the civil and military establishments of the Company, made themselves acquainted, in a certain degree, with the different languages spoken in the country. In fact, it became a matter of necessity, in order to remove prejudices imbibed against us and to meet those of the natives. The Portuguese and the Dutch adopted a different policy; and, like our residents at Canton, communicated only with the natives in a jargon of their own languages. Mr. Thunberg tells a story of a Dutch gentleman, who had resided as chief of their factory in Japan for fourteen years, during which period he had been four times in the capacity of Embassador to the court, yet, on being asked the name of the Emperor of Japan, freely avowed that it had never occurred to him to ask it. In fact, his grand object was the accumulation of so many millions of florins in a given time; in the pursuit of which he had completely lost sight of the Emperor of Japan and his millions of subjects.

If then, by neglecting to study the language of the Chinese, we are silly enough to place ourselves and concerns so completely in their power, we are highly deserving of the extortions and impositions so loudly complained of. If the trade of London was exclusively vested in the hands of eight merchants, and if the foreigners who visited its port could neither speak nor write one single word of the language of England, but communicated solely on every subject with those eight merchants, through a broken jargon somewhat resembling the languages of the several foreigners, it might fairly be questioned, without any disparagement to the merchants of London, if those foreigners would have less reason of complaint than the Europeans have who now trade to China? Even as things are, would a Chinese arriving in England find no subject of complaint, no grievances nor vexations at the custom-house, which, for want of knowing our language, he might be apt to consider as extortions and impositions? Two years ago two Chinese missionaries landed in England, in their way to the college de propaganda Fide at Naples. Each had a small bundle of clothes under his arm and, according to the custom of their country, a fan in his hand. Being observed by one of those voracious sharks who, under the pretext of preventing frauds on the revenue, plunder unprotected foreigners and convert the booty to their own advantage, the poor fellows were stripped by him of the little property they carried in their