EUROPEAN NATIONS. 247 them, a single ship load a year being in the end enough to satisfy a whole empire. To conclude with China, it must be recollected that, although the religious intemperance of the missionaries had a large share in the exclusion of Europeans from a free intercourse with that empire, still that the trade of Europeans with this the great- est and most civilized country of Asia continued unrestricted for two centuries, and that it was not until the monopoly practices were matured that the intercourse of Europeans was placed under the present restrictions. Both the Dutch and Eng- lish began their intercourse with the Chinese by committing actual hostilities against them. Notwithstanding this, in the early history of our intercourse with that country, we were freely admitted to several of its ports, to Chu- san, to Tywan, to Amoy, Macao, and Canton, and it was not until the early part of the last century, on an experience of our troublesome am- bition, that our commerce w^as confined to one port, and laid under severe restraints. A singu- lar result of these restraints cannot escape us. In some countries, our East India Companies have succeeded in establishing their principles ; from others they have been utterly excluded. Success in the one, and discomfiture in the other, have been equally fatal to their commerce. China, the only country that has had at once the courage to
