Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 418

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Journal of Occurrences.

more settled. Kidnapping, since the release of sergeant Campbell and others by the imperial commissioners, recommended thereto by l'lipú, was appa- rently at an end. The tide of population was again rising, and the general aspect of things was improving. Our dates are to about the 10th of July.

5. At Amoy, a like state of things existed, and at a somewhat later date. The rumors of an attack were dying away, or rather had ceased.

6. Hongkong continues slowly to improve. About the middle of the month, a foul report of blockade and an attack, by a coinbination of volunteers and imperial forces, created some uneasiness among the better classes of native residents; but the excursion of admiral Cochrane and general Burrell, with a sinail squadron to Whampoa, checked the reports and quieted the people.

7. Canton has recently exhibited perhaps more than usual commercial activity. Some of the factories are being repaired; and a petition to the governor, numerously signed by the foreign merchants, has been, or is about to be presented, the object of which is to ask for permission to bring their families to Cauton to reside. Hong-merchants and linguists have been sent for, who set off on the 25th, to go to Chekiáng, to aid in carrying on the diplomacy at the north!

8. Macao, during this month and the last, has been the scene of some changes. H. E. the governor, as we learn from a correspondent of the Friend of China, having been blamed for certain acts by the court of Lisbon, tendered his resignation to the senate, but they begged him not rashly to relinquish his office. The next day, the troops paraded themselves in the square before the Senate house, demanding an assembly of the citizens at large, to induce the governor to resume his office. The third day, June 25th, at a general assembly of the senate and the people, and by their united request the governor was induced to resume his station, and was immediately escorted to the palace, attended by the authorities and notables of the place.

A decretal of the queen of Portugal, dated Lisbon, Feb. 10th, 1842, having reached Macao, the senate, in conformity with its orders, issued & public pro- gramme to the citizens, appointing the 10th inst. as the day for subscribing to the constitution of April, 1826, which was henceforth to be the fundamental law in the dominions of the Portuguese monarchy. A Te Deum was sung in the cathedral, at which all the ecclesiastical, civil and military authorities assisted, and the houses in the place were generally illuminated in the evening of that and the two succeeding days.

9. Cochinchina. "The imperial will is received, ordaining the heir ap parent, Yuenfusiuen, king of Cochinchina. And all the requisite papers for the investiture, Páu Tsing, the commissioner of justice in Kwangsí, is ap- pointed to bear thither in due form. Let other particulars be done according to the memorial." On inquiry we find that Mingming died early this, or late last year; but the particulars of his death and of the succession we have not been able to obtain.

10. Eight shipwrecked Japanese arrived in the Gitana at Macao during this month from Manila. They were driven ashore on the Samar isles, at the southeast of Luçonia, after being tempest tost for about 150 days between Yedo, near where they last saw land, and that shore. They are from that part of the principality of Mutsu lying in the northern part of Nippon called Shendai, about 180 miles northeast of Yedo, and were bound to the capital with a cargo of rice. On coming down the coast and rounding cape King, they met a northeaster, and were blown off. They say that the famine experienced in that part of the empire about four years ago was dreadful in the extreme; people ate horses, ate corpses, the alburnum of trees, in short whatever they could seize to satisfy the cravings of nature. The name of the vessel was Kwanyoshi or the Happy-go-lucky; the captain's name is Zhinske, and the supercargo's Chiozioro, with six men in the crew