Page:China and the Manchus.djvu/79

Rh opportunities for all. They are quick to discover the character of their rulers, and discovery in an unfavourable direction leads to an early alteration of popular thought and demeanour. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, they had tired of eunuch oppression and unjust taxation, and they naturally hailed the genuine attempt in 1662 to get rid of eunuchs altogether, coupled with the persistent efforts of Kʽang Hsi, and later of Chʽien Lung, to lighten the burdens of revenue which weighed down the energies of all. But towards the end of his reign Chʽien Lung had become a very old man; and the gradual decay of his powers of personal supervision opened a way for the old abuses to creep in, bringing in their train the usual accompaniment of popular discontent.

The Emperor Chia Chʽing, a worthless and dissolute ruler, never commanded the confidence of his people as his great predecessors had done, nor had he the same confidence in them. This want of mutual trust was not confined to his Chinese subjects only. In 1799, Ho-shên, a high Manchu official who had been raised by Chʽien Lung from an obscure position to be a Minister of State and Grand Secretary, was suspected, probably without a shadow of evidence, of harbouring designs upon the throne. He was seized and tried, nominally for corruption and undue familiarity, and was condemned to