laiming jurisdiction
in each instance. In cases of assault, pecuniary recompense always
satisfied the complainant; and in business transactions mutual
confidence in each other's integrity rendered official intervention
unnecessary.

Thus, except in cases of homicide, the foreign claim of exemption from
local jurisdiction was tacitly admitted, and no inconvenience followed.
But where life was lost, even when both the murderer and his victim were
foreigners, the right to try and execute the guilty was contended for,
and in some cases admitted. Kienlung's demand of 'life for life' was
always made, an innocent victim being not less acceptable than the real
culprit. On one occasion (1772), when a Chinaman was killed in the
Portuguese settlement of Macao, an Englishman, demanded by the Chinese,
whom the Portuguese admitted to be guiltless, was by them given up, and
by the Chinese strangled, to meet the claim of life for life. No regard
was had for those who by accident caused loss of life. In 1780 a native
was killed by the firing of a salute from an English vessel. The
mandarins decoyed the supercargo and held him as a hostage until the
gunner was delivered up. The innocent cause of the calamity was given up
under a promise from the mandarins that he should have a fair trial, and
that his life should not be endangered. He was immediately strangled. In
1821 an Italian sailor, in the service of an American merchantman, was
the indirect cause of the death of a China boatwoman, who was by the
side of his vessel. Trade was stopped until the poor man was delivered
up; the committee of American merchants, in the examination of the
sailor, protested against its irregularity. In sending the prisoner to
be strangled, they said, 'We are bound to submit to your laws, while in
your waters; be they ever so unjust, we will not resist them.' A
plausible reason for a culpable act. They should have allowed the trade
to stop, and quit the Chinese waters, rather than become parties to the
murder of the Italian.

The abrogation of the monopoly of the East India Company, and the rapid
extension of the illicit traffic in opium, caused a great influx of
foreigners into China, who often forced their way to ports where
intercourse was prohibited; these were among the causes which prepared
the way for the war with Great Britain; but the question which
precipitated that war, was one touching Chinese jurisdiction over
contraband merchandise, smuggled