Translator’s Preface.
xxxv
aſo almoſt the firſt eſſay at tranſlation from a Chineſe original into the Engliſh language, he truſts that even in that point of view it will not be deemed undeſerving of indulgence.
His own wiſhes will be gratified in their full extent, if he can be conſidered to have ſucceeded in giving, through the medium of an authentic work, containing incidental notices upon the manners, cuſtoms, civil and religious habits, national characteriſtics, and moral principles of the Chineſe, a juſt idea of the ſpirit, and a ſufficiently extended ſpecimen of the ſubſtance, of the coercive and penal laws by which the government of that vaſt empire has ſo long been maintained and regulated.
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