the time of night) by striking two hollow bamboos together.

The great jealousy with which the personal safety of the Emperor is provided for at Peking, renders the police very strict in regard to all access to the imperial palace and its neighbourhood. It has been well observed, that the subjects of a despot are well revenged by the fears in which such regulations originate. According to the Penal Code, "In all cases of persons, who have lived within the jurisdiction of the imperial city, being condemned to die by the sentence of the law, their families, and all persons whatsoever who resided under the same roof with them, shall remove forthwith." The principal duty of the military of China is to perform the office of a police; and it must be admitted that, by the aid of the unrelenting system of responsibility, there is no country in the world in which a more efficient police exists than there. Not being very scrupulous as to the means, the Government generally contrives in some way or other to accomplish its ends; and it occasionally makes up for its own weakness by the policy of its measures. When the pirates, at the commencement of the present Tartar dynasty, ravaged the coasts of the maritime provinces, the want of a force to oppose them on the water rendered active mea sures impossible. The Government, therefore, offered no active resistance; but merely obliged the inhabitants of the coast to move thirty ly, or about three leagues, inland,-a plan which proved perfectly successful.

European residents in China have generally found that their property has been as secure from violent invasion as it could be in any other country of the world; and in one or two instances, where flagrant acts of robbery combined with murder have occurred,

the efficiency of the police has proved, in a very signal and remarkable manner, that the Government was not only willing, but able, to do them summary justice. In 1816, the American ship Wabash, having opium on board, came to an anchor off Macao, and, being manned by a very small number of hands, was suddenly carried by a boat-fullof desperate Chinese, who, coming on board under pretence of offering their services as pilots, stabbed those who were on deck, or forced them into the water; and then, confining the remainder of the crew to the fore part of the vessel, plundered her of all the opium. When the fact was represented to the local government, whose horror of piratical violence is extreme, such prompt and effective measures were taken for the discovery of the ruffians, that they were most of them caught and condemned to death, and their heads exposed in cages on the rocks near Macao, as a warning to others.

But the case of the French ship Navigateur, in 1828, was still more remarkable, and may be given nearly from the relation of M. Laplace, captain of the eighteen-gun corvette La Favorite, whose observations on the Chinese we have had occasion to quote in another place. The Navigateur, a merchantman, was compelled by stress of weather to put into Touron Bay, on the coast of Cochin-China. The disabled state of the ship, the difficulty of effecting the necessary repairs, and the well-known unfriendliness of the local authorities, forced the captain and crew to the necessity of selling her to the King of Cochin-China, and embarking themselves with their most valuable effects on board a Chinese junk, which was engaged to carry them to Macao. The voyage was short, but still long enough to enable the crew of the junk to conceive and execute a dreadful conspiracy against the Frenchmen. It was in vain

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that one of the oldest of the Chinese endeavoured by signs to draw the attention of the French captain to the danger which threatened him; the latter had contented himself with making one or two of his sailors keep watch by day, as well as during the night; but this charge was the more negligently executed, inasmuch as most of the people, in consequence of their previous sufferings, had to contend with fever or dysentery.

The junk was already within sight of the great Ladrone island, the mark by which Macao is made in the southerly monsoon, and the Chinese passengers disembarked at once into boats, with an eagerness which ought to have roused the suspicions of the Europeans, had they not been blinded by the most imprudent confidence. The night passed quietly, and the dawning light seemed to promise a happy landing to the Frenchmen; but it was destined to witness their massacre. These unfortunate men, the greater number still asleep, were despatched with hatchets and knives by the crew of the junk; and their captain, assailed by the assassins in the narrow cabin which he occupied with his mates, after killing several of the Chinese, fell himself the last. One seaman, however, still remained, who, armed with an iron bar, continued to make a desperate resistance, although badly wounded in the head. Having reached the deck of the vessel, almost overcome as he was in this unequal conflict, he leaped into the sea, and appeared in this manner to ensure, by his certain death, impunity to the murderers.

He contrived, notwithstanding, to swim to the nearest fishing-boat, but was denied succour, with the usual selfish prudence of the Chinese; another boat, however, afterwards received him on board, and landed him by night on the shore at Macao. Sick and wounded as he was, the poor man wandered

unknown for some time about the streets, but at length discovered the abode of the French missionaries, who with their ready humanity relieved him at once from his immediate wants. In the mean while the French consul had arrived from Canton, and the affair being brought by him to the notice of the Portuguese authorities at Macao, was placed by them in the hands of the Chinese mandarins. By means of the information obtained from the French sailor, the Chinese passengers who had quitted the junk previous to the massacre, and repaired in all haste to their respective homes, were summoned to Canton. From them was obtained a full evidence as to the criminals, and their design; and a strict embargo was at once laid on all the vessels within the ports of Canton and the neighbouring province of Fokien.

The assassins being soon arrested in their junk, were put into iron cages and conveyed to Canton for trial and judgment. On their arrival there, it was ordained by the Emperor's strict order that the trial and punishment should take place in the presence of the Europeans at that place. Among the English spectators was the interpreter of the East India Company, Dr. Morrison, the author of the Chinese dictionary, whose labours have been so useful towards illustrating the literature of the country, and who was destined on this occasion to experience a very gratifying reward for his pains in acquiring the language. His attention having been attracted by the loud complaints of an old man, who, like the others, was shut up in a cage with iron bars, and who, in protesting his innocence, called for the French sailor whose life he had contributed to save, Dr. Morrison approached the old man's prison, heard what he had to say, and promised him his assistance with the judges. In a word, accompanied by the

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Frenchman, he presented himself before the mandarins, pleaded the cause of his client, and called to their recollection that maxim of Chinese law, and of humanity in general, that " it is better to let even the guilty escape than to punish the innocent." He obtained the consent of the court that the sailor should be confronted with the accused; and these, on the first sight of each other, immediately embraced and shed tears, to the great interest and sympathy of the audience. The Judges themselves yielded to the general sentiment, and at once absolved the old man. Out of twenty-four prisoners, seventeen were condemned and decapitated at once, and their chief put to a lingering death in presence of the Europeans.

Captain Laplace has made a great mistake in supposing that, when Dr. Morrison enunciated to the mandarins that merciful and wise maxim which contributed to save the man's life, he told them any thing that they had never before heard. We could prove to him, by chapter and verse, that the precept is perfectly well known to the Chinese, however grossly it may have been violated by them in several cases where Europeans have unintentionally caused the death of natives. It is, in fact, this knowledge of what is right in criminal practice, that makes the conduct of the local government towards foreign homicides so perfectly unjustifiable, and renders it not only excusable but imperative in Europeans to resist the execution, not of law, but of illegality. Were they treated like natives on these occasions, and according to the distinct provisions of the Chinese Penal Code, it might be difficult to make out a right to oppose the laws of the country in which they sojourn. But, as a just and equal administration of those laws to natives and foreigners must always be the necessary condition of submission on the part of the latter,