im he would immediately
send, an officer with it to Canton in his own boat, and would give him
positive orders not to return without an answer from the viceroy. The
hoppo, perceiving the commodore to be in earnest, and fearing to be
called to an account for his refusal, begged to be entrusted with the
letter, and promised to deliver it, and to procure an answer as soon
as possible. And now it was soon seen how justly Mr Anson had at last
judged of the proper manner of dealing with the Chinese; for this
letter was written but the 17th of December, as hath been already
observed, and on the 19th in the morning, a mandarine of the first
rank, who was governor of the city of Janson, together with two
mandarines of an inferior class, and a great retinue of officers and
servants, having with them eighteen half gallies, decorated with a
great number of streamers, and furnished with music, and full of men,
came to grapnel a-head of the Centurion; whence the mandarine sent
a message to the commodore, telling him that he (the mandarine) was
ordered by the viceroy of Canton to examine the condition of the ship,
and desiring the ship's boat might be sent to fetch him on board. The
Centurion's boat was immediately dispatched, and preparations were
made for receiving him; for a hundred of the most sightly of the crew
were uniformly drest in the regimentals of the marines, and were drawn
up under arms on the main-deck on his arrival. When he entered the
ship he was saluted by the drums, and what other military music there
was on board; and, passing by the new-formed guard, he was met by the
commodore on the quarter-deck, who conducted him to the great cabin.
Here the mandarine explained his commission, declaring, that
his business was to examine all the particulars mentioned in the
commodore's letter to the viceroy, and to confront them with the
representation that had been given of them; that he was particularly
instructed to inspect the leak, and had for that purpose brought with
him two Chinese carpenters; and that, for the greater regularity and
dispatch or his business, he had every head of enquiry separately
wrote down on a sheet of paper, with a void space opposite to it,
where he was to insert such information and remarks thereon as he
could procure by his own observation.

This mandarine appeared to be a person of very considerable parts,
and endowed with more frankness and honesty than is to be found in the
generality of the