yet not the
most prudent; for as it is the custom with these gentlemen never to
apply to the supreme magistrate himself, whatever difficulties they
labour under, but to transact all matters relating to the government
by the mediation of the principal Chinese merchants, Mr Anson was
advised to follow the same method upon this occasion, the English
promising (in which they were doubtless sincere) to exert all their
interest to engage the merchants in his favour. And when the Chinese
merchants were applied to, they readily undertook the management of
it, and promised to answer for its success; but after near a month's
delay, and reiterated excuses, during which interval they pretended
to be often upon the point of completing the business, they at last
(being pressed, and measures being taken for delivering a letter to
the viceroy) threw off the mask, and declared they neither had applied
to the viceroy nor could they; for he was too great a man, they said,
for them to approach on any occasion. And, not contented with having
themselves thus grossly deceived the commodore, they now used all
their persuasion with the English at Canton, to prevent them from
intermeddling with any thing that regarded him, representing to them;
that it would in all probability embroil them with the government, and
occasion them a great deal of unnecessary trouble; which groundless
insinuations had indeed but too much weight with those they were
applied to.

It may be difficult to assign a reason for this perfidious conduct of
the Chinese merchants: Interest indeed is known to exert a boundless
influence over the inhabitants of that empire; but how their interest
could be affected in the present case is not easy to discover, unless
they apprehended that the presence of a ship of force might damp
their Manilla trade, and therefore acted in this manner with a view of
forcing the commodore to Batavia: But it might be as natural in this
light to suppose, that they would have been eager to have got him
dispatched. I, therefore, rather impute their behaviour to the
unparalleled pusillanimity of the nation, and to the awe they are
under of the government; for as such a ship as the Centurion, fitted
for war only, had never been seen in those parts before, she was
the horror of these dastards, and the merchants were in some degree
terrified even with the idea of her, and could not think of applying
to the viceroy (who is doubtless fond of all opportuniti