illa men, were able
to serve as a cheap and effective navy for the Chinese mercantile
marine. Enjoying exemption from all control, these armed, irresponsible
lorchamen early began to dictate terms to the Chinese mariners, and in a
few months the unfortunate Chinaman was puzzled which to avoid, the
piratical junk or the buccaneering lorcha, the extortions of the latter
being as damaging as the robberies of the former. He was no more at
liberty to decline the protection of a Portuguese convoy, on the terms
which the foreigner saw fit to impose, than to refuse the demands of the
professed pirate.

The Chinese pirates, finding their occupation so much interfered with by
their foreign rivals, turned their attention to the poor fishermen, whom
they mercilessly plundered. Foreign protection was invoked; and the
protection of this important branch of industry was committed to the
unprincipled lorchamen. When junkmen and fishermen discovered that the
extortions of the foreigner were damaging as the exactions of the native
pirate, they tried to make terms with the latter; but it was too late.
It was no longer optional with them to accept or refuse protection.
Black mail was levied upon all with the method and certainty of a
revenue service. This was not effected without violence and bloodshed;
but of this there were none to take cognizance. The outrages were
perpetrated at ports or off coast, where there were no consuls. Hence
anarchy reigned at all points beyond the precincts of the consular
ports.

It is the nature of such a condition of things to extend; and it was not
long before the lawless foreigners, chiefly Portuguese, but with a
mixture of English, Americans, and all other nationalities, carried
their depredations to the villages on the islands and mainland. Robbery
and murder at sea were succeeded by like crimes on land. Whole villages
were reduced to ashes; the men butchered, and the women violated; some
being carried on board the lorchas and held to ransom. Chinese officials
were slain on attempting to resist the corsairs. Much of our surgical
practice in China was due to these piracies and forays.

Adventurers, who could not command a lorcha, fitted up native boats, and
hoisting some foreign flag, carried on like depredations in the
estuaries and rivers. Others went so far as to open offices in the small
towns for the sale of passes, which boats crossing from headland to
headland were compelled to show, in order t