Travels in China, Sir John Barrow [phonics readers txt] 📗

Opinions on which the Executive Authority is grounded.—Principle on which an Emperor of China seldom appears in public.—The Censorate.—Public Departments.—Laws.—Scale of Crimes and Punishments.—Laws regarding Homicide.—Curious Law Case.—No Appeal from Civil Suits.—Defects in the Executive Government.—Duty of Obedience and Power of personal Correction.—Russia and China compared.—Fate of the Prime Minister Ho-chang-tong.—Yearly Calendar and Pekin Gazette, engines of Government.—Freedom of the Press.—Duration of the Government attempted to be explained.—Precautions of Government to prevent Insurrections.—Taxes and Revenues.—Civil and Military Establishments.—Chinese Army, its Numbers and Appointments.—Conduct of the Tartar Government at the Conquest.—Impolitic Change of late Years, and the probable Consequences of it.

The late period at which the nations of Europe became first acquainted with the existence even of that vast extent of country comprehended under the name of China, the difficulties of access to any part of it when known, the peculiar nature of the language which, as I have endeavoured to prove, has no relation with any other either ancient or modern, the extreme jealousy of the government towards foreigners, and the contempt in which they were held by the lowest of the people, may serve, among other causes, to account for the very limited and imperfect knowledge we have hitherto obtained of the real history of this extraordinary empire: for their records, it seems, are by no means deficient. For two centuries at least before the Christian era, down to the present time, the transactions of each reign are amply detailed without any interruption. They have even preserved collections of copper coins, forming a regular series of the different Emperors that have filled the throne of China for the last two thousand years. Such a collection, though not quite complete, Sir George Staunton brought with him to England.

Before this time, when China consisted of a number of petty states or principalities, the annals of the country are said to abound with recitals of wars and battles and bloodshed, like those of every other part of the world. But, in proportion as the number of those distinct kingdoms diminished, till at length they were all melted and amalgamated into one great empire, the destruction of the human race by human means abated, and the government, since that time, has been less interrupted by foreign war, or domestic commotion, than any other that history has made known. But whether this desirable state of public tranquillity may have been brought about by the peculiar nature of the government being adapted to the genius and habits of the people, which in the opinion of Aristotle is the best of all possible governments, or rather by constraining and subduing the genius and habits of the people to the views and maxims of the government, is a question that may admit of some dispute. At the present day, however, it is sufficiently evident, that the heavy hand of power has completely overcome and moulded to its own shape the physical character of the people, and that their moral sentiments and actions are swayed by the opinions, and almost under the entire dominion, of the government.

These opinions, to which it owes so much of its stability, are grounded on a principle of authority which, according to maxims industriously inculcated and now completely established in the minds of the people, is considered as the natural and unalienable right of the parent over his children; an authority that is not supposed to cease at any given period of life or years, but to extend, and to be maintained with undiminished and uncontrouled sway, until the death of one of the parties dissolves the obligation. The Emperor being considered as the common father of his people is accordingly invested with the exercise of the same authority over them, as the father of a family exerts on those of his particular household. In this sense he takes the title of the Great Father; and by his being thus placed above any earthly controul, he is supposed to be also above earthly descent, and therefore, as a natural consequence, he sometimes styles himself the sole ruler of the world and the Son of Heaven. But that no inconsistency might appear in the grand fabric of filial obedience the Emperor, with solemn ceremony at the commencement of every new year, makes his prostrations before the Empress Dowager, and on the same day he demands a repetition of the same homage from all his great officers of state. Conformable to this system, founded entirely on parental authority, the governor of a province is considered as the father of that province; of a city, the father of that city; and the head of any office or department is supposed to preside over it with the same authority, interest, and affection, as the father of a family superintends and manages the concerns of domestic life.

It is greatly to be lamented that a system of government, so plausible in theory, should be liable to so many abuses in practice; and that this fatherly care and affection in the governors, and filial duty and reverence in the governed would, with much more propriety, be expressed by the terms of tyranny, oppression, and injustice in the one, and by fear, deceit, and disobedience in the other.

The first grand maxim on which the Emperor acts is, seldom to appear before the public, a maxim whose origin would be difficultly traced to any principle of affection or solicitude for his children; much more easily explained as the offspring of suspicion. The tyrant who may be conscious of having committed, or assented to, acts of cruelty and oppression, must feel a reluctance to mix with those who may have smarted under the lash of his power, naturally concluding that some secret hand may be led, by a single blow, to avenge his own wrongs, or those of his fellow subjects. The principle, however, upon which the Emperor of China seldom shews himself in public, and then only in the height of splendor and magnificence, seems to be established on a policy of a very different kind to that of self-preservation. A power that acts in secret, and whose influence is felt near and remote at the same moment, makes a stronger impression on the mind, and is regarded with more dread and awful respect, than if the agent was always visible and familiar to the eye of every one. The priests of the Eleusinian mysteries were well acquainted with this feature of the human character, which is stronger in proportion as the reasoning faculties are less improved, and which required the enlightened mind of a Socrates to be able to disregard the terror they inspired among the vulgar. Thus also Deiōces, as Heredotus informs us, when once established as king in Ecbatana, would suffer none of the people, for whom before he was the common advocate, to be now admitted to his presence, concluding that all those who were debarred from seeing him, would easily be persuaded that his nature, by being created king, was transformed into something much superior to theirs. A frequent access indeed to men of rank and power and talents, a familiar and unrestrained intercourse with them, and a daily observance of their ordinary actions and engagements in the concerns of life, have a tendency very much to diminish that reverence and respect which public opinion had been willing to allow them. It was justly observed by the great Condé, that no man is a hero to