and it is surprising that the Oriental weapons of steel are generally much superior to our own. In the suite of the French General Gardane, sent ambassador by Napoleon to the court of Teheran, there were many military men, who reported that the best Damascus blades were better than the very best Toledos. But, as these could only be purchased from Turkish enemies, the Shah had patronised two native manufactories, at Ispahan and in Chorasan, which were in their turn as much superior to the Syrian arms as those to the Spanish. One officer put the rival qualities to a test which was decisive; and M. Jancoigne (who afterwards published a French report on the Persian armies) says expressly _" the swords they use, much superi

to ours in temper, make wide and deep wounds, which are generally mortal." The advantage belongs to all Oriental armies which import Persian sabres. But what of that? It still remains true of all Oriental armies, that, even as to weapons, they are badly armed; badly as respects the class and selection of the arms, whatever may be their quality as manufactures. The Persian armies have been beaten into some useful reforms by the Russians, and trained into others by Sir H. Bethune. The armies of India have been gradually improved by the example of the English. With these exceptions, no Eastern armies can so much as face European troops, where all arms of the service are complete, in almost any disproportion. A few brave mountain clans do not amount to a serious exception. One universal error in the composition of Eastern armies, is the vast preponderance of the cavalry. The Persian cavalry, taking the quality of men, horses, and arms conjointly, thirty years ago, was the most splendid in Asia; yet an agent of Napoleon's reported thus, on the question of their serviceableness "this brilliant cavalry cannot fight in battle array; " and then, after describing their excellent qualities as individual horsemen, or acting as partisans "for turning the flanks of an army, and as skirmishers," this Frenchman concludes thus:-" But the perfection of European tactics would not permit the elite, even of the Persian cavalry, to support the impetuosity of heavy dragoons, French or English: they are

unequal to the regular shock of our cavalry of the line; and they are unequal to the task of breaking our infantry." Yet this cavalry, we repeat, was, by unanimous consent, at the head of all Asiatic cavalry. As to the infantry, until recently in Persia and in Hindostan, it is every where a rabble of tumultuary levies in Asiatic armies.

Upon many people's minds it will rest as an unpleasant augury, what Sir Robert Peel said of our engaging in a war with three hundred and fifty millions of men. We think Sir Robert must have smiled when he used that argument. One of Shakspeare's clowns hearing of a man having suffered or having threatened a million of stripes, says, "a million of stripes may come to a great matter." And certainly three hundred and fifty millions of cudgelings "would come to a great matter," which would not improve our position, though it might strengthen the demand for opium. But, seriously, of all nations the Chinese is the most sedentary, and the least available for a locomotive warsuch as we can always make it. The fourth part of their three hundred and fifty millions, which in a nation wholly barbarous ought to express the number of males disposable for war, would be too many for the purpose by a thousand-fold, if they could be applied to the service, or, being applied, were of the martial quality required. But the improgressive and imperfect civilisation of this nation is precisely of that kind which most effectually prevents the abstraction of men from their daily industry. Nations cannot starve in order to fight; and the position of China, exposed for some generations to no potent enemy on her frontiers, is precisely such as to prevent her nominal army from being, in a true military sense, seasoned to war, or, in military phrase, aguerrie." An armed police is the utmost, from mere defect of enemies, that any Chinese army can long have been. And were it even otherwise, had the Chinese a large army (like our Indian establishment) continually exercised in field duties, and in sharp fighting by a large family of ambitious neighbours, still the great questions would recur-1, Have they a good INFANTRY? 2, Presuming all the advantages of experience and seasoning in the field, are the men efficiently ARMED? 3, Have they the magical-almost the spiritual-power of DISCIPLINE to bind the individuals into unity ? 4, Have they an engineering establishment? Have they an ARTILLERY?

A quarterly journal of eminence in our land absolutely attempts to startle the country, as regards this last question, by pointing attention to the awful fact, that the Chinese had thrown a twelve pound ball into the mast of the Volage or the Hyacinthe! Wonderful! and the poor mast has to undergo an operation in lithotomy, before it can be pronounced out of danger! Why, Persia herself, whose whole field artillery consisted of certain dromedaries with a swivel mounted on the hump, (zemboureks they were called,) which swivel being once fired to the imminent hazard of the cannonier and his neighbour, the regular manœuvre was for the dromedary to wheel to the right about, and gallop off for a day's march to the rear, in order to insure the concern against capture; even Persia had some capital cannon in her arsenals. And how acquired? They had been left behind by the Portuguese when they evacuated the island of Ormus. And most other Asiatic powers have come into an odd assortment of Christian artillery and other old iron, as derelicts of us Europeans. Why, then, should it astonish us that China, by robbery or purchase, or in the way of jettsom and flotsam, should come into possession of a Christian hulk or so with its its heavy guns?

This

argues nothing for her native skill in engineering. One discharge of a rocket brigade, should our expedition make a hourrah upon any great city, will be a sufficient reply to all such alarmists.

It is in no other way than as an armed body that an English embassy can ever prevail at Pekin. It is in no other character than as an ambassadorial body that an English army can fail to leave behind a very lasting impression of irritation at Pekin. Either form of approach taken separately would thwart our views; the purely martial form would terminate in hostility; the purely diplomatic would terminate in smoke. But, if the two could be dexterously blended, if the one could be so used as to masque the other, from the twofold

engine we might expect a great and a permanent result. Eastern princes, when they receive alimony as suppliants from others at a distance, call it before their own subjects tribute which they have levied. And when they really pay tribute, they call it alimony which they have granted. Το a certain extent we may wink at such evasions in China. But we must not any longer allow our ambassadors to be called tribute-bearers, as were Lords Macartney and Amherst. We must not any longer allow ourselves to be called barbarians. It is doubtful, indeed, as to this last term, what is the exact value of the Chinese word so rendered. In the use of the Greek word Barbaroi, besides the four stages through which it is traced by Gibbon, (chap. li. vol. ix., foot-note p. 463-4,) it is certain that in each separate stage the word admitted of some modifications, which mitigated the insult, and caused it to be sometimes self-assumed as a mere name of distinction, equivalent to alien or non-Grecian. such misunderstanding may operate here. But misunderstandings, one and all, we must have cleared up. They are perilous with two sorts of nations - with insolent nations, and with dishonest nations. And the very first rule in dealing with such a nation is-Better to be cheated than to be insulted.

Some

The first thing is, to look out for really skilful, but in any case really honest interpreters. Want of skill may be remedied. One or two circumlocutions, or varying repetitions, will always make the meaning clear, if any doubt arises upon a separate word: and generally things, substantial things, are too much interwoven with the points in dispute to allow any large range for mistake. But there is no guarding against the perfidy of a native Chinese, whose cowardice suggests to him some evasion of a strong English idea. We must have a letter first of all, full and circumstantial, written to the Emperor; and, because it is said that he feels it a degradation to have been addressed of late by a viceroy, (the Governor-General of India,) this letter must speak directly from her Majesty the Queen that now is to his Imperial Majesty. This will be also the better course for another important reason- it will justify a frank language; it will prevent the language of kindness and respectful conciliation from seeming adulatory; it will prevent the language of plaindealing from seeming insolent. A very great aid would be rendered to the cause, if a short sketch could be sent with this letter, describing the great leading points in our social polity; showing the value which we also set upon human life, (which otherwise the stupid Chinese fancy peculiar to themselves;) but showing also that we value other things still more highly, such as equity, human rights and duties as measured by intention, &c., and stating the nature of a representative government; how far it limits the powers of the sovereign, but in what a high degree it provides for the honour, and dignity, and usefulness of the sovereign. Such a sketch would prepare the Emperor to understand in future, that special requests which he might make of our Queen, as tests of her sincerity, are liable to refusal from the nature of popular rights, without any failure in respect or in sincerity of good-will.

The Chinese understand by this time, which formerly they did not, something of the truth in relation to our civil grandeur. This they have learned indirectly, and by a sort of logical sorites. Our Indian empire, which they see and tremble at, is an exponent to their understandings of that England which they cannot see. To know that this mighty colonial possession is but a remote dependency on England; to know that it is so little essential to the splendour of our English crown, as never to have been visited by any of the royal family; to

know also that the whole vast line of communication between India and England has always been kept open by our ships, and consequently (let French emissaries traduce us as much as they will) that, by a practical test continually applied, we must always have been " too many" for our European enemies, through a long line of thirteen thousand miles-all this must convey a gorgeous impression of British power to the minds of the Pekin counsellors. What we now want is, to connect this power with our interests in Canton. Contrasting so enormous a power with the mean submissions and the precarious tenure of our Chinese factory, what else can the Emperor naturally conclude, than that

we (like himself) throw off from parental care those who, for the sake of gain, have consented to expatriate themselves into corners where they hold no one privilege, not so much as air, as water, as fire, but upon insolent sufferance and capricious indulgence ?

This must be set to rights: an explanation must be given, difficult to devise, of our long inattention to these Chinese rights. We must also speak plainly on the terms of equality which we mean to hold in negotiating. This is not quite unprecedented in the East. In Ferishta's Hindostan, as abridged by Colonel Dow, will be seen a case where a King of Persia was so offended at the arrogant style of a great Mogul Sovereign, that he insisted on explanations; which accordingly were given to this effect: -That if he used vain-glorious titles, they were meant only for his own subjects, not at all indisparagement of his brother princes. Those are weak people who think such points of titular honour, of rank, of precedency, to be trifles any where. Cromwell did not think them such: he most wisely refused to treat in French, though otherwise a trifle, because it would be used as an argument that we British had submitted to take a secondary place, and to receive a sort of law from our enemies. The first Cæsars did not think them such, who cashiered magistrates for using the Greek language on the tribunal. But in Asia all external forms are more important by many degrees. In Europe the prevalent good sense and the diffusion of truth as to all possible relations of power, &c., give a perpetual limitation to the gasconades of French proclamations, French bulletins, &c., bulle which makes nugatory their false pretensions. But in all Asiatic despotisms no truth is current. Ignorance that is total, credulity that is beyond European conception, combine to support all delusions which are not put down with a strong hand by us who are the most certain to suffer from them.

Among the presents, (which to all Eastern princes, but especially to such as only play at making war, ought chiefly to be articles of warlike use,) none can be so well adapted to dazzle the Chinese as a train of our field artillery, with its entire establishment of horses, &c. This, after doing its appropriate service to the ambassador's " retinue" to and from the point of de

barkation, might be left as a present with the Emperor. As to mere philosophical instruments, how could those dazzle a people incapable of using them? There lay the error of Napoleon, who made Monge exhibit chemical experiments before the Mamelukes and the Arab Sheiks. Not having the very elements of science so as to comprehend more than that there had been a flash, or an effervescence, or an explosion, the solemn blockheads naturally said "Aye, this is very well, but can he do what our magicians can do? Can he make us jump into Abyssinia and back again in an hour?"

But by whatever presents and explanatory letters we court the personal favour of the Emperor, the strength of our impression will rest upon our visible demonstration of power contrast■ed with our extreme forbearance in using it. That must make a favour- able impression. And it is obvious that we are now arrived at a crisis in which some powerful impression is indispensable, in order, not only to make the further progress which is challenged by our position in Asia, but to continue our hold on the progress which is made already; not only for those objects even, but to meet the certain danger to our fellow-subjects from casual collisions with the Chinese laws. It is obvious enough that : the Chinese commerce, if it were not ours already, ought to be procured by treaty-considering the clamorous instincts which propel us in our great Asiatic career. It is obvious that this Chinese commerce, having long been ours, will be pursued now at whatever hazard; and that it is the duty of our Government to make that intercourse secure and honourable which it has long been out of their power to prevent. Lastly, it is obvious that even if this commerce were extinguished by the violence of the Chinese, we should ■still need a treaty and a previous demonstration of our power, in order to protect our ships, with their increasing crews and passengers, from casual collisions with a cruel nation.

These arguments for an armed interference apply to any period of that vast system on which our Asiatic interests have been for some years expanding. But they apply at this mo. ment beyond others for a separate reason, viz.-on account of two injurious acts on the part of the Commis.

sioner Lin, which have suddenly created a crisis. The first of these acts being the seizure of our opium, (since a peaceable surrender, under a virtual condition not fulfilled, is a seizure ;) the second of these acts being the violent, summary, and (as Lin says) everlasting exclusion of the British name from China. There were at any rate, and already, three general arguments for an interposition of our Goverment, pointing to the future; there is now a fourth argument, pointing to the past, the reprisals called for against special and recent outrages. This last reason we have treated as itself furnishing strong matter against our own Government; but that does not acquit the Chinese Government. It is only in collusion with the Chinese Commissioner that our own Government has been wrong. To seek indemnities, where we ourselves created the necessity for those indemnities by submitting to the wrong, criminates the Government under whose impulse and misrepresentation we did submit to that wrong: but it does not acquit Lin, under whose breach of faith that submission has turned out to be an illusory act.. Lin is

guilty; and our own Government in a measure the accomplice of Lin. Yet, self-created as is our present necessity for indemnities, by pursuing that object in connexion with the other great objects indicated by the constant state of our danger from China, the Government will have its only chance of effacing past folly. We may forgive the absurdity and the fraud by which our merchants were decoyed into a supererogatory surrender of two birds in the hand by way of obtaining an uncertain reversion upon one bird in the bush; this and much besides we may forgive, and even rejoice in our own losses, as well as the blunders of our Government, if they should turn out to be the happy occasion of forcing a stream of light upon our Chinese position, and winning something more than a momentary indemnification for the British factory-winning honour for the name of Britain-winning a secure settlement planted in law, and selfrespect for our establishments in China - for ever taking away from British merchants all temptations to co-operate in legal murder-for ever guaranteeing our own brothers and sisters from liability to torture.

We have taken no notice of one feature in our Chinese relations, which threatens us beyond China. We have been alarmed recently on the matter of Chiva. There is a monomania in this country as regards the Emperor of Russia because the Poles were conspirators, he must be a tyrant - and every man is suspected of aiming at a snuff-box through the Russian ambassador, who speaks a word of truth on behalf of his Russian Majesty. All that we shall say therefore is that the expedition to Chiva can hardly have any relation to the British movement upon Cabul. It was planned and talked of two good years before we crossed the Indus. The Khan of Chiva is the common nuisance of central Asia; equally offensive to Russia as a disturber of her commerce in its natural chan nels, and a common Algerine pirate as regards her peaceful subjects on the Caspian. As regards India, if Russia could venture to assault with mere war an empire founded on both the war and the diplomacy of eighty years, how could she take an effectual departure from the Jaxartes, when she cannot reach it without the sacrifice of despair? Not to mention, that Russia cannot spare troops for an Indian campaign-has not a battalion that is acclimatized-cannot wish for an empire so distant as to demand a new centre of administration. Now, on the other hand, if China could become more warlike, the peril which we vainly look for on the Western Himalaya will seriously reach us from the Eastern.

We have taken no notice of a feature in the domestic circumstances of China, which may happen to favour us. A secret and revolutionary society

of vast ramifications, sometimes called the Society of the Triad, diffused through every province of maritime China, and having for its object to overthrow the existing Tartar dynasty and government, has been noticed by English travellers of late years. This may happen to co-operate with our purposes. But we rely upon no obscure features, whether for hope or for fear. We rely upon the condition of Chinafull of insolence, full of error, needing to be enlightened, and open to our attacks on every side. A popular Review has pronounced recently an apotheosis of China; finding out that she is distinguished for her skill in the arts, (but obscure mechanic arts,) and that she was so when our ancestors lived in the forests of Germany. True; and no fact could better have measured the difference between us. The Review takes a retrospect of 1500 years. All the world sees how we have used that interval. We British have traversed the whole distance from savage life to the summit of civilisation. China, starting with such advantages, has yet to learn even the elements of law and justice, without counting on doubtful advantages. We rely upon this known and attested state of Chinese society, which needs a diplomatic interference to make it endurable. We rely upon our past position at Canton, which was always full of temptations to partnership in murder. We rely upon our in. juries, which are recent. We rely upon our honour, trampled under foot. We rely upon our interests, which, alike for commerce and for person, are now finally at stake.