ITS INHERENT WEAKNESS, 676

because, having first a true notion of the barbarity of those coun-
tries, the rudeness and the ignorance that prevail there, we do not
expect to find any such things so far off.

Otherwise, what are their buildings to the palaces and royal
buildings of Europe? What is their trade to the universal com-
merce of England, Holland, France, and Spain? What are their
cities to ours, for wealth, strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture,
and an infinite variety? What are their ports, supplied with a
few junks and barks, to our navigation, our merchant fleets, our
large and powerful navies? Our city of London has more trade
than all their mighty empire. One English, or Dutch, or French
man-of-war of eighty guns would fight and destroy all the shipping
of China. But the greatness of their wealth, their trade, the
power of their government, and strength of their armies, are sur-
prising to us, because, as I have said, considering them as a bar-
barous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we did not
expect such things among them ; and this, indeed, is the advantage
with which all their greatness and power is represented to us.
Otherwise, it is in itself nothing at all; for as I have said of their
ships, so may be said of their armies and troops. All the forces
of their empire, though they were to bring two millions of men into
the field together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the country
and starve themselves. If they were to besiege a strong town in
Flanders, or to fight a disciplined army, one line of German
cuirassiers or of French cavalry would overthrow all the horse of
China. A million of their foot could not stand before one em-
battled body of our infantry, posted so as not to be surrounded,
though they were to be not one to twenty in number; nay, I do
not boast if I say that 30,000 German or English foot, and 10,000
French horse, would fairly beat all the forces of China. And so of
our fortified towns, and of the art of our engineers in assaulting
and defending towns. There is not a fortified town in China could
hold out one month against the batteries and attacks of an
Kuropean army; and, at the same time, all the armies in China
could never take such a town as Dunkirk, provided it was not
starved, no, not in ten years’ siege. They have firearms, it is
true, but they are awkward, clumsy, and uncertain in going off.

(25h)