Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 460

1841.

Edicts Relating to Military Operations.

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unfortunate natives of Tinghae. It was the fishing-boats that aided us to prepare all manner of combustibles, whereby to attack the foreign ships by fire; and it is at this moment the fishing-boats that regularly carry the grain and the pay for the imperial troops now in garrison at Tinghae;—thus then the trading junks and the fishing-boats are what we must of necessity em- ploy, and there is no principle of reason by which their egress may be stop- ped, or their means of livelihood cut off.

But granting that there are trading junks which, setting the laws at de- fiance, still hold illegal communication with foreigners, and continue to sup- ply them with provisions,-these must anchor off the small uninhabited`is- lands, or out-of-the-way nooks and corners, where the footsteps of the authorities never reach; they cannot possibly enter the regularly appointed trading-places and harbors before the eyes of all men. Now, if the pro posal to close our ports suddenly were to be put into effect, we should only be throwing obstacles in the way of the fair trading merchantmen and the well disposed fishermen, while we should be as far as ever from finding a clue by which to put a stop to the illegality of supplying the foreigners with provisions.

I find that our fishermen devote themselves exclusively to their occupation. of taking fish and mending their nets; they are most actively employed during the whole year, and even then they can hardly get food to put in their inouths with all their exertions; and there are many among them who in their whole life-time never see such a thing as a silver dollar; if these people were to carry provisions to the foreign banditti, it could only be with the prospect of making a large profit by doing so, and what they would really gain by such transactions would be small indeed. If we, therefore, by promis- ing them handsome rewards, could awaken their cupidity, we might thus turn them to very good account; for they would most certainly never throw away the chance of obtaining inexhaustible riches, for the paltry sums to be scraped up by clandestinely supplying the foreigners with necessaries. Acting upon this principle, your slave, after his arrival at Chèkeäng, pub- lished a proclamation offering certain rewards for capturing alive, or killing the foreign robbers-and instigating every class of people from the highest to the lowest to join heart and hand in the good work,-if there were any who clandestinely supplied the foreign banditti with necessaries, then were they immediately to be beheaded for holding such traitorous intercourse ;- and at the same time, I sought out Paou Hingtse and the others who last year captured the false foreign mandarins Anstruther and Douglas, and had them handsomely rewarded ou the spot ;-thus for the last month and more the disposition of the Tinghae people has been exceedingly favorable, their spirits are up, and they are overflowing with a desire to show their valor.

In fine, I have collected from all parts a great many runners, whom I have stationed at out-of-the-way places and little islands off the coast; these are instructed to go con board the foreign ships, either under the pretence that they have got fish to sell, or that they want to buy opium, and they are to spy out the best plan by which they may get the foreigners ensnared and

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VOL. X. NO. VIII.