inclination. What evidence the journalist could have of the Chinese
consumption of tea, I was not able to discover. The officers of the East
India company are excluded, they best know why, from the towns and the
country of China; they are treated, as we treat gipsies and vagrants,
and obliged to retire, every night, to their own hovel. What
intelligence such travellers may bring, is of no great importance. And,
though the missionaries boast of having once penetrated further, I
think, they have never calculated the tea drunk by the Chinese. There
being thus no evidence for his opinion, to what could I ascribe it but
inclination.

I am yet charged, more heavily, for having said, that "he has no
intention to find any thing right at home." I believe every reader
restrained this imputation to the subject which produced it, and
supposed me to insinuate only, that he meant to spare no part of the
tea-table, whether essence or circumstance. But this line he has
selected, as an instance of virulence and acrimony, and confutes it by
a lofty and splendid panegyrick on himself. He asserts, that he finds
many things right at home, and that he loves his oountrv almost to
enthusiasm.

I had not the least doubt, that he found, in his country, many things to
please him; nor did I suppose, that he desired the same inversion of
every part of life, as of the use of tea. The proposal of drinking tea
sour showed, indeed, such a disposition to practical paradoxes, that
there was reason to fear, lest some succeeding letter should recommend
the dress of the Picts, or the cookery of the Eskimaux. However, I met
with no other innovations, and, therefore, was willing to hope, that he
found something right at home.