THE NEXT NEWS FROM CHINA.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Highgate, near London, 26th September.
BrE—As your journal has frequently alluded to the injustice and great na- tional folly of the present Eastern war, and more especially that which is draining away the resources of the country in trifling, fruitless, and falsely and boastbigly reported encounters with the Chinese, it may be serviceable that you should publish, before the arrival of the next overland mail, a prediction, that another month of inactivity and disappointment will be the only news. This is founded on an accidental perusal of the journal of Lord MACARTNEY, wherein occurs the following words—" Tuesday, August 6th, 1793. The Viceroy began by many compliments and inquiries about our health; talked much of the Emperor's satisfaction at our arrival ; and of his wish to see me at Gehol, in Tartary, (where the court invariably resides at this season of the year,) as soon as possible." Now, Sir, is it not instantly clear that the story received by the last overland mail, that "the Emperor had run away into Tartary," is not only a falsehood, but that the Emperor is in as little apprehension for his capital of Pekin, and that he has gone quietly to Gehol in Tartary, as in ordinary years, to the summer residence which Lord MACARTNEY afterwards so enchantingly describes.
Where, Sir, are the ten millions of dollars and the island of Hong Kong, which by the preceding overland mail were to be given as the terms of peace? With distress staring us everywhere in the face at home, market after market closed to English trade, and a winter approaching, the troubles of which cannot be foreseen, is it not full time that public opinion should bear decidedly on a pacific termination of this most unjust Chinese war? It is unworthy of the English nation to be thus deceived by the continual arrival of reports so foolish
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