We have named and characterized as far as our limits will admit, and the nature of the subject requires, the principal officers who exercise authority in Canton; the reader will doubtless find it difficult, as we have done, to determine the exact limitation of their respective spheres, which, like the courses of the planets, often seem to intersect each other. At first sight of so many bodies, all in motion within limits so narrow, we feel surprised that they do not come into collision, destroy each other and carry destruction through the empire. On a close inspection, however, we are able to discover some of the secret laws which govern this complicated system, preserve it in being, and keep it in motion. Two influences, the one military, and the other literary, are perhaps the principal forces which regulate and control the measures of the Chinese government. Religion, which often has a gigantic power over governments, is here blended with civil and state ceremonies, and exerts but a feeble, and usually a most baneful influence on the political destinies of the nation. All the officers enumerated in the foregoing list, excepting the two che-heens, the che-foo, and the tseang-keun, are general officers--their jurisdiction extending to all other parts of the province, as well as over the metropolis. There are likewise two other officers, commanders-in-chief of the land and naval forces, who, like the other members of the provincial government, act alone in certain cases, and sometimes in concert with the other general officers. The government is despotic as well as military; and so constructed, that those who form the provincial government, shall, while they enjoy a degree of independence, serve as mutual checks; while at the same time, each superior officer is held responsible for those who are subordinate, and accountable for himself. Even in the location of these officers, there has been a cautious reference to “division and balance of power.” For example: the tsung-tuh is stationed in the new city, almost within a stone’s-throw of his majesty’s most faithful “slave,” the hoppo; the foo-yuen and the tsang-kuen are placed in similar positions in reference to each other: these two last are so located in the old city, that, should circumstances require, they could act against the two first, in the new city. The same principle is observable likewise, if we mistake not, in the disposition which is made of the troops. The whole land and naval force throughout the province, has been estimated (nominally) at about one hundred thousand men; all of whom are with fixed limitations, under the control of the governor; he has, however, the immediate and sole command of only five thousand, and these are stationed at a distance from the city. On all ordinary occasions, except when he goes to a distance from Canton, he is escorted by a detachment from the kwang-chow-hee, (the chief military officer of Kwang-chow,) which, in the absence of his own