This letter is intended for your information on the subject of the China embassy. The difficulty of finding such a successor to Colonel Cath cart as was altogether satisfactory, has occasioned a frequent change of resolution son that subject. We had determined to commit the whole execution of this business to you, and with that view the accompanying papers were prepared, but against this resolution a legal doubt was stated by the Chancellor, importing that the King's authority could not be delegated to any other person ; but that both the appointment of the person of the ambossador, and the instructions to be given to him , must flow from the King himself. In addition to this difficulty, another circumstance has recently come to my knowledge. I have discovered that the Court of Directors are rather hostile to the expedition, and give out that it may be highly prejudicial to their interests, if, by creating jealousies among the Mandarins and other Chinese at Canton, it should suspend in any degree the intercourse with them , by which only, under the present circumstances, their trade can be carried on . I feel so much the importance of establishing a commercial connexon with the great empire of China, that I am not disposed to be
VOL. II.