The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-18 00:00:00

sorrily,- workmen are either wholly or partially unem-
ployed ; that pauperism has rapidly augmented ; and
that diseaSe, crime, and mortality have made fearful in-
roads amongst the poorer classes of the community.
That those evils are experienced at the present mo-
ment With unmitigated severity and that there is no
prospect of any amelioration of the distresses of
this great community."
Mr. JOHN BROOKS seconded the resolution, and it was
carried without a dissentient voice.

Mr. Fletcher, of Darwin ; Mr. Ecroyd, of Colne ; and
Mr. Holloday, of Oldham, having spoken on the state of
their neighbourhoois,
Mr. CHEETHAM, of Staleybridge, moved the following
resolution :

"That, in the opinion of this meeting, the calamitous
state of the surrounding community is chiefly to be
traced to the operation of certain legislative enactments,
which forbid the free exchange of our manufactures for
the needful productions of other countries, and especially
to the Corn and Provision-laws, which, by restricting as
far as possible the means of subsistence to the insufficient
harve,ts of these islands, subjects the people to a per-
petual struggle for food, and exposes them to constantly
recurring seasons of scarcity ; that these laws dry up
the sources of profitable employment for an increasing
population, not only by preventing the growth of foreign
commerce, but by limiting in an equal degree the
heme trade, which flourishes only with the pros-
perity of our manufacturing, mercantile, and trading
interests ; that, in the deliberate opinion of this meet•
ing, and irrespective of the present distress and its
cause, any law which gives to a privileged class a mono-
poly of the supply of any article, but especially of the
first necessaries of life, at the expense of the general
body of the nation, is, in its essence, and under all cir-
cumstances and at every time, a violation of the funda-
mental principles of just, government."
The resolution was seconded by JOSEPH SPENCER,
Esq., of Ashton, and carried unanimously.
JOHN RYLANDS, Esq.; of Warrington, moved
"That, whilst demanding as a right the removal of all
protective duties for the benefit of others, this meeting is
desirous that the miscalled legal protection given to the
cotton trade should be at the same time withdrawn: It'
such protective laws were operative, they could only be so
at the expense of the consumers of cotton manufactures.
They, on the contrary, are wholly inoperative; more than
three-fourths of the cotton spun and manufactured and ex
ported and sold in competition with every foreign rival, and
the price abroad determining the price at home, no legisla.
tive enactment can possibly protect the capitalist or labourer
engaged in the cotton trade. That, therefore, this meet-
ing regards the existence of laws professedly passed for
its benefit' as calculated merely to delude the unreflect-
ing, and to afford to others the pretence for maintaining
monopolies oppressive and injurious to the interests or
the country."
The motion was seconded by Mr. NICHOLSON, from
Leeds, and carried ; after which Mr. ROBERTS, from
Burnley, addressed the meeting.
Mr. GEORGE WILSON, Honorary Secretary to the
League, then read various communications from places
which had not sent deputations.
Mr. Perkins, of Nottingham ; Mr. Brotherton, M.P. ;
and Mr. Cobden, M.P. ; then addressed the meeting,
and the proceedings terminated.

WAR BET WEEN GREAT BRITAIN

AND' CHINA.
(From the' Morning Post.)
OPINION OF THE HON. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
The following document, from the pen of an American
statesman who exercises a considerable influence on the
national opinions and policy of the United States, will
be interesting to the British public. It is a lecture on
that part of the law of nations which applies to the
existing war between this country and China, delivered
to the Historical Society of Massachusetts by the Hon.
John Quincy Adams a short time previously to the sail-
ing of the Caledonia. This production had not been
published in America when the Caledonia left Boston, but
was to appear in the Boston Notion of Dec. 4, from a copy
of which paper, printed by anticipation, we have the op-
portunity, which we cheerfully embrace, of transferring
it to our columns:—

The existing state of the relations between the king-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland and the empire of China
opens for discussion questions of deep interest to the
whole human race, and of pre-eminent interest to the
people of the North American Union.

great Britain and China are at war. The questions
which immediately rise for consideration in this conflict
between two of the mightiest nations of the globe are-
1. Which of the two, parties to the contest has the
righteous cause ?
2. What are the prospects of its progress and termi-
nation ?

3. How the interests of other nations, and particularly
of tie UnitA States, are already, or are likely to be
hereafter, affected by it ?
_

4. What are the 'duties of the Government and peo-
ple of the United States resulting from it ?
For the solution of the first of these questions we must
resort to a statement of the facts in which the controversy
originated, and for a candid application to these facts of
the laws of nature and nations.

It is emphatically enjoined by the Christian precept,
to love your neighbour as yourself. Now, there is no
other way by which men can so much contribute to the
comfort and well-being of one another as by commerce,
or mutual exchang,s of equivalents. Commerce is, then,
among the natural rights and duties of men, and if of
individuals, still more of communities ; for, as by the
law of nature every man, though he love his neighbour
as himself, must provide for hii own preservation and
that of his family before he can minister to the wants of
his neighbour, it follows that he can give in exchange to
his neighbour only the excess of the fruit of his labour
beyond that which is necessary. for his and their subsist-
ence. The exchange itself may indeed be of necessaries,
and that leads to the division of labour, one of the
greatest blessings of association ; but that cannot be with-
out commerce.

The empire of China is said to extend over three
hundred millions of human beings. It is said to cover a
space of seven millions of square miles—about four times
larger than the surface of these United States. The
people are not Christians. Nor can a Christian nation
appeal to the principles of a common faith to settle the
question of right and wrong between them. The moral
obligation of commercial intercourse between nations is
founded entirely, exclusively upon the Christian precept
to love your neighbour as yourself. With this principle
you cannot refuse commercial intercourse with your
neighbour, because commerce, consisting of a voluntary
exchange of property mutually beneficial to both parties,
excites in both the selfish and social propensities, and
'enables each of the parties to promote the happine:s
of his neighbours by the same act whereby he provides
for his own.

But China, not being a Christian nation, its inhabit-
ants do not consider themselves bound by the Christian
precept, to love their neighbour as themselves. The
right of commercial intercourse with them reverts not to
the execrable principle of Hobbes that the state of nature
is a state of war ; every one has a right to buy, but no
man is obliged to sell. Commerce becomes altogether a
matter of convention. 'the right of each party is only
to propose—that of the other is to accept or refuse, and
to his
of hisresultli
e ownmay
be guided excluAvely by the consi-
deration interest,
without regard to the inte-
rests, the wishes, or the Other wants of his neighbour.
This is a churlish and unsocial system, and I take
occasion here to say that whoever examines the Chris-
tian system of morals with a philosophical spirit,
setting aside all the external and historical evidence
of its truth, will find that all its precepts tend to
exalt the nature of the animal man—all its purpose of
peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Ask the
Atheist, the Deist, the Chinese, and they will tell
you that the foundation of their system of morals is
selfish enjoyment. Ask the philosophers of the Grecian
schools—Epicurus, Socrates, Zeno, Plato, Lucretius,
Cicero, Seneca, and you will find them discoursing upon
the supreme Good. They will tell you it is pleasure,
ease, temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice—not one
of them will whisper the name of love, unless in its gross
and physical sense, as an instrument of pleasure ; not
one of them will tell you that the source of all moral re-
lation between you and the rest of mankind is to love
your neighbour as yourself—to do unto him as you would
that he should do unto you.
The Chinese recognise no such law. Their internal
Government is a hereditary patriarchal despotism,
and their own exclusive interest is the measure
of all their relations with the rest of mankind.
Their own Government is founded upon the principle
that, as a nation, they are superior to the rest of man-
kind. They believe themselves and their country espe•
cially privileged over all others ; that their dominion is
the celestial empire, and their territory the flowery land.
At a period of their history so remote that they have no
authentic records of the times, to make their separation
from the rest of the world more effectual, they built a
wall 1,500 miles long, between themselves and their next
neighbours the Tartars, which, however, has not saved
them from being more than once conquered. The prin-
ciple of the Chinese Government is, that the whole nation
is one grtat family, of which the Emperor is the father.
His authority is unlimited, and. he can not only appoint
such of his sons he pleases to succeed him, but may even
transfer the succession to another family. Idol worship,
polygamy, infanticide, are the natural consequences of
such a system within the realm, and the assumption of a
pretension to superiority over all other nations regulates
their intercourse with foreigners.
To the Greeks and Romans of antiquity, the very ex-
istence of the Chinese nation was unknown. The first
notice of them received by the Europeans of the middle
ages, was from the Venetian Marco Polo in the 13th
century. IVhen the Portuguese, 200 years later, found
the way round the Cape of Good Hope to India, they
soon pushed forward their navigation and their enter-
prise along the whole coast of China. They were
allowed to trade for several years at various ports ; but
abusing this privilege and their navigating power, they
were soon excluded from all access to the empire. A few
years later the coast was infested by pirates. One of these,
named Tchang-si-100, obtained possession of the island
of Macao, there held the whole coast in a state of
blockade, and besieged Canton, itself destitute of all naval
power. The mandarins of the Celestial Empire were
obliged to have recourse to those very Portuguese to
defend and deliver their country from the depredation of
a single 'bold and desperate pirate. They sent from
lancam, where they had a trading establishment, an ex-
pedition which raised the siege of Canton, and drove
Tchang-si-100 back to Macao, where, to escape from the
fate which awaited him had he fallen into the hands of
his pursuers, he died by his own hands. In reward for
this service the Emperor of China gave to the Portuguese
the island of Macao, which they hold to this day, and
from which station they and the other navigating nations
of Christendom have carried on all their commercial in-
tercourse with the interior of China.
Other navigating Christian nations followed in the
wake of the Portuguese. The Spaniards, the Dutch,
the English, the French, the Danes, successively came
as rival competitors for the lucrative commerce. It was

chiefly, though not always, confined' to the port of Can-
ton, but no European was ever admitted within the walls
of that city. The several trading nations were allowed
to establish'small factories for counting-houses, on the
banks of the river without -the city, but they were never
suffered to enter within the gates ; they were not per-
mitted to introduce even a woman into the factory. All
their intercourse with the subordinate government of
the province was carried on through the medium of
a dozen Chinese traders, denominated the Hong mer-
chants. All their remonstrances against wrong or
;claims of right must be transmitted, not directly to the
Government, but through the' Hong—'-all in the form of
hunible application, called by the Chinese a PIN; and all
must be content to receive the 'answers of the 'Viceroys
in .the form of ediCts, in which they, their sovereigns, and
their nations, were invariably styled outside barbarians,
and the highest compliment to their kings wag to declare
them reverend' submissive to his Imperial Majesty, Mo-
narch of the Celestial Empire, and Fatheiof the Flowery
Land.

It is humiliating to think that not only the proudest
monarchs of Europe, but the most spirited and enlight•
ened and valorous nations of Christendom have submitted
to this tone and those principles of intercourse, so long as
to have given them, if prescription could give them, a
claim of right and a colour of conformity to the law of
nature.

The vital principle if commerce is reciprocity ; and,
although in all cases of traffic each party acts for him-
self and for the promotion of his own interest, the duty
of each is to hold commercial intercourse with the other
—not from exclusive or paramount consideration of his
own interest, but from a joint and equal moral conside-
ration of the interests of both. If the object of any par•
ticular traffic is advantageous to ore party and injurious
to the other, then the party suffering has an unques-
tionable right to interdict the trade, not from exclusive
or paramount consideration of his own interest, but be-
cause the traffic no longer fulfils the condition which
makes commercial intercourse a duty.
The fundamental principle of the Chinese empire is
anti-commercial. It admits no obligation to hold Com-
mercial intercourse with others. lt utterly denies the
equality of other nations with itself, and even their in-
dependence. • It holds itself to be the centre of the ter-
raqueous globe, equal to the heavenly host, and all other
nations with whom it has any relations, political or com-
mercial,.as outside tributary barbarians reverently sub-
missive to the will of its despotic Chief. It is upon this
principle, openly avowed and inflexibly maintained, that
the principal maritime nations of Europe for several
centuries, and the United States of America from the
time of their acknowledged independence, have been
content to hold commercial intercourse with the empire
of China.

It is time that this enormous outrage upon the rights
of human nature, and upon the first principles of the
rights of nations, should cease. These principles of the
Chinese empire, too long connived at and truckled to by
the mightiest Christian nations of the civilised world,
have at length been brought into conflict with the princi-
ples and the power of the British empire ; and I cannot
forbsar to express the hops that Britain, after taking
the lead in the abolition of the African slave trade and
of slavery, and of the still more degrading tribute to the
Barbary African Mahometans, will extend her liberating
arm to the furthest bounds of Asia, and at the close of
the present contest insist upon concluding the pace on
terms of perfect equality with the Chinese empire ; and
that the future commerce shall be carried on upon terms
of equality and reciprocity between the two communities,
parties to the trade, for the benefit of both, each retain-
ing the right of prohibition and of regulation to interdict
any article or branch of trade injurious to itself, as, for
example, the article of opium ; and to secure itself against
the practices of fraudulent traders and smugglers.
This is the true, and I apprehend the only question
at issue bstween the Governments and nations of Great
Britain and China. It is a general, but I believe alto-
gether mistaken opinion, that the quarrel is merely for
certain chests of opium imported by British merchants
:nto China, and seized by the Chinese Government for
having been imported contrary to law. This is a mere
incident to the dispute, and no more the cause of the
war than the throwing overboard of the tea in Boston
harbour was the cause of the North American Revolution.
The cause of the war is the pretension on the part of
the Chinese, that in all their intercourse with other na-
tions, political or commercial, their superiority must be
implicitly acknowledged, and manifested in humiliating
forms. It is not creditable to the great, powerful, and
enlightened nations of Europe, that for several centuries
they have, for the sake of profitable trade, submitted to
this Insolent and insulting pretension, equally contrary to
the first principles of the law of nature and of revealed
religionthe natural equality of mankind.
ex
traordinary
for submission to insult is the more
for being practised by Christian nations, which, in their
intercourse with one another, push the principle of
equality and reciprocity to the minutest punctilios of
forms.

Among the expedients to which the British Govern-
ment had resorted to hide their faces from the shame of
submission to their principle of commercial intercourse
with China, was that of,grantin,,o• the monopoly of trade
to a company of merchants. .The Charter of the East
India Company was the instrument of this monopoly ;
and, as the Company possessed none of the attri-
butes of sovereignty, whatever- compliances their
thirst for gain might reconcile with their self-
esteem its men, or their pride as Britons, was
supposed to involve no sacrifice of the national
honour and dignity. They submitted, therefore, to accept
the permission to trade with the people of China, as a
boon granted to their humble supplication, called a Pin.
But their trade was to be confined to the single port of
Canton, in an empire of seven millions of square] miles,
with a population of 300,000,000 of souls. Even into
that city of Canton no British subject was ever to be
suffered to get his foot. They were permitted to erect on
the banks of the river below the city the -buildings neces-
sary for a counting-house, over which they might dis-
play the degraded standard of their nation, but from
which their wives and families were to be for ever ex-
cluded For the superintendence of this trade certain
officers were appointed by the East India Company, and
it was to be exclusively carried on with ten or twelve
Chinese merchants of the city, called Hong merchants,
through whom alone the outside barbarians had access by
the Pin to the government of the city.
In the year 1792, just at the time when the wars of
the French revolution, in which Great Britain took so
prominent a part, were breaking out, the British Govern-
ment instituted a splendid embassy to the Emperor of China,
Kien Long, who was then approaching the termination
of a reign of sixty years. From the historical account
of this embassy, published by Sir George Staunton, it
appears that its object was to prevail upon the Chinese
Government to admit the establishment of •a permanent
diplomatic British Minister to reside near the person of
the Emperor, at Pekin, and, thereby to secure a more
effective protection to the commerce between the two
countries than it had before enjoyed. But this was not
agreeable to Chinese benevolence. From the moment
that Lord Macartney landed in China till he embarked
in the Lion to return home, he was considered the vassal
of a distant subordinate petty Prince,-sent by his master
to do hotnagrs, and bear the tributary presents to the
superhuman Majesty of the Celestial empire.
The presentation of the Ambassador and the delivery
of his credential letters was effected with great so:emnity,
and he was magnificently entertained by the Emperor
on his birthday, the 17th of September. But the letter
and the presents were no sooner delivered than he re-
ceived significant hints that it was expected he would
apply without delay' for permission to depart.
Lord Macartney was extremely reluctant at coming to
the conclusion that his embassy was at an end, and that
he had nothing more to do but to ask permission to de-
part and return to his own country ; but a kind friend at
the Imperial Court, whose good offices he had secured,
suggested to him that the Chinese had no other idea of
an embassy, and that there was in truth no other
alternative. To relieve him from his embarrassment, his
British pride and this Tartar courtesy, he just at this
time received advices of the war which the National
Convention had declared against the King of Great
Britain and the Stadtholder of the Netherlands, and he
comforted himself with the anticipation that by returning
home immediately in the Lion, the ship which had con-
veyed him to China, he might at the same time perform
the service of conveying in safety the East India Com-
pany's fleet of merchantmen then bound to Europe.
This embassy, however, appears to have been treated
with more respect than any other from a European Go-
vernment during the two centuries of the reign of the Ta-
Tsing, or Mantchoo Tartar dynasty. The narrative of Sir
George Staunton distinctly and positively affirms that Lord
Macartney was admitted to the presence of the Emperor
Kien-Long, and presented to him his credentials, with-
out performing the prostration of the Ko-Tou, the.
Chinese act of homage from the vassal to the sovereign
lord. Ceremonies between superiors and inferiors are
the personification of principles. Nearly twenty-five
years after the repulse of Lord Macartney, in 1816, an-
other splendid embassy was despatched by the British
Government, in the person of Lord Amherst, who was
much more rudely dismissed, without even being ad-
mitted to the presence, of the Emperor, or passing a
single hour at Pekin. A Dutch t mbassy, instituted
shortly after the failure of that of Lord Macartney, fared
no better, although the Ambassador submitted with a
good grace to the prostration of the Ko-Tou. A philo-
sophical Republican may smile at the distinction by
which a British Nobleman saw no objection to deliver-
ing his credentials on the bonded knee, but could not
bring his stomach to the attitude of entire prostration.
The bonded knee, no less than the full-length prostration
to the ground, is a symbol of homage from an inferior to
a superior, and if not equally humiliating to the per-
former, it is only because he has been made familiar by
practice with the one and not with the other. In Europe
the bended knee is exclusively appropriated to the rela-
tions of sovereign and subject, and no representative of
any sovereign in Christendom ever bends the knee in
presenting his credentials to another.
It has been seen how the British Government and na-
tion had accommoda7ed themselves to this self-arrogating
system of the Chinese. It was by establishing a mono-
poly on their part, adapted to the monopoly of the Chi-
nese system. The exclusive right of trading with China
was granted to the East India Company, and all the
commerce of British subjects with the Celestial Empire
was transacted by means of commissioned supercargoes,
appointed by those merchant princes, without diploma-
tic character, and without direct intercourse with any
officer of the Chinese Government.
But on the expiration and renewal of the East India
Company's charter in 1833, the exclusive right of trading
with China was discontinued, and thenceforth the quasi-
political intercourse between the two nations transacted
by mere commercial agents of the East India Company
ceased, and in the third and fourth year of the reign of
William, the Fourth, an Act of Parliament was made and
passed, " to regulate the trade to China and India."
In pursuance of the powers conferred upon the Crown
by this Act, the sailor King issued three Orders in
Council :-1. Constituting and appointing William John
Lord Napier, William Chieheley, and John Francis
Davis, Superintendents of the Trade of J3ritish sub-