Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 458

1841.

Edicts Relating to Military Operations.

439

Your slave has just received a communication from the Board of War to the following effect.

"We have received an imperial edict stating that the foo-tootung (or Tartar lieut.-general) Haeling has memorialized us, praying, that, 'the whole of the ports and harbors along the sea-coast be secretly and suddenly closed, so that neither a single individual nor a single ship be permitted to go out or in; by which means the grain and rice of the Central land shall not be fur- tively conveyed to the outer seas for the support of the foreigners, and by which means we shall be able at once to pounce upon all the native traitors, and thus get good information as to the positition and intentions of the fo- reigners, &c., &c.' The said memorial refers to Tinghae, which has just been recovered; command, therefore, that the high commissioner presiding in that quarter examine carefully into the actual circumstances of the case; and let him with his whole heart and soul ponder and deliberate if the proposal may be put in force or not, and duly report the same in course to us; and at the same time let the original proposition of Haeling be fairly copied out and sent on for his careful inspection, &c., &c. Respect this!” Your slave, in respectful compliance, has made due examination, and found that along the whole line of sea-coast, salt is. produced (naturally) in large quantities; the people have no constant means of employment (on shore), and their disposition is to follow a sea life. Those who possess some little capital, trade to the north and south of the empire; they bring foreign goods and produce into general consumption, and thus give employment and sup- port to multitudes of the poorer classes; those who possess no capital make their vessels their homes, while the wide ocean is their estate; these sink and rise amid the tempestuous billows, aud when their fishing is successful they exchange their commodities for an humble measure of rice and common food! Thus, if we number those who live chiefly by the sea in the two provinces of Keängsoo and Chěkeäng alone, they cannot be under several tens of thousands of individuals; while those who reap benefit from the commerce carried on through them, are absolutely innumerable! In reference to the two provinces of Canton and Fuhkeen, their saline productions are still greater, and their commerce is still more extensive; and as the people who are employed in it are more numerous, so in proportion is their power of working evil! Were we at once to shut all the ports as has been proposed-granting that those who have capital might invest it in some other form and engage in another line of business (as some in anticipation have already been petitioning me about), -yet those who possess no capital, being thus suddenly deprived of their means of support, must fall into the stream of evil, and become robbers and pirates!

Moreover, on looking back to what took place last year, after Tinghae was jost, the fishermen, because that their means of livelihood were cut off, cherished in their hearts a strong thirst of revenge, The tungche of She- poo, Shoo Kungshow, chief magistrate of Tinghae was at that time chief magistrate of Kinheën, (a minor district of Ningpo foo), and at a single wave