Amoy and the Surrounding Districts Author:George Hughes Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: with China, and the prohibition of it between the Chinese, and the Spaniards, in Manila." The negociations hereon entered into, fell through, and the Dutch dispa... more »tched eight ships to scour the sea and to seize, or destroy, whatever they could along the Chinese coast, in order to compel the Chinese to trade; " many cruelties were thus committed, and several villages on the coast ravaged, to the disgrace of the Christian name" Negociations were resumed, and the Dutch Admiral, Keizerroon, sent an envoy to Amoy, who was received with great pageantry, and some politeness, but being required to knock his head against the ground " so that the bystanders might hear the cracking of his skull," he declined this fine old custom, and the discussion was again broken off, whereupon Chinchew was blockaded to prevent junks going to Manila, and as urgumentum ad hominem; and the Admiral repaired to Foochow, where he was told that so long as the Dutch retained possession of the Pescadors, no trade would be permitted ; but permission for them to fortify themselves upon the island of Formosa, (not known to the Chinese till A. D. 1430, and at that time not taken possession of by the government,) was offered as the price of the evacuation of Panghu. This offer was accepted, and in 1624, the Dutch conclude a peace, obtaining full commercial privileges, as then existed, and, at the same time, an entrepot for their Chinese, and Japanese, trade. From 1624, to 1644, China was convulsed with civil war, and foreign invasion. In the latter year, Peking has fallen, and a Tartar was on the throne, and in the following, twelve of the fifteen provinces had acknowledged his sway. The province of Fohkien, however held out; and it was not until some years afterwards that it was subdued. This district bore fully its sh...« less