Page:The Chinese Repository - Volume 01.djvu/223

 THE

REVIEWS.

is often interesting to trace the progress of decline of places of great commercial importance; and with regard to Canton this is more particularly the case, because changes have so rapidly, yet so imperceptibly, taken place, that few are acquainted with the situation of foreigners in this country, no farther back even than half a century ago. In several respects, indeed,—in the character of the people we have to deal with, and in the gradual encroachments of the government on many of our natural rights as fellow-men,—we find the Chinese always the same, in every period of their commercial intercourse with foreign nations. But in other respects, it will be seen, by extracts which we propose to make from the interesting volumes before us, that our present situation in China differs considerably from that of foreigners eighty