Excerpt from Sketch of Chinese History, Vol. 1 of 2: Ancient and Modern, Comprising a Retrospect of the Foreign Intercourse and Trade With China China is daily becoming more and more an object of interest and curiosity to European nations, in proportion as commerce, the fore-runner, if not the cause, of all improvement.in the arts of civilization, discloses its resources, and sheds new light on the character and intellectual cultivation of its inhabitants. Hitherto, the remoteness of its situation with respect to Britain, and the rude, inhospitable nature of its policy toward strangers, have concurred in perpetuating the erroneous impressions created by travelers imperfectly informed, or prone to exaggeration. Among the unfounded notions sedulously propagated by the advocates of arbitrary power, is the opinion that this vast empire, the government of which may be regarded as the beau ideal of despotism, has been torn by fewer revolutions and civil wars than the free states of the West; and that its military power is a kind of colossus, fabricated by the wisdom of ages, which no force or policy that could be exerted by any European nation would suffice to overthrow. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.