Volume 1

An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East-India Company, to the court of the Emperor of China, in the years 1794 and 1795 : (subsequent to that of the Earl of Macartney.) Containing a description of several parts of the Chinese empire, unknown to Europeans / taken from the journal of André Everard van Braam. Translated from the original of M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Mery.

  • Van Braam Houckgeest, André Everard, 1739-1801.
Date:
1798
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East-India Company, to the court of the Emperor of China, in the years 1794 and 1795 : (subsequent to that of the Earl of Macartney.) Containing a description of several parts of the Chinese empire, unknown to Europeans / taken from the journal of André Everard van Braam. Translated from the original of M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Mery. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    adminiftration of the Company’s affairs, to pay intel- ligent artifts ; and never tire^ of waiting in order that he might fee things better, and hazard nothing uporr mere conjeflure, he every day added to what I iliali call his Chinefe riches. But one of thofe uncommon events, fuch as it were to be wifhed might fall in the way of all true friends to ufeful fcience, occurred moft opportunely to favour M- Van-Braam’s inclinations and plan. Appointed Second in the Embafly fent by the Dutch. Eaft-India Company to the Emperor of China in 1794, a vaft extent of country was laid open to his view. Thus converting into perfcnal experience what had been little more than oral tradition, he had the moft fa- vourable opportunity of verifying all that had been related to him, and, what was ftill more fortunate, of forming a judgment of things which he had not even had an idea of enquiring into, becaufe nothing had given him reafo^i to fufpedt their exiftence, Aftonifhed by what he faw, M. Van-Braam did not lofe a Angle moment in making tiie inhabitants of the other parts of the world, as far as it depended upon him, partakers in the fenfations he experienced, and in the well-founded admiration he felt on more than one oc- cafion. Doubly a painter, his pen and his pencil were conftantly employed in depidiing whatever he faw ; and {paring neither pains nor expence, he may be faid not to have