nd the government discovering it,
an entire stop was put to the salt trade. The pirates, however, were not
to be so easily frightened or defeated; their admiral, Apo-Tsy,
forthwith commenced an offensive warfare; assembled an immense fleet of
junks and a force of upwards of twenty thousand men, invaded the country
near Macao, cut all the ripe rice, and carried it off, as well as a
great number of women, whom he presented to his followers. In vain did
the viceroy attack the piratical fleet,--he was defeated in every
engagement, and the affair was only terminated by making Apo-Tsy
governor of the province of Fokien, and pardoning all his followers!
Matters however did not stop here; in some of his battles, Apo-Tsy had
taken prisoner an admiral nearly related to the heir to the crown, and
cut off his head; as soon as the relative ascended the throne, he
despatched a polite message to the governor of Fokien, to say, that the
laws of the empire required blood for blood, and that his excellency's
head was therefore required instead of the admiral's. There was no
excuse to be made, and the twenty thousand pirates were no longer at
hand, so that Apo-Tsy's head was conveyed to Pekin.

This salt trade is very extensive; no less than twenty thousand tons of
shipping being occupied in it alone. Indeed the great commerce of the
Chinese appears to be that carried on by their own junks to the
Indo-Chinese islands. One of these vessels will carry a cargo of from
three to five thousand dollars value, in earthenware, silks, nankeens,
ironmongery, tea, and other productions and manufactures of the Chinese.
They have settlements on all these islands, and are certainly invaluable
colonists, as they have sufficiently proved wherever they are
established. They work the mines, plant cotton, make indigo and sugar,
and acquire large fortunes among the slothful and careless Malays.
Though they intermarry with these people, they never adopt their habits
or religion, but remain, as well as their descendants, a distinct race;
and wherever found, their settlements present a complete miniature
picture of China. It is indeed a gross error to consider China a country
wholly agricultural and manufacturing; on the contrary, the Chinese are
one of the most commercial nations of the globe. It is true, they affect
themselves to hold the trade which they carry on with distant nations,
as comparatively unimportant, and assert that with the contiguous
islands t