APPENDIX.

CHINESE WORK ON THE NATIONS OF THE WEST, BY LIN, THE IMPERIAL COMMISSIONER.

THAT the address to the emperor, which concludes at page 89., was from Commissioner Lin, has been proved by a much more extensive and elaborate production of the same author, "Statistical Notices of the Kingdoms of the West," in fifty books, and twelve volumes. A copy was obtained, with some difficulty, at Shanghae, and, after being examined and abstracted by Dr. Gutzlaff, passed into French hands, and went to Paris.

When that very active and energetic functionary Lin resided at Canton in his high official capacity, and got involved with Europeans, he availed himself of the aid of interpreters, and of every work he could procure, either native or foreign, to obtain a knowledge of the Terra incognita, that is, of every country of the world beyond China. For this pur

pose he availed himself of the Missionary Tracts, the Chinese Monthly Magazine, a Treatise on Commerce, a Description of the United States, and of England, a work on Geography, &c., &c., which were all, more or less, abridged or abstracted. Translations were also made of all such articles in the newspapers as contained any thing concerning China, and especially opium. His compilation devoted some pages to the subject of gunnery; and there was a diagram, containing the very point discussed in Sir Francis Head's late work — the dispart of a piece of ordnance, that is, the angle of difference between the line of the bore and the line of the upper surface of the gun, to be corrected by a raised sight over the muzzle. This was found practically applied, during the expedition to Canton of 1847, in the wooden sights attached to the guns within the batteries captured and disabled on the 2nd and 3rd of April. One of these sights was handed to me by Lieut. Colonel Brereton, who commanded the Royal Artillery on that occasion, and it has the number and range of the marked upon

gun

it.

The compilation in its original state was presented by Lin to one of the inferior officers of the Peking council, who searched diligently

among the state papers, and added a number of articles himself. Thus completed, the work was handsomely printed, and circulated in the summer of 1844 among the higher officers of government at the capital and in the provinces. It is a strange compound of truth and fiction, history and fable; but better than any thing of the sort that had preceded it. There are geographical and statistical accounts of foreign countries, with the Chinese records of antiquity respecting the Roman empire and western Asia.

Inasmuch as it lays open the views of the Peking court in relation to Great Britain, the work is interesting and curious; for, though most of the schemes and speculations are chimerical and absurd, some of them might, in the course of years, be realized, or at least attempted. It contemplates, as the summum bonum of Chinese foreign policy, the divisions of European or Christian states among themselves, by which China would be enabled still to exclude and defy them all; the opposite course being the true policy of the other parties.

The following are extracts: "This present compilation differs from all others, being composed, not from our Chinese records, but

from what foreigners have said upon each subject. The object is to enable us to attack barbarians with barbarians, to control barbarians by barbarians, and to avail ourselves of the superiority of barbarians to master barbarians; for which purpose these lucubrations may serve as a text-book."

The writer reviews, with regret, the events of the past war, and proposes, in case of a second emergency, a different system of defence. The existing ideas of the government, respecting Chusan and Hongkong, are conveyed in these terms:

"Chusan is one of the islands of the Chěkeang group. As a point to defend, it affords no access to any important territory; in regard to wealth, it has a poor soil; in extent it is a mere speck (fifty by twenty miles); and, during the Ming dynasty, was not incorporated with the empire by Tangwa. In the eighth year of Shunche (1652), Wâng, a minister and councillor of state, observed that the present dynasty had abandoned Chusan, as its occupation was useless. The commanding officer of the Tartar troops in garrison there was accordingly recalled. These were the solemn words of foresight, uttered by experienced men, the founders of our empire.