o escape from greater
exactions when under way. Not a small part of the wrongs thus
perpetrated were by natives attired in foreign habiliments and under
foreign direction. Such was the fear entertained of foreigners, that a
bold and unscrupulous man could do anything with impunity. Take the
following occurrence as an illustration: At the mouth of the Ningpo
river is a small village of salt makers, at which the salt commissioner
stations a deputy. This officer, after having been cruelly beaten, was
driven away by the Portuguese, who issued a proclamation authorizing
their employes to collect the salt gabel in the name of the Portuguese
consul!

It is proper to remark that the transition from the protective to the
piratical character of the lorchas was owing in some measure to the
fatuous procedure of the mandarins themselves toward a formidable body
of pirates, whose submission they purchased by conferring ranks and
emoluments on the chiefs, and by giving employment to the whole fleet,
constituting them guardians of the coast. In transforming the wolves
into shepherds, a change of occupation was not attended by a change of
character. In their new capacity as legalized fleecers, they came into
collision with those of Macao; and what they lost as convoyers, they
aimed to gain as pirates.

A general massacre of the Portuguese at Ningpo, by the Cantonese
pirates, served to mitigate the evil by calling the attention of the
English and Portuguese authorities to the anarchy which drew much of its
support from Hongkong and Macao. The Portuguese were subjected to
greater restraint, and a greater degree of order was thereby secured.

It is not easy to estimate the evil effects upon China of the possession
of Hongkong and of Macao by the Portuguese. They are like corroding
ulcers in her side. Imagine Bermuda and Nassau just off Sandy Hook, with
every conceivable facility for smuggling into the port of New York;
suppose the contraband traffic to be fatal to the health and morals of
our citizens, as well as prejudicial to our revenue, and then
extraterritorial privilege giving immunity to many of the foreigners'
misdeeds; and the difficult position of Chinese authorities will be
partially appreciated.

It was in part a question of jurisdiction that led to the second war
with England--the 'lorcha' war. But for the assumption, on the part of
the British, that the Chinese were in a measure a subjugated people, or
not in possession