A History of China Author:Samuel Wells Williams 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: ANOMALOUS POSITION OF FOREIGNERS IN CHINA. 99 standing, dislike, and hatred. Another fruitful source of difficulty was the turbulent conduct of sailors. The F... more »rench and English seamen at Whampoa, in 1754, carried their national hatred to such a degree that they could not pursue their trade without quarrelling ; and a Frenchman having killed an English sailor, the Chinese stopped the trade of the former nation until the guilty person was given up, though he was subsequently liberated. The Chinese allotted two different islands in the river at Whampoa for the recreation of the seamen of each nation, in order that such troubles might be avoided in future. A similar case occurred at Canton in 1780, when a Frenchman killed a Portuguese sailor at night in one of the merchants' houses and fled to the consul's for refuge. The Chinese demanded the criminal, and after some days he was given up to them and publicly strangled; this punishment he no doubt merited, although it was the first case in which they had interfered where the matter was altogether among foreigners. In 1784 a native was killed by a ball left in a gun when firing a salute, and the Chinese, on the principle of requiring life for life, demanded the man who had fired the gun. Knowing that the English were not likely to give him up, the police seized Mr. Smith, the supercargo of the vessel, and carried him a prisoner into the city. On the seizure of this gentleman the ships' boats were ordered up from Whampoa with armed crews to defend the factories. A messenger from the Chinese, however, declared that their purpose in seizing Smith was simply to examine him on the affair, to which statement the captive himself added a request that the gunner should be sent up to the authorities and submit to their questions. Trusting too m...« less