Tradition and reading together have doubtless familiarized the minds of most Englishmen with the general outline of the history of our past intercourse with China, and rendered it needless to do more here than pass briefly in review the more prominent features which have marked its course down to the present date. How that centuries ago adventurous travellers visited the country at rare intervals, and brought away those tales of its fabulous wealth, the barbaric magnificence of its court, the high, but quaint civilization of its people, and the excellence as well as oddity of its wares, which have formed the framework of our notions about China ever since. How that after awhile, Spanish, Portuguese, and other navigators carried their clumsy but wonderful craft into Chinese ports, and laid the foundation of a commercial intercourse, whilst by their acts they sowed those first seeds of ill-will and distrust, the lamentable fruit of which we are reaping in these days. How that later on the British East India Company extended its agencies to Canton, and founded a trade which for success and mutual confidence has scarcely been surpassed. How that with this trade opium crept in to be a valuable commodity of traffic, becoming in after years, incidentally with other causes, the bone of contention that plunged China into her first war with a European power.