Various - History of the Pirates Who Infested the China Sea From 1807 to 1810

Toland , History of the Druids, p. 51. —

"This justice, therefore, I would do to Ireland, even if it had not been my country, viz. to maintain that this tolerating principle, this impartial liberty (of religion), ever since unexampled there as well as elsewhere, China excepted , is far greater honour to it," &c.

Never was a man more calumniated than Confucius by the Jesuit Couplet. Confucius Sinarum Philosophus was printed in the year 1687, shortly after Louis XIV. abolished the Edict of Nantes, and persecuted the most industrious part of his subjects. The Jesuit is bold enough to affirm, in his Epistola Dedicatoria ad Ludovicum magnum , that the Chinese philosopher would be exceedingly rejoiced in seeing the piety of the great king.

" Quibus te laudibus efferret, cum haeresin, hostem illam avitae fidei ac regni florentissimi teterrimam, proculcatam et attritam, edicta quibus vitam ducere videbatur, abrogata; disjecta templa, nomen ipsum sepultum, tot animarum millia pristinis ab erroribus ad veritatem, ab exitio ad salutem tam suaviter (!) tam fortiter (!), tam feliciter (!) traducta. "

Toreen's Voyage behind Osbeck, II. 239, English translation.

The Canton Register, 1829, No. 20.

Jang sëen is his Tsze, or title. The numbers which are to be found on the margin of the translation, refer to the pages of the Chinese printed text.

The cubit at Canton is 14 inches 625 dec. Morrison, under the word Weights , in his Dictionary, English and Chinese.

We see by this statement that Couplet is wrong in saying ( Confucius Sinarum philosophus. Proemialis declaratio, p. 60): "Mahometani, qui una cum suis erroribus ante annos fere septingentos (Couplet wrote 1683) magno numero et licentia ingressi in Chinam."

This statement is so extraordinary, that the Translator thought it necessary to compare many passages where the character shăh (8384 M.) occurs. Shăh originally means, according to the Shwŏ wăn , near, joining ; and Shăh kwŏ , are, according to Dr. Morrison, "small states attached to and dependent on a larger one: tributary states." The character shăh is often used in the same signification in the 57th book of our work. The description of the Peninsula of Malacca begins (Mem. b. 57, p. 15 r.) with the following words: " Mwan lă kea (Malacca) is in the southern sea, and was originally a tributary state (shăh kwŏ) of Sëen lo , or Siam; but the officer who there had the command revolted and founded a distinct kingdom." In the war which the Siamese some years back carried on against the Sultan of Guedah, they always affirmed that the King of Siam is, by his own right, the legitimate sovereign of the whole peninsula of Malacca, and that the Sultan must only be considered as a rebel against his liege. The statement of the Chinese author, therefore, corroborates the assertions of the Siamese.

On the General Map of the Western Sea ( Se hae tsung too ) Lin yin takes the place of Sweden. I cannot conceive what can be the cause of that denomination. Lin yin , perhaps, may mean the island Rugen ?

The common word for cloth, to lo ne , seems to be of Indian origin; it is certainly not Chinese. The proper Chinese name is jung .

Peih ke is written with various characters. See Morrison's Dictionary, under the word Peih, 8509.

The syllable lo is not in the Chinese text, as it is supposed, by a mistake of the printer.

It may be remarked, that Cosmas, about the middle of the sixth century, had a better idea concerning the Chinese empire, or the country of Tsin , than the Chinese have even now of Europe. Such an advantage was it to be born a Greek and not a Chinese. Cosmas seems very well informed concerning the articles of trade which the Chinese generally bring to Serendib, or Serendwîpa (Ceylon). He remarks, that farther than China there exists no other country; that on the east it is surrounded by the ocean; and that Ceylon is nearly as far from the Persian gulf as from Tziniza or China. See the description of Taprobane, taken from the Christian Topography, and printed in Thévenot, "Relations de divers Voyages," vol. i. pp. 2, 3, and 5. The Chinese about Canton have a custom of ending every phrase with a long a ( a is pronounced like a in Italian) which is merely euphonic, like yay (11980) in the Mandarine dialect. If a Chinese should be asked about his country, he would answer according to the different dynasties, Tsin-a, Han-a, Tang-a, Ming-a, &c. Tsin-a is probably the origin of Tziniza . It is a little strange that Rennel takes no notice of the statements of Cosmas. (See the Geographical System of Herodotus I. 223, Second Edition, London, 1830.) Is it not very remarkable, that this merchant and monk seems to have also had very correct information concerning the north-west frontier of China, and of the conquest which the Huns (in Sanscrit Hūna) have made in the north-west part of Hindostan? He reckons from China, through Tartary and Bactria to Persia, 150 stations, or days' journies. About the time of Cosmas, an intercourse commenced between China and Persia.

In prefaces and rhetorical exercises, the Chinese commonly call the years by the names employed in the well-known cycle of sixty years. The first cycle is supposed to have begun with the year 2697 before Christ. In the year 1804, the ninth year of Këa kïng, was the beginning of the thirty-sixth cycle. – Histoire générale de la Chine, XII. p. 3 and 4.

The Mei ling mountains, which divide the province Kwang tung from the province Këang se. See Note in the beginning of the History of the Pirates.

The place where European ships lie at anchor in the river of Canton, and one of the few spots which foreigners are allowed to visit.

I translate the Chinese words Wae she , by non-official historian , in opposition to the Kwŏ she , or She kwan , the official historiographers of the empire. Both Yuen tsze , author of the following History of the Pirates, and Lan e , author of the work which is referred to in the preface, are such Public historians , who write – like most of the historians of Europe – the history of their own times, without being appointed to or paid for by government.

Lan e gives the history of the civil commotions under Këa king, which continued from the year 1814 to 1817, in six books; the work is printed in two small volumes, in the first year of Tao kwang (1820), and the following contains the greater part of the preface:

"In the spring of the year Kea su (1814), I went with other people to Peking; reaching the left side of the (Mei ling) mountains we met with fellow travellers, who joined the army, and with many military preparations. In the capital I learned that the robber Lin caused many disturbances; I took great care to ascertain what was said by the people of the court, and by the officers of government, and I wrote down what I heard. But being apprehensive that I might publish truth and falsehood mixed together, I went in the year Ting chow (1817) again to the metropolis, and read attentively the imperial account of the Pacification of the Robber-bands , planned the occurrences according to the time in which they happened, joined to it what I heard from other sources, and composed out of these various matters a work in six books, on the truth of which you may rely."