Page:The Chinese Repository - Volume 01.djvu/15

 THE

Introduction

is not less a matter of astonishment than regret that, during the long intercourse which has existed between the nations of Christendom and Eastern Asia, there has been so little commerce in intellectual and moral commodities. The very vehicle of thought even, has been made contraband. The embargo has been rigorous as death, and has prevented what might have been communicated viva voce. Every visitor at Canton must be struck, not to say confounded, with the strange jargon spoken alike by natives and foreigners, in their mutual intercourse; it has been a most fruitful source of misunderstanding; and, in not a few instances, it has paved the way for misrepresentation, altercation, detention, vexation, and other such like evils. Thirty years ago, there was not living, more than one individual capable of translating from Chinese into English; and there was not one of the sons of the "Son of heaven," who could read, or write, or speak, correctly, the English language.

The Empire of which, as residents, we form constituent atoms, stands at this moment, in the 'midst of the Earth,' a stupendous anomaly; and, beyond all controversy, presents the widest, and the most interesting field of research under heaven. By what right of inheritance, by what favourite law of "justice and propriety," a very large portion