Page:To the Court of the Emperor of China - vol I.djvu/18

Rh It is in consequence of these continual precautions, that I am able to promise an exact narrative of the proceedings of the Embassy, extracted from my Journal; the constant depositary of facts, represented with the most strict regard to truth.

I may venture then to assert that a scrupulous precision will be found in the details I present to the Public, and that my Work will moreover have the merit of being entirely new, since there is not a single line borrowed from any traveller or writer what-ever. I should even think I offered an affront to every well informed Reader, if I Were not convinced of his easily perceiving it himself. It is with the sole view therefore of doing further homage to truth, that I declare that for twenty years I had read nothing on the subject of China. Although we had with us the work of, concerning the first Dutch Embassy to Pe-king, I did not chuse to consult it, because I did not wish to enter into a refutation of its contents, a thing by no means impossible,