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

The uninterrupted succession of four Emperors, all of whom were endowed with excellent understandings, uncommon vigour of mind, and decision of character, has hitherto obviated the danger of such an enormous disproportion between the governors and the governed. The wisdom, prudence, and energy of these Emperors have not only maintained the family on the throne, the fifth of which now fills it, but have enlarged the dominions to an extent of which history furnishes no parallel. The present Emperor, Kia-king, is said to possess the learning and prudence of his father, and the firmness of Kaung-shee; but it is probable he will have a more difficult task in governing the empire than either of his predecessors. In proportion as the Tartar power has increased, they have become less felicitous to conciliate the Chinese. All the heads of departments are now Tartars. The ministers are all Tartars; and most of the offices of high trust and power are filled by Tartars. And although the ancient language of the country is still preserved as the court language, yet it is more than probable that Tartar pride, encreasing with its growing power, will ere long be induced to adopt its own.

The Emperor Kaung-shee indeed took uncommon pains to improve the Mantchoo language, and to form it into a systematic Thesaurus or dictionary; and Tchien-Lung directed that the children of all such parents as were one a Tartar, the other a Chinese, should be taught the Mantchoo language; and that they might pass their examinations for office in that language. I could observe, that the young men of the royal family at Yuen-min-yuen spoke with great contempt of the Chinese. One of them, perceiving that I was desirous of acquiring some knowledge of the Chinese written character, took great pains to convince me that the Tartar language was much superior to it; and he not only offered to furnish me with the alphabet and some books, but with his instructions also, if I would give up the Chinese, which, he observed, was not to be acquired in the course of a man's whole life. I could not forbear remarking, how very much these young princes enjoyed a jest levelled against the Chinese. An ill-natured remark, for instance, on the cramped feet and the hobbling gait of a Chinese woman met with their hearty approbation; but they were equally displeased on hearing the clumsy shoes worn by the Tartar ladies compared to the broad flat-bottomed junks of the Chinese.

Although the ancient institutes and laws, the established forms of office, the pageantry of administration, were all retained, and the dress, the manners, and external deportment of the vanquished were assumed by the victors, yet the native character remained distinct; and now, in the higher departments of office especially, it bursts through all disguise. The conscious superiority of the one checks and overawes the other. "Most of our books," observes Lord Macartney, "confound the two people together, and talk of them as if they made only one nation under the general name of China; but whatever might be concluded from any outward appearances, the real distinction is never forgotten by the sovereign who, though he pretends to be perfectly impartial, conducts himself at bottom by a systematic nationality, and never for a moment loses sight of the cradle of his power. The science of government in the Eastern world, is understood by those who govern very differently from what it is in the Western. When the succession of a contested kingdom in Europe is once ascertained, whether by violence or compromise, the nation returns to its pristine regularity and composure: it matters little whether a Bourbon or an Austrian fills the throne of Naples or of Spain, because the sovereign, whoever he be, then becomes to all intents and purposes, a Spaniard or Neapolitan, and his descendants continue so with accelerated velocity. George the First and George the Second ceased to be foreigners from the moment our sceptre was fixed in their hands; and His present Majesty is as much an Englishman as King Alfred or King Edgar, and governs his people not by Teutonic, but by English laws.

"The policy of Asia is totally opposite. There the prince regards the place of his nativity as an accident of mere indifference. If the parent root be good, he thinks it will flourish in every soil, and perhaps acquire fresh vigour from transplantation. It is not locality, but his own cast and family; it is not the country where he drew his breath, but the stock from which he sprung; it is not the scenery of the theatre, but the spirit of the drama, that engages his attention and occupies his thoughts. A series of two hundred years, in the succession of eight or ten monarchs, did not change the Mogul into a Hindoo, nor has a century and a half made Tchien-Lung a Chinese. He remains, at this hour, in all his maxims of policy, as true a Tartar as any of his ancestors."

Whether this most ancient empire among men will long continue in its stability and integrity, can only be matter of conjecture, but certain it is, the Chinese are greatly dissatisfied, and not without reason, at the imperious tone now openly assumed by the Tartars; and though they are obliged to cringe and submit, in order to rise to any distinction in the state, yet they unanimously load them with