The Tan ying, the Single Eagle or Prussians.
"The Tan ying passed the Bocca Tigris the 52d year of Këen lung (1788.) They live to the west and north of the Man ying (Austrians). In customs and manners they are similar to them. On their ships flies a white flag, on which an eagle is painted."
This last extract is also taken from the History of Canton, published by his Excellency Yuen.
If we consider how easily the Chinese could procure information regarding foreign countries during the course of the two last centuries, and then see how shamefully they let pass all such opportunities to inform and improve themselves, we can only look upon these proud slaves of hereditary customs with the utmost disgust and contempt. The ancient Britons and Germans had no books; yet what perfect descriptions of those barbarian nations have been handed down to us by the immortal genius of Tacitus! Montesquieu says, that "in Cæsar and Tacitus we read the code of barbarian laws; and in the code we read Cæsar and Tacitus." In the statement of the modern Chinese regarding foreign nations, we see, on the contrary, both the want of enquiry, and the childish remarks of unenlightened and uncultivated minds.[15]
[YING HING SOO's PREFACE.]
In the summer of the year Ke sze (1809),[16] I returned from the capital, and having passed the chain of mountains,[17] I learned the extraordinary disturbances caused by the Pirates. When I came home I saw with mine own eyes all the calamities; four villages were totally destroyed; the inhabitants collected together and made preparations for resistance. Fighting at last ceased on seas and rivers: families and villages rejoiced, and peace was every where restored. Hearing of our naval transactions, every man desired to have them written down in a history; but people have, until this day, looked in vain for such a work.
Meeting once, at a public inn in Whampo,[18] with one Yuen tsze, we conversed together, when he took a volume in his hand, and asked me to read it. On opening the work, I saw that it contained a History of the Pirates; and reading it to the end, I found that the occurrences of those times were therein recorded from day to day, and that our naval transactions are there faithfully reported. Yuen tsze supplied the defect I stated before, and anticipated what had occupied my mind for a long time. The affairs concerning the robber Lin are described by the non-official historian Lan e, in his Tsing yĭh ke, viz. in the History of the Pacification of the Robbers.[19] Respectfully looking to the commands of heaven, Lan e made known, for all future times, the faithful and devoted servants of government. Yuen tsze's work is a supplement to the History of the Pacification of the Robbers, and you may rely on whatever therein is reported, whether it be of great or little consequence. Yuen tsze has overlooked nothing; and I dare to say, that all people will rejoice at the publication. Having written these introductory lines to the said work, I returned it to Yuen tsze.[20]