time too the N.E.
monsoon was set in, he then resolved to apply himself to the viceroy
to demand an audience, as he was persuaded that, without this
ceremony, the procuring a permission to send his stores on board would
meet with great difficulty. On the 24th of November, therefore, Mr
Anson sent one of his officers to the Mandarine, who commanded the
guard of the principal gate of the city of Canton, with a letter
directed to the viceroy. When this letter was delivered to the
mandarine, he received the officer who brought it very civilly, and
took down the contents of it in Chinese, and promised that the viceroy
should be immediately acquainted with it; but told the officer it was
not necessary for him to wait for an answer, because a message would
be sent to the commodore himself.

On this occasion Mr Anson had been under great difficulties about a
proper interpreter to send with his officer, as he was well aware that
none of the Chinese, usually employed as linguists, could be relied
on: But he at last prevailed with Mr Flint, an English gentleman
belonging to the factory, who spoke Chinese perfectly well, to
accompany his officer. This person, who upon this occasion and many
others was of singular service to the commodore, had been left at
Canton when a youth, by the late Captain Rigby. The leaving him there
to learn the Chinese language was a step taken by that captain, merely
from his own persuasion of the great advantages which the East-India
company might one day receive from an English interpreter; and though
the utility of this measure has greatly exceeded all that was expected
from it, yet I have not heard that it has been to this day imitated:
But we imprudently choose (except in this single instance) to carry on
the vast transactions of the port of Canton, either by the ridiculous
jargon of broken English, which some few of the Chinese have
learnt, or by the suspected interpretation of the linguists of other
nations.[1]

[Footnote 1: The practice recommended, it is almost unnecessary to
remark, has been adopted since our author's time, but certainly not to
the extent the probable advantages of it would suggest.--E.]

Two days after the sending the above-mentioned letter, a fire broke
out in the suburbs of Canton. On the first alarm, Mr Anson went
thither with his officers, and his boat's crew, to assist the Chinese.
When he came there, he found that it had begun in a sailor's shed, and
that by the slig