first place the central pofition of Iràn, which is bounded by Arabia, by Tartary, and by India; whilft Arabia lies contiguous to Iràn only, but is remote from Tartary, and divided even from the fkirts of India by a confiderable gulf; no country, therefore, but Perfia feems likely to have fent forth its colonies to all the 'kingdoms of Afia: the Bráhmans could never have migrated from India to Iràn, because they are exprefsly forbidden by their oldest existing laws to leave the region, which they inhabit at this day; the Arabs have not even a tradition of an emigration into Perfia before MOHAMMED, nor had they indeed any inducement to quit their beautiful and extenfive domains; and, as to the Tartars, we have no trace in history of their departure from their plains and forefts, till the invasion of the Medes, who, according to etymologifts, were the fons of MADAI, and even they were conducted by princes of an Affyrian family. The three races, therefore, whom we have already mentioned, (and more than three we have not yet found) migrated from Iràn, as from their common country; and thus the Saxon chronicle, I presume from good authority, brings the first inhabitants of Britain from Armenia; while a late very learned writer concludes, after all his laborious researches, that the Goths or Scythians came from Perfia; and another contends with

great force, that both the Irish and old Britons proceeded feverally from the borders of the Caf pian; a coincidence of conclufions from different media by persons wholly unconnected, which could scarce have happened, if they were not grounded on folid principles. We may therefore hold this propofition firmly eftablished, that Iràn, or Perfia in its largeft fenfe, was the true centre of population, of knowledge, of languages, and of arts; which, inftead of travelling weftward only, as it has been fancifully fuppofed, or eaftward, as might with equal reason have been afferted, were expanded in all directions to all the regions of the world, in which the Hindu race had fettled under various denominations : but, whether Afia has not produced other races of men, diftin&t from the Hindus, the Arabs, or the Tartars, or whether any apparent diversity may not have fprung from an intermixture of thofe three in different proportions, must be the fubject of a future inquiry. There is another queftion of more immediate importance, which you, gentlemen, only can decide: namely, "by "what means we can preferve our Society from dying gradually away, as it has advanced gradually to its prefent (fhall I fay flourishing or

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languifhing?) ftate." It has fubfifted five years without any expenfe to the members of it, until the firft volume of our Tranfactions was published;

and the price of that large volume, if we compare the different values of money in Bengal and in England, is not more than equal to the annual contribution towards the charges of the Royal Society by each of its fellows, who may not have chofen to compound for it on his admiffion this I mention, not from an idea that any of us could object to the purchase of one copy at least, but from a wish to inculcate the neceffity of our common exertions in promoting the fale of the work both here and in London. In vain shall we meet, as a literary body, if our meetings fhall ceafe to be fupplied with original differtations and memorials; and in vain fhall we collect the most interesting papers, if we cannot publish them occafionally without expofing the Superintendents of the Company's prefs, who undertake to print them at their own hazard, to the danger of a confiderable loss: by united efforts the French have compiled their ftupendous repofitories of universal knowledge; and by united efforts only can we hope to rival them, or to diffuse over our own country and the rest of Europe the lights attainable by our Afiatick Refearches.

THE SEVENTH

ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE,

DELIVERED 25 FEBRUARY, 1790.

BY

THE PRESIDENT.

GENTLEMEN,

ALTHOUGH we are at this moment confiderably nearer to the frontier of China than to the fartheft limit of the British dominions in Hindustán, yet the first step, that we shall take in the philofophical journey, which I propose for your entertainment at the present meeting, will carry us to the utmost verge of the habitable globe known to the best geographers of old Greece and Egypt; beyond the boundary of whofe knowledge we fhall difcern from the heights of the northern mountains an empire nearly equal in furface to a fquare of fifteen degrees; an empire, of which I do not mean to affign the precife limits, but which we may confider, for the purpose of this differtation, as embraced on two fides by Tartary and India, while

the ocean feparates its other fides from various Afiatick ifles of great importance in the commercial system of Europe: annexed to that immense tract of land is the peninfula of Corea, which a vast oval bafon divides from Nifon or Japan, a celebrated and imperial island, bearing in arts and in arms, in advantage of fituation but not in felicity of government, a pre-eminence among eaftern kingdoms analogous to that of Britain among the nations of the west. So many climates are included in fo prodigious an area, that, while the principal emporium of China lies nearly under the tropick, its metropolis enjoys the temperature of Samarkand; fuch too is the diverfity of foil in its fifteen provinces, that, while fome of them are exquifitely sertile, richly cultivated, and extremely populous, others are barren and rocky, dry and unfruitful, with plains as wild or mountains as rugged as any in Scythia, and those either wholly deserted, or peopled by favage hordes, who, if they be not ftill independent, have been very lately fubdued by the perfidy, rather than the valour, of a mo- . narch, who has perpetuated his own breach of faith in a Chinese poem, of which I have seen a translation.

The word China, concerning which I fhall offer fome new remarks, is well known to the people, whom we call the Chinese; but they