Travels in China by Sir John Barrow (top e book reader .txt) 📕

to require a residence of seven years in the country. But the author of the present work rests his confidence in the English critics being less unreasonable in their demands; and that their indulgences will be proportioned to the difficulties that occurred in collecting accurate information. With this reliance, the descriptions, observations, and comparisons, such as they are, he presents to the public, candidly acknowledging that he is actuated rather by the hope of meeting its forbearance, than by the confidence of deserving its approbation.

Perhaps it may not be thought amiss, before he enters on the more immediate subject of the work, to correct, in this place, a very mistaken notion that prevailed on the return of the embassy, which was, that an unconditional compliance of Lord Macartney with all the humiliating ceremonies which the Chinese might have thought proper to exact from him, would have been productive of results more favourable to the views of the embassy. Assertions of such a general nature are more easily made than refuted, and indeed unworthy of attention; but a letter of a French missionary at Pekin to the chief of the Dutch factory at Canton is deserving of some notice, because it specifies the reasons to which, according to the writer's opinion, was owing the supposed failure of the British embassy. In speaking of this subject he observes, "Never was an embassy deserving of better success! whether it be considered on account of the experience, the wisdom, and the amiable qualities of Lord Macartney and Sir George Staunton; or of the talents, the knowledge, and the circumspect behaviour of the gentlemen who composed their Suite; or of the valuable and curious presents intended for the Emperor—and yet, strange to tell, never was there an embassy that succeeded so ill!

"You may be curious, perhaps, to know the reason of an event so unfavourable and so extraordinary. I will tell you in a few words. These gentlemen, like all strangers, who know China only from books, were ignorant of the manner of proceeding, of the customs and the etiquette of this court; and, to add to their misfortune, they brought with them a Chinese interpreter still less informed than themselves. The consequence of all which was that, in the first place, they came without any presents for the Minister of State, or for the sons of the Emperor. Secondly, they refused to go through the usual ceremony of saluting the Emperor, without offering any satisfactory reason for such refusal. Thirdly, They presented themselves in clothes that were too plain, and too common. Fourthly, They did not use the precaution to fee (graisser la patte) the several persons appointed to the superintendance of their affairs. Fifthly, Their demands were not made in the tone and style of the country. Another reason of their bad success, and, in my mind, the principal one, was owing to the intrigues of a certain missionary, who, imagining that this embassy might be injurious to the interests of his own country, did not fail to excite unfavourable impressions against the English nation."

The points of failure enumerated in this letter of Monsieur Grammont, were so many spurs to the Dutch factory to try their success at the court of Pekin the following year. No sooner did Mr. Van Braam receive this dispatch, by the return of the English embassy to Canton, than he prepared a letter for the Commissaries General at Batavia, in which he informed them, that as it was the intention of the different nations who had factories established in Canton, to send embassadors to the Capital, for the purpose of congratulating the Emperor on his attaining the age of eighty-four years, which would be in the sixtieth year of his reign, he had resolved to proceed on such a mission on the part of the Batavian Republic, and requested that he might be furnished, without delay, with suitable credentials. To this application the Commissaries General, who had been sent out the same year to retrench the expences of the Company in their Indian settlements, and to reform abuses, returned for answer, That, "however low and inadequate their finances might be to admit of extraordinary expences, yet they deemed it expedient not to shew any backwardness in adopting similar measures to those pursued by other Europeans trading to China; and that they had, accordingly, nominated Mr. Titsingh as chief, and himself (Mr. Van Braam) as second Embassador to the Court of China."

Mr. Titsingh lost no time in repairing to Canton, and these two Embassadors, determining to avail themselves of the hints thrown out in Monsieur Grammont's letter, and thereby to avoid splitting on the same rock which, they took for granted, the British Embassador had done, cheerfully submitted to every humiliating ceremony required from them by the Chinese, who, in return, treated them in the most contemptuous and indignant manner. At Canton they were ordered to assist in a solemn procession of Mandarines to a temple in the neighbourhood, and there, before the Emperor's name, painted on cloth, and suspended above the altar, to bow their heads nine times to the ground, in token of gratitude for his great condescension in permitting them to proceed to his presence, in order to offer him tribute. They submitted even to the demands of the state-officers of Canton, that the letter, written by the Commissaries General at Batavia to the Emperor of China, and translated there into the Chinese language, should be broke open, and the contents read by them; and that they should further be allowed to make therein such alterations and additions as they might think proper. The Embassador, resolving not to be wanting in any point of civility, requested to know when he might have the honour of paying his respects to the Viceroy; and received for answer, that the customs of the country did not allow a person in his situation to come within the walls of the Viceroy's palace, but that one of his officers should receive his visit at the gate; which visit to the gate was literally made. Mr. Van Braam, in relating this circumstance in his journal, observes, that the Viceroy "assured his Excellency, he ought not to take his refusal amiss, as the same terms had been prescribed to Lord Macartney the preceding year." Mr. Van Braam knew very well that Lord Macartney never subjected himself to any such refusal; and he knew too, that the same Viceroy accompanied his Lordship in a great part of his journey from the Capital: that he partook of a repast, on the invitation of Lord Macartney, at the British factory; when, for the first time, both Mr. Van Braam and the supercargoes of all the European nations had been permitted to sit down in the presence of one of his rank.

At Pekin they were required to humiliate themselves at least thirty different times, at each of which they were obliged, on their knees, to knock their heads nine times against the ground, which Mr. Van Braam, in his journal, very coolly calls, performing the salute of honour, "faire le salut d'honneur." And they were finally dismissed, with a few paltry pieces of silk, without having once been allowed to open their lips on any kind of business; and without being permitted to see either their friend Grammont, or any other European missionary, except one, who had special leave to make them a visit of half an hour, the day before their departure, in presence of ten or twelve officers of government. On their arrival in this Capital they were lodged, literally, in a stable; under the same cover, and in the same apartment, with a parcel of cart-horses. Mr. Van Braam's own words are, "Nous voilà donc à notre arrivée dans la célèbre residence impériale, logés dans une espèce d'écurie. Nous serions nous attendus à une pareille avanture!"

After such a vile reception and degrading treatment of the Dutch Embassy, what advantages can reasonably be expected to accrue from a servile and unconditional compliance with the submissions required by this haughty government? It would rather seem that their exactions are proportioned to the complying temper of the persons with whom they have to treat. For it appears, not only from Mr. Van Braam's own account of the Embassy, but also from two manuscript journals in the Author's possession, one kept by a Dutch gentleman in the suite, and the other by a native Chinese, that the Embassadors from the Batavian Republic were fully prepared to obviate every difficulty that might arise from the supposed points of failure in the British Embassy, as directed to their notice by M. Grammont. In the first place, they not only carried presents for the Ministers of State, but they calmly suffered these gentlemen to trick them out of the only curious and valuable articles among the presents intended for the Emperor, and to substitute others, of a mean and common nature, in their place. Secondly, they not only complied with going through the usual ceremony of saluting the Emperor, but also of saluting the Emperor's name, painted on a piece of silk, at least fifty times, on their journey to and from the Capital: which degrading ceremony they even condescended to perform before the person of the Prime Minister. With regard to the third point, it certainly appears that no expence had been spared in providing themselves with splendid robes for the occasion; but, unfortunately, they had but few opportunities of making use of them, their baggage not arriving at the Capital till many days after they had been there. Nor does it seem that the dress of a foreign Embassador is considered of much consequence in the eyes of the Chinese; for, when these gentlemen wished to excuse themselves from going to court, on account of their dusty and tattered clothes, in which they had performed a most painful journey, the Master of the Ceremonies observed, that it was not their dress, but their persons, which the Emperor, his master, was desirous to see. And, it can hardly be supposed, they would omit observing the fourth article, which, Mr. Grammont is of opinion, was neglected by Lord Macartney. And, in the last place, they stand fully acquitted of any want of humility in the tone and style of their communications, after having allowed their credentials to be new modelled by the officers of Government at Canton; from which city they had also an interpreter, a very proper one, no doubt, appointed to attend them.

Their mission, it is true, was not well calculated for making terms or rejecting proposals. The Chinese were not unacquainted with the declining finances of the Dutch; they knew very well that the embassy had originated in Canton, and that it was accredited only from their superiors in Batavia. In their journey they were harassed beyond measure; sometimes they were lodged in wretched hovels, without furniture and without cover; sometimes they were obliged to pass the night in the open air, when the temperature was below the freezing point; frequently for four and twenty hours they had nothing to eat. Van Braam observes that, owing to the fatigues of the journey, the badness of the victuals, their early rising and exposure to the cold, he lost about five inches in the circumference of his body. Being rather corpulent, and not very expert in performing the Chinese ceremony at their public introduction, his hat happened to fall on the ground, upon which the old Emperor began to laugh. "Thus," says he, "I received a mark of distinction and predilection, such as never Embassador was honoured with before. I confess," continues he, "that the recollection of my sufferings from the cold in waiting so long in the morning, was very much softened by this incident." No man will certainly envy this gentleman's happy turn of mind, in receiving