Page:To the Court of the Emperor of China - vol I.djvu/10

x the management of their affairs at Canton, in quality of Chief of the Factory.

This new mark of confidence shewn him by his primitive country, and his desire to turn his eyes from 2 quarter of the globe in which his two only sons and two of his daughters had found an untimely grave, determined M. Van Braam to accept what was offered him. He returned to Holland, and set off immediately after for Canton.

A knowledge of several countries, and a consequent habit of observing their opposite characters, inspired M. Van-Braam with a desire of more attentively examining all that he was allowed to see of China. With this desire was combined that rational curiosity which seeks to penetrate into mysteries under which it imagines useful truths to lie concealed; and, lastly, that sentiment so natural to a European, of wishing to acquire further knowledge of a nation of which the little already known furnishes matter of so much well-founded astonishment.

As soon as this project was conceived, M. Van-Braam made it one of his principal concerns. Industrious both by habit and disposition; led by his very duties to make observations; having opportunities more or less frequent of questioning Chinese; able himself to sketch every thing that came in his way; enabled by the increase of his fortune, a consequence of his successful