BRIEF NOTICE OF CHINA AND SIAM, AND THE LABOURS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THESE AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRIES. BETWEEN five and six hundred years have elapsed since the publication of the travels of Marco Polo made the nations of Europe acquainted with the northern portion of the empire of China. Two hundred years afterwards, the Portuguese, impelled by the spirit of maritime enterprise, for which they were then so distinguished, pushing their adventurous way along the African shore, passed the Cape of Good Hope, and discovered the highway by sea to the East Indies. Under the direction of the celebrated Albuquerque, they visited Malacca, Siam, Pegu, and Canton, and made the countries b of south-eastern Asia known to the inhabitants of the western world. In 1516, the Portuguese commenced their traffic at Canton; but it was not until 1614,* that the servants of the English East India Company sought the trade of China. In 1637, the Company's ships anchored off Macao, and afterwards proceeded up the river towards Canton, to open a direct trade with the Chinese; but they were obliged to abandon the project, and were treated as enemies. Their commercial intercourse with this singular nation commenced in 1683;-this intercourse, though attended with many difficulties at first, was afterwards firmly established, and has been maintained with few interruptions ever since. "The English," as Mr.Auber observes, "when they first adventured in the China trade, presented themselves to the notice of the Chinese necessarily under the double disadvantage of being foreigners and merchants: nevertheless, since they have been invested with the character of representatives and servants of a great Company, enjoying the declared and immediate protection of the sovereign of their nation, they have succeeded, by Auber's Analysis of the Constitution of the East India Company, p. 148. CHINA AND SIAM. iii sure though gradual advances, in raising the British trade to a pitch of prosperity, and themselves personally to a degree of respectability in the estimation of the Chinese, which the most sanguine expectations, under a due knowledge of the circumstances of the case, would hardly have anticipated; securing at the same time to the revenues of Great Britain an annual sum, exceeding 3,500,000l. without any charge of collection."* The justness of the above remark will further appear, when we consider that, according to the statement of Dr. Morrison, the Chinese rank in the scale by which they estimate the several classes of society,-the cultivators of the mind in the first class; the cultivators of the land next; in the third place are ranked the operators on the earth's produce, or the artizans and mechanics; and finally, the trader or merchant. † During the greater part of the period since 1683, our commerce with China has been progressively increasing and prosperous. The finest ships which British industry and skill have constructed, and which British wealth and enterprise have employed in varied and extending commerce, have traversed half the circuit of the + Chinese Miscellany, p. 43. † Analysis, p. 151. |