China contains, upon an average, upwards of 300 inhabi tants, in all 335 millions, in the fifteen provinces of China Proper, and exclufive of the Tartarian and Thibet territories beyond the great wall.-There are nine orders of mandarins; but the office is not hereditary, and the only public or perfonal distinction is that of being employed in the public fervice; and knowledge and virtue alone qualify for public employments.-When the mandarins, accompanying the embassy, were told that in England a child might claim, in virtue of his birth, the highest offices and dignities of the ftate, they could not fufficiently exprefs their aftonishment, and intimated that this was a matter unfit to be repeated to the emperor. From the entrance of the embaffy into China not one perfon in the guife of a beggar had been seen, or any one obferved to folicit charity. In the intervals of military fervice the foldiers affume the common habit of the people, and are occupied in manufactures or the cultivation of land. The government of China does not interfere with mere opinions. There is in China no ftate religion. None is paid, preferred, or encouraged by it. The emperor is of one faith, many of the mandarins of another, and the majority of the common people of a third, which is that of Fo. The poffeffions of the father are equally divided amongst all the fons; and the antient public law of the empire is founded on the broadest basis of universal justice. The examinations in the public feminaries or schools of ftudents for degrees are always public. Oral queftions are put, and others in writing, to the candidates. The honors conferred upon those who fucceed become the afcending fteps which lead to all the offices and dignities of the state. A method of advancement fo open to all claffes of men tends to reconcile them to the power, from attaining which no individual is precluded. In these trials wealth muft yield to talents and genius. The number of manufacturers bears but a very small proportion to that of husbandmen in China. Few parks or pleafure-grounds are to be feen.

There

There are no commons or lands fuffered to lie wafte by the neglect or caprice or for the fport of great proprietors. Every large or ornamental building was found upon enquiry to be deftined for fome public ufe, or for the habitation of a man in office.-In feafons of calamity the emperor of China always comes forward: He orders the granaries to be opened: He remits the customary taxes to those who are visited by misfortune: He affords assistance to enable them to retrieve their affairs: He appears to his subjects as almost standing in the place of a tutelary divinity. In all public labors there appeared a promptitude and cheerfulness of obedience, which argued a confidential expectation of an adequate recompence. The execution of criminals, convicted of capital offences, takes place in one day with circumstances of peculiar folemnity; the ufages of the empire, requiring the emperor formally to confult the mandarins of his council upon each cafe feparately, in order to know whether he can with safety to the state avert the sentence.

SUCH are the cuftoms, observances, and institutions of a ftupendous empire, far exceeding in riches and population all the kingdoms of Europe; and which has been, from the earliest periods of history, celebrated for the profound wisdom of its government, and for that which is the neceffary confequence of this wisdom-the unexampled profperity of the people!

The British settlements in India enjoyed at this period a profound repose under the wife and equitable government of fir John Shore, fucceffor to earl Cornwallis. The most remarkable occurrence of the present year in Bengal was the death (April 27, 1794) of fir William Jones, who had been appointed, March 1783, a judge of the fupreme Court of Judicature in India on the recall of fir Elijah Impey; as if it were determined by this choice to refcue the English name and character from reproach, and to manifeft, by way of contrast, how high public and private virtue could afcend. Sir William Jones had long been celebrated, as the wonder

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of

of the prefent age, for the profundity and universality of his attainments. As a linguift he was equally familiar with the modern and the antient, the occidental and the oriental, languages. As a writer and profeffor of jurisprudence he was not merely verfed in the laws and ufages of his native country, but deeply skilled in the Roman and Grecian, the Hindoo and Mahometan fyftems. He was at once a mathematician, a poet, and an hiftorian. He excelled in mu fical, in chymical, and in botanical pursuits; and his attainments in every one of these different objects of research were such as might justify the supposition that he had made the study of it the great object of his life. Yet was that life circumfcribed by the comparatively-fhort term of forty-feven years. To his great and unrivalled intellectuat accomplishments he added the highest moral excellence; and no greater or juster eulogium could be pronounced upon him, than that his virtues were equal to his talents. Europe and Afia acknowledged his worth, and mourned "Of the ability and confcious integrity with which he exercised the functions of a magiftrate in India (lord Teignmouth, late fir John Shore, affures us the public voice and public regret bore ample and merited testimony. The fame penetration which marked his scientific researches diftinguished his legal investigations and decifions, and his oratory was as captivating as his arguments were convincing."* While yet on his voyage to India, he formed the plan of an inftitution for the purpose of investigating the hiftory and antiquities, arts, fcience, and literature, of India. It gave me,' to use his own words in the preliminary difcourfe addreffed to the members of the affociation, one evening, on infpecting the map, inexpreffible pleasure to find myself in a noble amphitheatre, almost encircled by the vast regions of Afia, the nurfe of fciences, the inventrefs of delightful and useful arts, the fcene of glorious actions, abounding in natural wonders, and infinitely diverfified in the forms of religion and go

his lofs.

Address to the Society for Afiatic Researches.

vernment.

vernment.

I could not help remarking how important and extenfive a field was yet unexplored, and how many folid advantages unimproved.'" Let us lament," fays lord Teignmouth," that the spirit which dictated thofe learned and interesting differtations, which form fo large and valuable a portion of the records of our researches, is extinct," and that the voice to which we liftened with improvement and rapture will be heard by us no more.”

In order to complete the political portrait of the prefent period, it is necessary to advert to the state of affairs in the continental kingdoms not actually engaged in the confederacy against France.

The celebrated diet of Grodno, by which the fecond partition of Poland was indignantly ratified, terminated in extreme confufion after the coercive abolition of the constitution of 1791, and the re-establishment of that which preceded in 1772. At the beginning of the year 1794, baron d'Ingelftrohm, who had fucceeded the count de Sievres as ambassador at Warsaw, demanded the erasement of every record and the furrender of every paper relative to the late conftitution, which was paffively submitted to. This act of humiliation only increased the infolence of the conquerors, whose oppression and outrages grew daily more infufferable. The court of Ruffia at length iffued its mandate for the reduction of the military force of Poland to 16,000 men. This was pofitively refused by several of the veteran regiments, particularly in that part of the kingdom bordering upon the metropolis, where general Madalinski appeared at the head of a great body of infurgents, who had refolved not to lay down their arms. The Ruffian ambassador was inftructed to deliver to the permanent executive council an official document, requefting, or rather commanding, the Polish government to dispatch an army to oppose Madalinski, and likewife to take into cuftody every fufpected perfon. The first of these demands was evaded; and to the latter it was replied, that no Polish nobleman could be arrested before

L 2

before-conviction. Early in the month of February (1794) appeared in the field the celebrated Kofciufko, who had already diftinguished himself by his gallantry in America and his patriotism in Poland. After obtaining several advantages over the Pruffians in their newly-acquired territories, he advanced towards Cracow, which was abandoned to him by the Ruffians in garrifon there on the 24th of March. He then affembled the nobility and principal inhabitants at the Town-Hall, and was formally invefted with the title of General amid loud acclamations; after which he iffued a proclamation inviting the nation, in the most energetic terms, to shake off their fetters, and to unite in forming a new confederation; and a folemn oath was taken by all present to maintain the conftitution of 1791. In the mean time Warfaw was in a state of high. fermentation. The king, broken down by age, affliction, and infirmity, and wholly incapable of thofe exertions which correfponded with his fituation and character, had the weakness to iffue a proclamation exhorting his fubjects to lay down their arms, instead of putting himself at their head; and rendered himself both odious and contemptible by accepting of a Russian guard for the protection of his perfon.

In the beginning of April general Kosciu sko began his march from Cracow to Warsaw, with an army compofed of fuch regular troops as he could collect, and reinforced by fome thoufand peafants armed with pikes. On the road he fell in with a strong corps of Ruffians, detached by baron d'Ingelstrohm from Warfaw, to regain poffeffion of Cracow. A fierce encounter enfued, and the Ruffians were in the end totally routed with great flaughter-the Polish peafantry, in their fury, giving no quarter to the enemy. The inhabitants of Warfaw now arofe, and drove out the Ruffian garrifon after an obftinate refiftance. Kofciufko took immediate poffeffion of the capital; in confequence of which the king, yielding paffively to the courfe of events,

and