Chapter 7

His talents as a writer have secured to him a very distinguished place in the literature of England; and his political services, during the reign of Queen Anne, have rendered him illustrious in English history. But though he was possessed of wit, eloquence, family, wealth, and opportunity, he never displayed true dignity of character, nor real greatness of soul. He seemed to have no fixed principles of action; and to have loved contest more than victory. Wherever there was strife, there you might surely expect to meet St. John; and his public career almost justifies the inference, that apostacy (if indeed a man who has no principles can be called an apostate) would have seemed to him, after his defeat, a moderate price for permission to appear again in the lists. But as he had always coveted power with an insatiable avidity, he never could rest long enough to acquire it. On the stormy sea of public life, he was for ever struggling to be on the topmost wave; but the waves receded as fast as he advanced; and fate seemed to have destined him to waste his life in fruitless efforts and as fruitless changes.

In early life he sought distinction by his debaucheries; and from the accounts of his biographer, it would seem, that he succeeded in becoming the most daring profligate in London. Tired of the excess of dissipation, he attempted the career of politics, and found his way into Parliament under the auspices of the whigs. When politics failed, he put on the mask of a metaphysician. Tired of that costume, he next attempted to play the farmer. Dissatisfied with farming, he wrote political pamphlets. Still discontented with his condition in the world, he strove to undermine the basis of religion.

He began public life as a whig; but as the tories were in the ascendant, he rapidly ripened into a tory; he ended his political career by deserting the tories and avowing the doctrines of staunch and uncompromising whigs. He tried libertinism, married life, politics, power, exile, restoration, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the city, the country, foreign travel, study, authorship, metaphysics, infidelity, farming, treason, submission, dereliction,--but ennui held him with a firm grasp all the while, and it was only in the grave that he ceased from troubling.

To an observer who peruses his writings with this view of his character, many of his expressions of wise indifference and calm resignation, have even a ludicrous aspect. The truth breaks forth from all his attempts at disguise. The philosopher's robes could not hide the stately wrecks of his political passions. They say, that round Vesuvius, the lava of former eruptions has so entirely resolved itself into soil, that vineyards thrive on the black ruins of the volcano; and that the ancient devastation could hardly be recognised, except for an occasional dark mass, which, not yet decomposed, frowns here and there over the surrounding fertility. Something like this was true of St. John; he believed his ambition extinct, and attempted to gather round its ruins all the beauties and splendour of contented wisdom; but his nature was still ungovernably fierce; and to the last, his passions lowered angrily on the quiet scenes of his literary retirement.

There is no clue to his character, except in supposing him to have been under the influence of ennui, which was perpetually terrifying him into the grossest contradictions. He could not be said to have had any principles, or to have belonged to any party; and to whatever party he rallied, he was sure to become utterly faithless. He was not less false to the Pretender than to the King, to Ormond than to Walpole. He was false to the tories and false to the whigs; he was false to his country, for he attempted to involve her in civil war; and false to his God, for he combated religion. He was not swayed by a passion for glory, for he did not pursue it steadily,--nor by a passion for power, for he quarrelled with the only man by whose aid he could have maintained it. He was rather driven to and fro by a wild restlessness, which led him into gross contradictions "for his sins." Nor was his falsehood without its punishment. What could be more pitifully degrading, than for one who had been a successful British minister of state, and had displayed in the face of Europe his capacity for business and his powers of eloquence, to have finally stooped to accept a seat in the Pretender's cabinet, where pimps and prostitutes were the prime agents and counsellors?

There exists a very pleasant letter from Pope, giving an account of Bolingbroke's rural occupations, during his country life in England, after the reversal of his attainder. He insisted on being a farmer; and to prove himself so, hired a painter to fill the walls of his parlour with rude pictures of the implements of husbandry. The poet describes him between two haycocks, watching the clouds with all the apparent anxiety of a husbandman; but to us it seems, that his mind was at that time no more in the skies than when he quoted Anaxagoras, and declared heaven to be the wise man's home. His heart clung to earth, and to earthly strife; and his uneasiness must at last have become deplorably wretched, since he could consent to pick up stale arguments against Christianity, and leave a piece of patchwork, made up of the shreds of other men's scepticism, as his especial legacy to posterity, in proof of the masterly independence of his mind.

Thus we have endeavoured to explain the nature of that apathy which is worse than positive pain, and which impels to greater madness than the fiercest passions,--which kings and sages have not been able to resist, nor wealth nor pleasures to subdue. We have described ennui as a power for evil rather than for good; and we infer, that it was an absurd philosophy which classed it among the causes of human superiority, and the means of human improvement. It is the curse pronounced upon voluptuous indolence and on excessive passion; on those who decline active exertion, and thus throw away the privileges of existence; and on those who live a feverish life, in the constant frenzy of stimulated desires. There is but one cure for it: and that is found in moderation; the exercise of the human faculties in their natural and healthful state; the quiet performance of duty, in meek submission to the controlling Providence, which has set bounds to our achievements in setting limits to our power. Briefly: our ability is limited by Heaven--our desires are unlimited, except by ourselves--ennui can be avoided only by conforming the passions of the human breast to the conditions of human existence.

In pursuing this investigation, which we now bring to a close, we have not attempted to exhaust the subject; we refer it rather to the calm meditations of others, who will find materials enough within themselves. And lest the impatient should throw aside our essay with the disgust of satiety, or the persevering should by our prolixity be vexed with the very spirit which we would rather teach them to exorcise, we here take a respectful leave, with our sincerest wishes, that life may be to the reader a succession of pleasant emotions, and death a resting place neither coveted nor feared.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Iliad, ix. 187-190.

[2] Iliad, ix. 310-320.

[3] Iliad. Pope renders this--Alike regretted in the dust he lies. But it is an expression of discontent with destiny, which sets a common limit to life, and not to men, whose regrets may be unequal.

[4] Jean Jacques Rousseau. Confessions, p. 1. l. vi.

[5] We remember perfectly well the beginning of an apostrophe to the Jewish philosopher; "Du _heiliger_ Spinoza." Herder, too, has a good deal to say in defence of him.

ART. III.--_Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia; with a Narrative of a Residence in China._ By PETER DOBELL. 2 vols. 12mo. 1830.

Mr. Dobell, the author of these volumes, is an American gentleman, who formerly resided in the city of Philadelphia, where he was known as an enterprising and intelligent merchant. Commercial business led him to make several voyages, beyond the Cape of Good Hope; and circumstances at length induced him to prolong his residence in Asia. He established himself at Canton, where he lived for some years, and undertook, from time to time, trading expeditions to various ports on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. In the course of these, frequent opportunities were afforded of noticing the manners, country, and state of society in China, superior to such as occur to ordinary travellers; and much too of the remote people of Eastern Russia, who are very little known to those inhabiting the civilized portions of the world. These voyages were succeeded by more than one journey across the country to St. Petersburg, in which he observed, with an attentive eye and inquisitive disposition, the extensive regions forming the _penetralia_ of that vast empire. His intelligence and exertions were noticed and rewarded by the confidence of the government, who conferred on him the office of Consul at some Eastern port, and he was subsequently raised to the post of "Counsellor of the court" of his Imperial Majesty, a rank which he still retains, having probably relinquished the intention of returning to his own country.

The account of China, which, in the natural order, would form the first portion of his narrative, is comprised in a sort of supplement to the travels in Siberia, and contains in a more compendious form, a good sketch of the manners and state of society in that singular country. The means of observation, and of obtaining information, are indeed greatly diminished, by the well known jealousy of the Chinese towards strangers, and the extreme vanity and exaggeration with which they speak of themselves and their country; but the pursuits of Mr. Dobell, together with the recurrence of the opportunities by which he profited, give to his account a considerable degree of novelty, and certainly entitle it to more than ordinary confidence.

On his first arrival at Canton, he was struck with the new and interesting scene that presented itself. Islands, hills, canals, and rivers, were scattered around. The verdure was lively, the population excessive, the vegetation and general appearance of the country totally different from those he had elsewhere beheld, and the waters glittered with innumerable fleets of boats of various sizes and descriptions. The boatmen and pilots addressed him in a language which he afterwards found to prevail extensively at Canton, and which was called English; it is, in truth, a bad dialect of that language, the composition and pronunciation of which are so curious and difficult, that a residence of a year or two is necessary for its acquisition. None of the Chinese, rich or poor, understand those who speak plain English. The first intercourse of a foreigner with the natives, displays that imposition and venality which are more strongly exhibited, during every month of his residence among them. He is at once surrounded by persons, called _compradors_, who offer their assistance in supplying him with provisions of every description; they serve him without wages, although they are obliged to pay the Mandarins for the privilege of affording their generous aid to strangers; the consequence is, they take especial care to remunerate themselves handsomely at the expense of those to whom they extend their kindness. Besides this, as they bribe the custom-house officers, they are able to offer many facilities, and to carry on an extensive contraband commerce. Those officers are sent to a vessel immediately on her arrival, and their boats, called hoppoo-boats are constantly attached to her stern while she remains in port; their consciences, however, are easily satisfied by the liberality of the comprador, and they pass their time in smoking, sleeping, and playing at cards; indeed, if any extraordinary smuggling is desired to be accomplished, they protect the offender against the officious interference of other officers: they keep shops on board of their boats, where they exercise their expertness in cheating, and, as every thing is sold by weight, it is necessary to weigh for yourself what you buy, to avoid the tricks which they always endeavour to play.

Undoubtedly, the venality of the Chinese has been increased by the introduction of commerce from beyond the Cape of Good Hope; but there is no doubt also, that its existence is of very old date, and that it is owing to the nature and conduct of the government, more than to the character of the people. There are so many prohibitions and enormous duties to tempt their prevailing passion, avarice, that vast numbers engage in the contraband trade, as being the most profitable; moderate duties, and freedom of importation, would destroy the temptation, and render smuggling dangerous and unprofitable; at present it has become an organized system of plunder, protected by the Mandarins themselves.

"The opium trade," says Mr. Dobell, "with the exception of ten chests of that pernicious drug, that are allowed to be imported into Macao, for medicinal purposes, is entirely conducted by smugglers. In defiance of an annual edict from the Emperor, making it death to smuggle opium, the enormous quantity of nearly _four thousand chests_ is imported every year to Macao and Whampoa; the greater part, however, goes to the former place. When I inform my readers that each chest weighs a _pecul_, that is to say, 133-1/3 English pounds, and that it sells for twelve to fifteen hundred, and sometimes two thousand Spanish dollars a chest, they may form some judgment of the value and extent of smuggling in China. It is a business that all the inferior Mandarins, and some of the higher ones, their protectors, are engaged in; so that opium is carried through the streets of Macao, in the most bare-faced manner, in the open day. The opium dealers at Whampoa, formerly took it away by night, but latterly I have seen them go to the ship, with the linguist of the Whampoa custom-house officer, and take it out in the day time. Sixty Spanish dollars is the bribe paid for each chest of opium sold at Macao; and if it goes to Canton, it pays sixty more on its arrival there. Large boats armed, and having from thirty to forty men, called opium boats, ply between Macao and Canton, when that market offers an advantage in price. These boats carry this drug, and are sanctioned by the custom-house officers, who, of course, receive for this business likewise, a good bribe."

The only attempts made to suppress this practice, are on the initiation into office of new _foo-yunes_, or governors, who have not yet perfectly learned the established usages, or who have not been propitiated by the necessary gratuities. In these cases, a terrible revolution occurs in the peaceful and quiet frauds of the smugglers; their shops are broken up, their property confiscated without mercy, and all the terrors of the law invoked upon the persons of such, who indeed are few, as have not alertness and foresight enough to keep out of the way. This excess of virtue does not endure long however; and the liberal generosity of the traders generally contrives, in a month, to overcome the scruples of the most resolute.

"During my residence, however," says Mr. Dobell, "a _foo-yune_ arrived, who proved incorruptible, and he almost destroyed the smugglers, as well as the profits of his colleagues; which latter, becoming tired of his persecutions, united together, and by their intrigues had him advanced to a much higher station. Being a man of talent, he got another step again in a short time, and at length came back to Canton as Tsan-tuk or viceroy. The opium dealers and smugglers were greatly alarmed, shut up their shops, and secreted themselves for some time. It appeared their fears were groundless. This artful man, who formerly persecuted them from political motives, to insure his advancement, was now as mild and propitious as possible. Having arrived at an elevated station, with the certainty of rising still higher, he sought to enrich himself, in order to be more sure of gratifying his ambition. Accordingly, he proved kind to his colleagues, and polite to Europeans; and by his affability of deportment, contrived to amass the largest fortune that ever fell to the share of a viceroy of Canton. He was afterwards made a member of the emperor's council at Pekin."

The robbery of the government, if conducted with sufficient skill and boldness, seems to be as successful as smuggling--indeed, it is a maxim with those in power, never to risk a defeat, and that it is best to accomplish their ends, by a crafty and cautious delay until a favourable moment for executing them arrives. The salt trade is one of the most lucrative, important, and extensive, and is conducted entirely under special licenses from Mandarins, appointed by the crown. Some years since, the pirates on the coast intercepted the salt-junks, and compelled the monopolists to negotiate with them, and pay a certain sum for the safe passage of every vessel. After a while, this intercourse led to a regular trade, by which the captains of the salt-junks supplied the pirates with arms and ammunition, and the government discovering it, an entire stop was put to the salt trade. The pirates, however, were not to be so easily frightened or defeated; their admiral, Apo-Tsy, forthwith commenced an offensive warfare; assembled an immense fleet of junks and a force of upwards of twenty thousand men, invaded the country near Macao, cut all the ripe rice, and carried it off, as well as a great number of women, whom he presented to his followers. In vain did the viceroy attack the piratical fleet,--he was defeated in every engagement, and the affair was only terminated by making Apo-Tsy governor of the province of Fokien, and pardoning all his followers! Matters however did not stop here; in some of his battles, Apo-Tsy had taken prisoner an admiral nearly related to the heir to the crown, and cut off his head; as soon as the relative ascended the throne, he despatched a polite message to the governor of Fokien, to say, that the laws of the empire required blood for blood, and that his excellency's head was therefore required instead of the admiral's. There was no excuse to be made, and the twenty thousand pirates were no longer at hand, so that Apo-Tsy's head was conveyed to Pekin.

This salt trade is very extensive; no less than twenty thousand tons of shipping being occupied in it alone. Indeed the great commerce of the Chinese appears to be that carried on by their own junks to the Indo-Chinese islands. One of these vessels will carry a cargo of from three to five thousand dollars value, in earthenware, silks, nankeens, ironmongery, tea, and other productions and manufactures of the Chinese. They have settlements on all these islands, and are certainly invaluable colonists, as they have sufficiently proved wherever they are established. They work the mines, plant cotton, make indigo and sugar, and acquire large fortunes among the slothful and careless Malays. Though they intermarry with these people, they never adopt their habits or religion, but remain, as well as their descendants, a distinct race; and wherever found, their settlements present a complete miniature picture of China. It is indeed a gross error to consider China a country wholly agricultural and manufacturing; on the contrary, the Chinese are one of the most commercial nations of the globe. It is true, they affect themselves to hold the trade which they carry on with distant nations, as comparatively unimportant, and assert that with the contiguous islands to be infinitely more lucrative; yet this is to be ascribed to their habit of decrying other countries; and it is not to be doubted that the revenue derived from the commerce they thus contemn, is very great. The importations into Canton from England, America, Holland, France, Sweden, Denmark, Manilla, and India, in European and American ships, in money and merchandise, must be annually from thirty to forty millions of dollars. The bad policy which occasions the immense contraband trade in opium, deprives the government of duties, annually, to the amount of four or five millions of dollars. Their commercial system with foreigners, shows a great deal of deep cunning, but it is repulsive to wisdom and good policy, and by no means calculated to afford them the advantages they might derive from that intercourse.

The highly wrought principles and moral maxims, which abound in the writings of the lawgivers and philosophers of China, have been sometimes cited to prove the existence of a superior system of institutions and laws. Theoretical speculations, vanity, and self adulation, are one thing; wise administration, and practical justice, are another. The doctrines of Confucius are worthy to be placed with those of Solon; the rescripts of the celestial emperor, abound in common-places of unbending integrity and the sternest equity; but notwithstanding all this, the morals of the people are debased, the very foundations of virtue are sapped by bribery and corruption, with all their concomitant vices; the sword of justice is arrested; and license is widely given to the violation of public and private rights. Some instances of this unblushing venality are mentioned by Mr. Dobell.