Gazette Of The United States And Daily Evening Advertiser

Nothing can be so inveterate as the jealousy of the French nation towards this country. It exists under their pretended free government as strongly as under the despotism which disgraced them before; it shews itself in every political motion of their rulers, and pervades every part of the globe; it has penetrated to Pekin, in China, and wholly frustrated the object of Lord Macartney's mission to that country. Letters are received this day from Canton, dated the 13th of January last, brought by the Swedish Chinaman who has touched at Dover which mention that all our hopes of success from Lord Macartney's embassy are cruelly disappointed; that an increased jealousy of Europeans, and perhaps of our nation in particular, seems to have possessed the court of Pekin at this period. The Emperor has turned a deaf ear to the application for an Island or factory to the northward, and the formation of a commercial treaty; so that all Lord Macartney's views & exertions have been confined to representations to the new viceroy, for the prevention of abuses at Canton, and the redress of complaints. There is no doubt that all this misfortune arises from the villainous machinations of French emissaries, who thro' the channel of the Jesuits; or by their usual poisonous mode of corruption among the Mandarins, have swayed the mind of the Emperor, and probably on account of the recent successes of the British in India, have represented us as a dangerous people to be introduced to near connection with his subjects. Those who know the great abilities and address of Lord Macartney, must lament that they have been wasted upon the ignorance and jealousy of the Chinese Court, who seem resolved to discountenance all accession of knowledge, to the people, and every increase to the trade of the Empire.