1850.
Notice of Japan in the Hái-kwoh Tú Chí.
189
population of these provinces detested him so much that the Censor ❤ Chau Liáng, a native of Fuhkien, impeached him, and applied to have the office of siunfú changed to that of sinn-skí, so that his power might be destroyed. His prayer was supported by his party at court, and in the end complied with; Chú Hwán was afterwards stripped of office in consequence, and being implicated in a charge contrived against him of inflicting capital punishment upon his own responsibility, de- stroyed himself.† After this there were no other siunƒú appointed for four years.
The prohibitions regarding foreign intercourse fell once more into desuetude, and disorder multiplied exceedingly.
When the founders of this dynasty, the Ming, settled the establish- ment of Chehkiáng, they made regulations for the trading vessels, to the superintendence of which there was appointed a eunuch, who resided at Ningpo, and, when the merchantmen came in, fixed the price of their cargoes; the control and management of their crews were in the hands of the authorities.
In the time of Shí-tsung (1522-65), eunuchs were dismissed through- out the empire from posts of command, and these commissioners of customs were also abolished. The cunning inhabitants of the coast therefore possessed themselves of the profit of the trade, which con- tinued in the hands of mercantile people, until communication with foreigners was strictly prohibited; it then passed into those of persons of birth or station, who repudiated their debts to the Japanese to a worse degree than the others had done. When they were pressing in their demands for money, these men so scared the officials by their alarming language, that the latter would have exterminated the Ja- panese; but as soon as the troops were about to take the field, they
* A censor, as his title implies, charged with a certain circuit of inspection, or representing certain provinces, as far as their surveillancc is concerned. See Morrison's View of China, p. 90 What was the difference between a siun-shí and a siun-fu, does not appear.
↑ The Fang Hải Pi-lon shows that he was accused of straining the law, for putting to death some ninety persons as pirates who had been made prisoners, and forced to act as such. This was not until the power of the malcontents and others who had complete command of the seas, had com- pelled government to prohibit positively all maritime intercourse with foreigners. The rovers appear to have been chiefly Fuhkien men: their families and pro- perty on shore were left untouched while they scoured the coast, assuming the titles and state of monarchy. Chú Hwan's memorial repelled the charge brought against him, by showing that with the existing interdict in force, these people alledged to have been captured, had no business to put themselves in the way of the pirates, who could not have got at them had they obeyed the laws; and he insisted upon the guilt of those whom he had beheaded. He fell, however, the victim of an intrigue se the text relates.