difficulty.  On the 24th of November, therefore, Mr Anson sent one of his officers to the Mandarine, who commanded the guard of the principal gate of the city of Canton, with a letter directed to the viceroy.  When this letter was delivered to the mandarine, he received the officer who brought it very civilly, and took down the contents of it in Chinese, and promised that the viceroy should be immediately acquainted with it; but told the officer it was not necessary for him to wait for an answer, because a message would be sent to the commodore himself.

On this occasion Mr Anson had been under great difficulties about a proper interpreter to send with his officer, as he was well aware that none of the Chinese, usually employed as linguists, could be relied on:  But he at last prevailed with Mr Flint, an English gentleman belonging to the factory, who spoke Chinese perfectly well, to accompany his officer.  This person, who upon this occasion and many others was of singular service to the commodore, had been left at Canton when a youth, by the late Captain Rigby.  The leaving him there to learn the Chinese language was a step taken by that captain, merely from his own persuasion of the great advantages which the East-India company might one day receive from an English interpreter; and though the utility of this measure has greatly exceeded all that was expected from it, yet I have not heard that it has been to this day imitated:  But we imprudently choose (except in this single instance) to carry on the vast transactions of the port of Canton, either by the ridiculous jargon of broken English, which some few of the Chinese have learnt, or by the suspected interpretation of the linguists of other nations.[1]

[Footnote 1:  The practice recommended, it is almost unnecessary to remark, has been adopted since our author’s time, but certainly not to the extent the probable advantages of it would suggest.—­E.]

Two days after the sending the above-mentioned letter, a fire broke out in the suburbs of Canton.  On the first alarm, Mr Anson went thither with his officers, and his boat’s crew, to assist the Chinese.  When he came there, he found that it had begun in a sailor’s shed, and that by the slightness of the buildings, and the awkwardness of the Chinese, it was getting head apace:  But he perceived, that by pulling down some of the adjacent sheds it might easily be extinguished; and particularly observing that it was running along a wooden cornish, which would soon communicate it to a great distance, he ordered his people to begin with tearing away that cornish; this was presently attempted, and would have been soon executed; but, in the meantime, he was told, that, as there was no mandarine there to direct what was to be done, the Chinese would make him, the commodore, answerable for whatever should be pulled down by his orders.  On this his people desisted; and he sent them to the English factory, to assist in securing