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 MinisterHo-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.
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 MinisterHo-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.
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 MinisterHo-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.
Thelate period at which the nations of Europe became firstacquainted 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, mayserve, 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, thatthe 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 theGreat 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 thesole ruler of the worldand theSon 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 headof 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 moredread 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 alsoDeiōces, 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 his valet-de-chambre.
Considerations of this kind, rather than any dread of his subjects, may probably have suggested the custom which prohibits an Emperor of China from making his person too familiar to the multitude, and which requires that he should exhibit himself only on particular occasions, arrayed in pomp and magnificence, and at the head of his whole court, consisting of an assemblage of many thousand officers of state, the agents of hiswill, all ready, at the word of command, to prostrate themselves at his feet.
The power of the sovereign is absolute; but the patriarchal system, making it a point of indispensable duty for a son to bring offerings to the spirit of his deceased parent in the most public manner, operates as some check upon the exercise of this power. By this civil institution, the duties of which are observed with more than a religious strictness, he is constantly put in mind that the memory of his private conduct, as well as of his public acts, will long survive his natural life; that his name will, at certain times in every year, be pronounced with a kind of sacred and reverential awe, from one extremity of the extensive empire to the other, provided he may have filled his station to the satisfaction of his subjects; and that, on the contrary, public execrations will rescue from oblivion any arbitrary act of injustice and oppression, of which he may have been guilty. It may also operate as a motive for being nice and circumspect in the nomination of a successor, which the law has left entirely to his choice.
The consideration, however, of posthumous fame, would operate only as a slender restraint on the caprices of a tyrant, as the history of this, as well as other countries, furnishes abundant examples. It has, therefore, been thought necessary to add another, and perhaps a more effectual check, to curb any disposition to licentiousness or tyranny that might arise in the breast of the monarch. This is the appointment of the Censorate, an office filled by two persons, who have the power of remonstrating freely against any illegal or unconstitutional act about to be committed, or sanctioned by the Emperor. And although it may well be supposed, that these men are extremely cautious in the exercise of the power delegated to them, by virtue of their office, and in the discharge of this disagreeable part of their duty, yet they have another task to perform, on which their own posthumous fame is not less involved than that of their master, and in the execution of which they run less risk of giving offence. They are the historiographers of the empire; or, more correctly speaking, the biographers of the Emperor. Their employment, in this capacity, consists chiefly in collecting the sentiments of the monarch, in recording his speeches and memorable sayings, and in noting down the most prominent of his private actions, and the remarkable occurrences of his reign. These records are lodged in a large chest, which is kept in that part of the palace where the tribunals of government are held, and which is supposed not to be opened until the decease of the Emperor; and, if any thing material to the injury of his character and reputation is found to be recorded, the publication of it is delayed, out of delicacy to his family, till two or three generations have passed away, and sometimes till the expiration of the dynasty; by that indulgence they pretend, that a more faithful relation is likely to be obtained, in which neither fear nor flattery could have operated to disguise the truth.
An institution, so remarkable and singular in its kind in an arbitrary government, could not fail to carry with it a verypowerful influence upon the decisions of the monarch, and to make him solicitous to act, on all occasions, in such a manner, as would be most likely to secure a good name, and to transmit his character unsullied and sacred to posterity. The records of their history are said to mention a story of an Emperor, of the dynasty or family ofTang, who, from a consciousness of having, in several instances, transgressed the bounds of his authority, was determined to take a peep into the historical chest, where he knew he should find all his actions recorded. Having made use of a variety of arguments, in order to convince the two censors that there could be nothing improper in the step he was about to take, as, among other things, he assured them, he was actuated with the desire only of being made acquainted with his greatest faults, as the first step to amendment, one of these gentlemen is said to have answered him very nobly, to this effect: "It is true your Majesty has committed a number of errors, and it has been the painful duly of our employment to take notice of them; a duty," continued he, "which further obliges us to inform posterity of the conversation which your Majesty has this day, very improperly, held with us."
To assist the Emperor in the weighty affairs of state, and in the arduous task of governing an empire of so great an extent, and such immense population, the constitution has assigned him two councils, one ordinary, and the other extraordinary; the ordinary council is composed of his principal ministers, under the name of Collao, of which there are six. The extraordinary council consists entirely of the princes of the blood.
For the administration of the affairs of government, there are six boards or departments, consisting of,
1. The Court of Appointments to vacancies in the offices of government, being composed of the minister and learned men, qualified to judge of the merits of candidates.
2. The Court of Finance.
3. The Court of Ceremonies, presiding over the direction of ancient customs, and treating with foreign Embassadors.
4. The Court for regulating military affairs.
5. The Tribunal of Justice.
6. The Board of Works.
These public functionaries resolve upon, recommend, and report to the Emperor, all matters belonging to their separate jurisdictions, who, with the advice of his ordinary and, if considered to be necessary, of his extraordinary council, affirms, amends, or rejects their decrees. For this purpose, the late Emperor never omitted to give regular audience in the great hall of the palace every morning at the hours of four or five o'clock. Subordinate to these supreme courts held in the capital, are others of similar constitution established in the different provinces and great cities of the empire, each of which corresponds with its principal in Pekin.
It would far exceed the limits of the present work, were I to enter into a detail of their code of laws, which indeed I am not sufficiently prepared to do. They are published for the use of the subject, in the plainest characters that the language will admit, making sixteen small volumes, a copy of which is now in England; and I am encouraged to hold out a reasonable hope, that this compendium of the laws of China may, ere long, appear in an able and faithful English translation, which will explain, more than all the volumes that have hitherto been written on the subject of China, in what manner a mass of people, more than the double of that which is found in all Europe, has been kept together through so many ages in one bond of union. This work[23]on the laws of China, for perspicuity and method, may justly be compared with Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. It not only contains the laws arranged under their respective heads, but to every law is added a short commentary and a case.
I have been assured, on the best authority, that the laws of China define, in the most distinct and perspicuous manner, almost every shade of criminal offences, and the punishment awarded to each crime: that the greatest care appears to have been taken in constructing this scale of crimes and punishments; that they are very far from being sanguinary: and that if the practice was equal to the theory, few nations could boastof a more mild, and, at the same time, a more efficacious dispensation of justice. Of all the despotic governments existing, there is certainly none where the life of man is held so sacred as in the laws of China. A murder is never overlooked, except in the horrid practice of exposing infants: nor dares the Emperor himself, all-powerful as he is, to take away the life of the meanest subject, without the formality at least of a regular process, though, as will be seen in the case of the late prime minister ofKien-Long, the chance of escaping must be very slender, where he himself becomes the accuser. So tenaciously however do they adhere to that solemn declaration of God delivered to Noah—"At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,"—that the good intention is oftentimes defeated by requiring, as I have elsewhere observed, from the person last seen in company with one who may have received a mortal wound, or who may have died suddenly, a circumstantial account, supported by evidence, in what manner his death was occasioned.
In attempting to proportion punishments to the degrees of crimes, indeed of awarding the same punishment for stealing a loaf of bread and taking away the life of man, the Chinese legislators, according to our notions, seem to have made too little distinction between accidental manslaughter and premeditated murder. To constitute the crime, it is not necessary to prove the intention or malice aforethought; for though want of intention palliates the offence, and consequently mitigates thepunishment, yet it never entirely excuses the offender. If a man should kill another by an unforeseen and unavoidable accident, his life is forfeited by the law, and however favourable the circumstances may appear in behalf of the criminal, the Emperor alone is invested with the power of remitting the sentence, a power which he very rarely if ever exercises to the extent of a full pardon but, on many occasions, to a mitigation of the punishment awarded by law. Strictly speaking, no sentence of death can be carried into execution until it has been ratified by the monarch. Yet in state crimes, or in acts of great atrocity, the viceroy of a province sometimes takes upon himself to order summary punishment, and prompt execution has been inflicted on foreign criminals at Canton when guilty only of homicide. Thus, about the beginning of the last century, a man belonging to Captain Shelvocke had the misfortune to kill a Chinese on the river. The corpse was laid before the door of the English factory, and the first person that came out, who happened to be one of the supercargoes, was seized and carried as a prisoner into the city, nor would they consent to his release till the criminal was given up, whom, after a short inquiry, they strangled. The recent affair of the unfortunate gunner is well known. An affray happened in Macao a few years ago, in which a Chinese was killed by the Portuguese. A peremptory demand was made for one of the latter, to expiate the death of the former. The government of this place, either unable or unwilling to fix on the delinquent, proposed terms of compromise, which were rejected and force was threatened to be used. There happened to be a merchant from Manilla then residing at Macao, a man of excellent character, who had long carried on a commerce between the two ports. This unfortunate man was selected to be the innocent victim to appease the rigour of Chinese justice, and he was immediately strangled[24].
The process of every trial for criminal offences, of which the punishment is capital, must be transmitted to Pekin, and submitted to the impartial eye of the supreme tribunal of justice, which affirms or alters, according to the nature of the case. And where any peculiar circumstances appear in favour of the accused, an order for revising the sentence is recommended to the Emperor, who, in such cases, either amends it himself, or directs the proceedings to be returned to the provincial court, with the sentiments of the supreme tribunal on the case. The proceedings are then revised, and if the circumstances are found to apply to the suggestions of the high court, they alteror modify their former sentence accordingly[25].
As in some of the Grecian states, and other nations of modern times, the punishment of treason was extended to the relations of the criminal, so in China, even to the ninth generation, a traitor's blood is supposed to be tainted, though they usually satisfy the law by including only the nearest male relations, then living, in the guilt of the culprit, and by mitigatingtheir punishment to that of exile. Nothing can be more unjust and absurd, however politic, than such a law, absurd, because it considers a non-entity capable of committing a crime; andunjust, because it punishes an innocent person. The lawgiver of Israel, in order to intimidate his stiff-necked and rebellious subjects, found it expedient to threaten the visitation of God onthe children, for the sins of the fathers, unto the third and fourth generation, a sentiment however which, it would seem, lapse of time had rendered less expedient, for the prophet Ezekiel, who on this subject had more elevated notions of moral right than either the Greeks or the Chinese, spurns it with great indignation. In allusion to such an idea, which it seems had become a proverb among the Jews, he breaks out into this sublime exclamation: "What mean ye that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son, is mine. The soul that sinneth,itshall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be uponhim, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be uponhim."
In most causes, except those of high treason, it may be presumed, the high tribunal of Pekin will act with strict impartiality. And it is greatly to be lamented, that all civil causes have not been made subject to a similar revision as those of a criminal nature, which would strike at the root of an evil that is most grievously felt in China, where the officers of justice are known, in most cases, to be corrupted by bribery. They have, however, wisely separated the office of judge from that of the legislator. The former, having found the fact, has only to refer to the code of laws, in which he is supplied with a scale of crimes and their punishments. Such a mode of distributing justice is not however without its inconveniences. Tender as the government has shewn itself, where the life of a subject is concerned, having once established the proportion of punishment to the offence it has supposed an appeal, in civil causes and misdemeanors, to be unnecessary. The sentence in such causes being thus left in the breast of a single judge, how great soever may be the nicety by which the penalty is adapted to the offence, the exclusion from appeal is in itself a bar to the just and impartial administration of the laws. The subject being refused the benefit of carrying his cause into a higher, and on that account more likely to be a more impartial, court, has no security against the caprice, malice, or corruption of his judge.
It may not perhaps be thought unworthy of notice that the legislators of China, among the various punishments devised for the commission of crimes, have given the criminal no opportunity, either by labouring at any of the public works, or in solitary confinement, to make some reparation for the injury he has committed against society. Confinement in prison, as apunishment, is not known. Exile or personal chastisement are decreed for all irregularities not approaching to capital offences.
Executions for capital crimes are not frequently exhibited; when found guilty the criminals are remanded to prison till a general gaol delivery, which happens once a year, about the autumnal equinox. In adopting such a measure government may perhaps have considered, how little benefit the morals of the people were likely to derive from being the frequent spectators of the momentary pain that is required to take away the existence of a fellow mortal. All other punishments, however, that do not affect the life of man, are made as public as possible, and branded with the greatest degree of notoriety. The beating with the bamboo, in their ideas, scarcely ranks under the name of punishment, being more properly considered as a gentle correction, to which no disgrace is attached, but the cangue or, as they term it, thetcha, a kind of walking pillory, is a heavy tablet of wood, to which they are fastened by the neck and hands, and which they are sometimes obliged to drag about for weeks and months; this is a terrible punishment, and well calculated to deter others from the commission of those crimes of which it is the consequence, and the nature of which is always inscribed in large characters upon it.
The order that is kept in their jails is said to be excellent, and the debtor and the felon are always confined in separate places; as indeed one should suppose every where to be the case, for, as Sir George Staunton has observed, "To associateguilt with imprudence, and confound wickedness with misfortune, is impolitic, immoral, and cruel[27]."
The abominable practice of extorting confession by the application of the torture is the worst part of the criminal laws of China; but they pretend to say this mode is seldom recurred to, unless in cases where the guilt of the accused has been made to appear by strong circumstantial evidence. It is however a common punishment to squeeze the fingers in cases of misdemeanour, and is particularly practised as a punishment of those females who purchase licences for breaking through the rules of chastity.
By the laws relating to property, women in China, as in ancient Rome, are excluded from inheriting, where there are children, and from disposing of property; but where there are no male children a man may leave, by will, the whole of his property to the widow. The reason they assign for women not inheriting is, that a woman can make no offering to deceased relations in the hall of ancestors; and it is deemed one of the first ideal blessings of life for a man to have some one to look up to, who will transmit his name to future ages, by performing, at certain fixed periods, the duties of this important ceremony. All their laws indeed respecting property, as I have already observed, are insufficient to give it that security and stability which alone can constitute the pleasure of accumulating wealth. The avarice of men in power may overlook those who are in moderate circumstances, but the affluent rarelyescape their rapacious grasp. In a word, although the laws are not so perfect as to procure for the subject general good, yet neither are they so defective as to reduce him to that state of general misery, which could only be terminated in a revolution. The executive administration is so faulty, that the man in office generally has it in his power to govern the laws, which makes the measure of good or evil depend greatly on his moral character.
Such are indeed the disposition and the habits of the people, that so long as the multitude can procure their bowl of rice and a few savory sauces, that cost only a mere trifle, there will be less danger of a revolt; and the government is so well convinced of this, that one of its first concerns is to lay up, in the public magazines erected in every part of the empire, a provision of grain, to serve as a supply for the poor in times of famine or scarcity. In this age of revolutions, a change, however, seems to be taking place in the minds of the people, which I shall presently notice.
The system of universal and implicit obedience towards superiors pervades every branch of the public service. The officers of the several departments of government, from the first to the ninth degree, acting upon the same broad basis of paternal authority, are invested with the power of inflicting the summary punishment of the bamboo, on all occasions where they may judge it proper, which, under the denomination of a fatherly correction, they administer without any previous trial, or form of inquiry. The slightest offence is punishable in this manner, at the will or the caprice of the lowest magistrate. Such a summary proceeding of the powerful against the weak naturally creates in the latter a dread and distrust of the former; and the common people, accordingly, regard the approach of a man in office, just as schoolboys observe the motions of a severe master; but the fatherly kindness of the Emperor is recognised even in punishment; the culprit may claim the exemption of every fifth blow as the Emperor'scoup-de-grace; but in all probability he gains little by such remission, as the deficiency in number may easily be made up in weight.
This practical method of evincing a fatherly affection is not confined to the multitude alone, but is extended to every rank and description of persons, ceasing only at the foot of the throne. Each officer of state, from the ninth degree upwards to the fourth, can, at any time, administer a gentle correction to his inferior; and the Emperor orders the bamboo to his ministers, and to the other four classes, whenever he may think it necessary for the good of their morals. It is well known that the lateKien Longcaused two of his sons to be bambooed long after they had arrived at the age of maturity, one of which, I believe, is the present reigning Emperor.
In travelling through the country, a day seldom escaped without our witnessing the application of thePan-tséor bamboo, and generally in such a manner that it might be called by any other name except agentlecorrection. A Chinese suffering under this punishment cries out in the most piteous manner; a Tartar bears it in silence. A Chinese, after receiving a certain number of strokes, falls down on his knees, as a matterof course, before him who ordered the punishment, thanking him, in the most humble manner, for the fatherly kindness he has testified towards his son, in thus putting him in mind of his errors; a Tartar grumbles, and disputes the point as to the right that a Chinese may have to flog him; or he turns away in sullen silence.
Ridiculous as it may appear to a foreigner, in observing an officer of state stretching himself along the ground for the purpose of being flogged by order of another who happens to rank one degree above him; yet it is impossible, at the same time, to suppress a glow of indignation, in witnessing so mean and obsequious a degradation of the human mind, which can bring itself, under any circumstances, patiently to submit to a vile corporal punishment, administered by the hand of a slave, or by a common soldier; and when this is done, to undergo the still more vile and humiliating act of kissing the rod that corrects him. But the policy of the government has taken good care to remove any scruples that might arise on this score. Where paternal regard was the sole motive, such a chastisement could not possibly be followed with dishonour or disgrace. It was a wonderful point gained by the government, to subject every individual, the Emperor only excepted, to the same corporal correction; but it must have required great address, and men's minds must have been completely subdued, or completely convinced, before such a system of universal obedience could have been accomplished, the consequence of which, it was obvious, could be no other than universal servility. It could not fail to establish a most effectual check against the complaints of themultitude, by shewing them that the same man, who had the power of punishing them, was equally liable to be corrected in his turn, and in the same manner, by another. The punishment of the bamboo must, I suspect, be one of the most ancient institutions of China. Indeed we can scarcely conceive it ever to have been introduced into a society already civilized; but rather to have been coeval with the origin of that society.
A similar kind of personal chastisement for light offences, or misconduct, was inflicted in Russia on persons of all ranks, but with this difference, that the correction was private and by order of the Sovereign alone. The Czar Peter, indeed, generally bestowed a drubbing on his courtiers with his own hand; who, instead of being dishonoured or disgraced by such a castigation, were supposed, from that very circumstance, to be his particular favourites, and to stand high in his confidence. The great Mentzikoff is said to have frequently left his closet with a black eye or a bloody nose; and seemed to derive encreasing importance from the unequivocal marks of his master's friendship. Even at the present day, or till very lately, little disgrace was attached to the punishment of theknout, which was a private flagellation by order of the court; but this abominable practice either is altogether discontinued, or in its last stage of existence. Such arbitrary proceedings could not long remain in force among an enlightened people.
These two great empires, the greatest indeed that exist in the world, dividing between them nearly a fifth part of the whole habitable globe, each about a tenth, exhibit a singular difference with regard to political circumstances. One century ago Russia was but just emerging from a state of barbarism, and in a century hence, in all human probability, she will make a conspicuous figure among European nations, both in arts and arms. Two thousand years ago China was civilized to the same degree, or nearly so, that she is at present. The governments were both arbitrary, and the people were slaves. The natural genius of the Russian, cramped perhaps in some degree by his frozen climate, is less susceptible of improvement than that of the Chinese. Whence then, it may be asked, proceeds the very great difference in the progressive improvement of the two nations? principally, I should suppose, from the two following reasons. Russia invites and encourages foreigners to instruct her subjects in arts, sciences, and manufactures. China, from a spirit of pride and self-importance, as well as from jealousy, rejects and expels them. The language of Russia is easily acquired, and her subjects as easily learn those of other countries, whilst that of China is so difficult, or their method of learning it so defective, as to require the study of half the life of man to fit him for any of the ordinary employments of the state, and they have no knowledge of any language but their own. The one is in a state of youthful vigour, advancing daily in strength and knowledge; the other is worn out with old age and disease, and under its present state of existence is not likely to advance in any kind of improvement.
To the principle of universal obedience the Chinese government has added another, which is well calculated to satisfythe public mind: the first honours and the highest offices are open to the very lowest of the people. It admits of no hereditary nobility; at least none with exclusive privileges. As a mark of the Sovereign's favour a distinction will sometimes descend in a family, but, as it confers no power nor privilege nor emolument, it soon wears out. All dignities may be considered as merely personal; the princes of the blood, even, sink gradually into the common mass, unless their talents and their application be sufficient to qualify them for office, independent of which there can be neither rank nor honours, and very little if any distinction, not even in the imperial family, beyond the third generation. On public days the Emperor, at a single glance, can distinguish the rank of each of the many thousand courtiers that are assembled on such occasions by their dress of ceremony. The civilians have a bird, and the military a tyger, embroidered on the breast and back of their upper robe; and their several ranks are pointed out by different coloured globes, mounted on a pivot on the top of the cap or bonnet. The Emperor has also two orders of distinction, which are conferred by him alone, as marks of particular favour; the order of the yellow vest and of the peacock's feather.
The influence that, in nations of Europe, is derived from birth, fortune, and character, is of no weight in the Chinese government. The most learned, and I have already explained how far the term extends, provided he be not of notorious bad character, is sure to be employed; though under the present Tartar government, the Chinese complain that they never arrive at the highest rank till they are advanced in years. Learningalone, by the strict maxims of state, leads to office, and office to distinction. Property, without learning, has little weight, and confers no distinction, except in some corrupt provincial governments, where the external marks of office are sold, as in Canton. Hence property is not so much an object of the laws in China as elsewhere, and consequently has not the same security. In the governments of Europe, property seldom fails to command influence and to force dependence: in China, the man of property is afraid to own it, and all the enjoyments it procures him are stolen.
Sometimes, indeed, the highest appointments in the state are conferred, as it happens elsewhere, by some favourable accident, or by the caprice of the monarch. A striking instance of this kind was displayed in the person ofHo-tchung-tang, the last prime minister of the lateKien-long. This man, a Tartar, happened to be placed on guard in the palace, where his youth and comely countenance struck the Emperor so forcibly in passing, that he sent for him to the presence; and finding him equally agreeable in his conversation and manners, he raised him rapidly, but gradually, from the situation of a common soldier, to the highest station in the empire. Such sudden changes, from a state of nothingness to the summit of power, have frequently been observed to be attended with consequences no less fatal to the man so elevated, than pernicious to the public: and thus it happened to this favourite minister. During the life of his old master, over whom, in his later years, he is said to have possessed an unbounded influence, he availed himself of the means that offered, by every species of fraud and extortion, by tyranny and oppression, to amass such immense wealth in gold, silver, pearls, and immoveable property, that his acquisitions were generally allowed to have exceeded those of any single individual, that the history of the country had made known. His pride and haughty demeanour had rendered him so obnoxious to the royal family that, at the time we were in Pekin, it was generally supposed, he had made up his mind to die with the old Emperor, for which event he had always at hand a dose of poison, not chusing to stand the severe investigation which he was well aware the succeeding prince would direct to be made into his ministerial conduct. It seems, however, when that event actually happened, the love of life, and the hope of escaping, prevailed on him to change his purpose and to stand the hazard of a trial. Of the crimes and enormities laid to his charge he was found, or rather he was said to have pleaded, guilty. The vast wealth he had extorted from others was confiscated to the crown, and he was condemned to suffer an ignominious death[28].
ButHo-tchung-tang, if guilty of inordinate ambition, or acts of injustice, is far from being the only instance of such conduct in men thus raised from humble situations. The officersof government in general, though intended by the constitution as a kind of barrier between the prince and the people, are the greatest oppressors of the latter, who have seldom any means of redress, or of conveying their complaints to the Imperial ear. There is no middle class of men in China: men whose property and ideas of independence give them weight in the part of the country where they reside; and whose influence and interest are considered as not below the notice of the government. In fact, there are no other than the governors and the governed. If a man, by trade, or industry in his profession, has accumulated riches, he can enjoy them only in private. He dares not, by having a grander house, or finer clothes, to let his neighbour perceive that he is richer than himself, lest he should betray him to the commanding officer of the district, who would find no difficulty in bringing him within the pale of the sumptuary laws, and in laying his property under confiscation.
Sometimes, indeed, the extortions that the officers practise upon the people, as in the case ofHo-tchung-tang, meet the hand of justice. Other magistrates keep a steady eye upon their proceedings, and, in proper time, transmit the necessary information to court. Spies also are detached from court into theprovinces, under the name of inspectors. Jealous of each other, they let no opportunity slip of making unfavourable reports to their superiors. Notwithstanding which, with all the precautions taken by government in favour of the subject, the latter finds himself most dreadfully oppressed. It is true, for very slight offences preferred against men in office, the court directs a public reprimand in the official Gazette; for those of a more serious nature, degradation from rank; and every officer so degraded is under the necessity of proclaiming his own disgrace in all his public orders; not only to put him in mind of his past conduct, but likewise to shew the people how watchful the eye of government is over the actions of its servants. The last stage of public degradation, which amounts to a sentence of infamy, is an order to superintend the preparation of the Emperor's tomb, which implies that the person so sentenced is more fit to be employed among the dead than the living.Tchang-ta-gin, the late viceroy of Canton, was condemned to this degrading service[29].
The viceroy of a province can remain in that office no longer than three years, lest he might obtain an undue influence. No servant of the crown can form a family alliance in the place where he commands, nor obtain an office of importance in the city or town wherein he was born. Yet with these, and other precautions, there is still little security for the subject. He has no voice whatsoever in the government, either directly or byrepresentation; and the only satisfaction he possibly can receive for injuries done to him, and that is merely of a negative kind, is the degradation or the removal of the man in power, who had been his oppressor, and who perhaps may be replaced by another equally bad.
The ingenious Mr. Pauw has observed, that China is entirely governed by the whip and the bamboo. To these he might have added the yearly calendar and the Pekin Gazette, both of which, as engines in the hands of government, contribute very materially to assist its operations. By the circulation of the first is kept alive the observance of certain superstitions which it is, apparently, the study of government to encourage. The second is a vehicle for conveying into every corner of the empire the virtues and the fatherly kindness of the reigning sovereign, shewn by punishing the officers of his government, not only for what they have done amiss, but for what they may have omitted to do. Thus, if a famine has desolated any of the provinces, the principal officers are degraded for not having taken the proper precautions against it. This paper, in the shape of a small pamphlet, is published every second day. The missionaries have pretended that immediate death would be the consequence of inserting a falsehood in the Imperial Gazette. Yet it is famous for describing battles that were never fought, and for announcing victories that were never gained. The truth of this observation appears from several proclamations ofKaung-shee,Tchien Long, and the present Emperor, warning the generals on distant stations from making false reports, and from killing thousands and ten thousands of the enemy, sometimes even when no engagement had taken place[30]. The reverend gentlemen only mean to say, that the editor would be punished if he ventured to insert any thing not sent to him officially by the government.
The press in China is as free as in England, and the profession of printing open to every one, which is a singular circumstance, and perhaps the only instance of the kind, in a despotic government. It has usually been supposed that, in free countries only where every person is equally under the protection, and equally liable to the penalties, of the law, the liberty of the press could be cherished; and that it was a thing next to impossible, that power, founded on error and supported by oppression, could long be maintained where the press was free. It was the press that in Europe effected the ruin of priestly power, by dispelling the clouds that had long obscured the rays of truth; and by opening a free access to the doctrines of that religion which, of all others, is best calculated for the promotion of individual happiness and public virtue[31].
In China the liberty of the press seems to excite no apprehensionsin the government. The summary mode of punishing any breach of good morals, without the formality of a trial, makes a positive prohibition against printing unnecessary, being itself sufficient to restrain the licentiousness of the press. The printer, the vender, and the reader of any libellous publication, are all equally liable to be flogged with the bamboo. Few, I suppose, would be hardy enough to print reflexions on the conduct of government, or its principal officers, as such publications would be attended with certain ruin. Yet, notwithstanding all the dangers to which the printing profession is liable, daily papers are published in the capital, circulating, something like our own, private anecdotes, domestic occurrences, public notices of sales, and the wonderful virtues of quack medicines. We were told that, in one of these papers, the Portuguese missionary mentioned in Mr. Grammont's letter got a paragraph inserted, purporting the great neglect of the English in having brought no presents for the princes of the blood, nor for the Emperor's ministers. This false and malicious paragraph was said to be followed by another, insinuating that those for the Emperor were common articles of little value. Another pretended to give a catalogue of them, and included an elephant about the size of a rat, giants, dwarfs, wishing pillows, and such like nonsense. These, however, and other publications,were industriously kept from our sight. Under the generous idea of being the Emperor's guests, we were not allowed to purchase any thing. He alone was to supply our wants, but his officers took the liberty of judging what these wants should consist in.
It is a singular phenomenon in the history of nations, how the government of an empire, of such vast magnitude as that of China, should have preserved its stability without any material change, for more than two thousand years; for, dropping their pretensions to an extravagant antiquity, for which however they have some grounds, there can be no doubt they were pretty much in the same state, regulated by the same laws, and under the same form of government as they now are, four hundred years before the birth of Christ, about which time their renowned philosopher flourished, whose works are still heldin the highest reputation. They contain indeed all the maximson which their government is still grounded, and all the rules by which the different stations of life take their moral conduct; and the monarchy is supposed to have been established two thousand years before his time.
If the test of a good government be made to depend on the length of its continuance, unshaken and unchanged by revolutions, China may certainly be allowed to rank the first among civilized nations. But, whether good or bad, it has possessed the art of moulding the multitude to its own shape in a manner unprecedented in the annals of the world. Various accidents, improved by policy, seem to have led to its durability. Amongthese the natural barriers of the country, excluding any foreign enemy, are not to be reckoned as the least favourable; whilst the extreme caution of the government in admitting strangers kept the world in ignorance, for many ages, of the existence even of the most extensive, powerful, and populous empire among men. Secluded thus from all intercourse with the rest of the world, it had time and leizure to mould its own subjects into the shape it wished them to retain; and the event has sufficiently proved its knowledge in this respect.
A number of fortunate circumstances, seldom combined in the same country, have contributed to the preservation of internal tranquillity in China. The language is of a nature well calculated to keep the mass of the people in a state of ignorance. They are neither prohibited from embracing any religion of which they may make a choice, nor coerced to contribute towards the support of one they do not approve. The pains that have been taken to inculcate sober habits, to destroy mutual confidence, and render every man reserved and suspicious of his neighbour, could not fail to put an end to social intercourse. No meetings were held, even for convivial purposes, beyond the family circle, and these only at the festival of new year. Those kind of turbulent assemblies, where real or imagined grievances are discussed with all the rancour and violence that malicious insinuations against government, added to the effects of intoxicating draughts, too frequently inspire, never happen among the Chinese. Contented in having no voice in the government, it has never occurred to them that they have anyrights[32]: and they certainly enjoy none but what are liable to be invaded and trampled on, whenever the sovereign, or any of his representatives, from interest, malice, or caprice, think fit to exercise the power that is within their grasp. The doctrine of employing resistence against oppression, applied to the people and the government, is so contrary to every sentiment of the former, that the latter has little to fear on that score.
Partial insurrections occasionally happen, but they are generally owing to the extreme poverty of the people which, in seasons of scarcity and famine, compels them to take by violence the means of subsisting life, which otherwise they could not obtain. To this cause may be referred the origin of almost all the commotions recorded in their history, through some of which, when the calamity became general, the regular succession has been interrupted, and even changed. We were told, however, by our Chinese attendants, that certain mysterious societies did exist in some of the provinces, whose chief object was to overturn the Tartar government; that they held secretmeetings, in which they gave vent to their complaints against Tartar preponderancy, revived the memory of ancient glory, brooded over present injuries, and meditated revenge. If even this be the case, the present state of society is little favourable to their views. Nor indeed would a revolution be a desirable event for the Chinese themselves. It could not fail of being attended with the most horrible consequences. The Tartar soldiers would be tired with slaying, and millions that escaped the sword must necessarily perish by famine, on the least interruption of the usual pursuits of agriculture; for they have no other country to look to for supplies, and they raise no surplus quantity in their own.
In order to prevent as much as possible a scarcity of grain, and in conformity to their opinion, that the true source of national wealth and prosperity consists in agriculture, the Chinese government has in all ages bestowed the first honours on every improvement in this branch of industry. The husbandman is considered as an honourable, as well as useful, member of society; he ranks next to men of letters, or officers of state, of whom indeed he is frequently the progenitor. The soldier in China cultivates the ground. The priests also are agriculturists, whenever their convents are endowed with land. The Emperor is considered as the sole proprietary of the soil, but the tenant is never turned out of possession as long as he continues to pay his rent, which is calculated at about one-tenth of what his farm is supposed capable of yielding; and though the holder of lands can only be considered as a tenant at will, yet it is his own fault if he should be dispossessed. So accustomed are the Chineseto consider an estate as their own, while they continue to pay the rent, that a Portuguese in Macao had nearly lost his life for endeavouring to raise the rent upon his Chinese tenants. If any one happens to hold more than his family can conveniently cultivate, he lets it out to another on condition of receiving half the produce, out of which he pays the whole of the Emperor's taxes. A great part of the poorer peasantry cultivate lands on these terms.
There are, in fact, no immense estates grasping nearly the whole of a district; no monopolizing farmers, nor dealers in grain. Every one can bring his produce to a free and open market. No fisheries are let out to farm. Every subject is equally entitled to the free and uninterrupted enjoyment of the sea, of the coasts, and the estuaries; of the lakes and rivers. There are no manor lords with exclusive privileges; no lands set apart for feeding beasts or birds for the profit or pleasure of particular persons; every one may kill game on his own grounds, and on the public commons. Yet with all these seeming advantages, there are rarely three successive years without a famine in one province or another.
As in the Roman Empire examples were not wanting of the first characters in the state glorying to put their hands to the plough, to render the earth fertile, and to engage in the natural employment of man; as,