*

regular troops after them, who pursued the freebooters into their own fastnesses, and obliged them to restore 30,150 head of cattle, horses, and sheep, and to give up seventeen of the offenders who were carried to Sening and belieaded, and their heads suspended in cages in the market-place.

A native of Kansuh province, a plebeian, presented a petition to the emperor in 1831, to complain of the conduct of Changling, one of the present ministers of China, and one of his colleagues, for mismanagement in their administration of the affairs of the western frontier. Speaking of the pastoral tribes about the lake Kokonor, he says, that they formerly bought tea and corn from the Chinese, who were allowed a free commercial intercourse with them; but that mismanagement had interdicted that trade, and cut off the means of subsistence of the people. He then speaks of a tribe of people near the source of the Yellow river, called "black foreigners," who live solely by plunder. "So long ago as thirty years," continues the petitioner, "these black foreigners created a disturbance, and Changling was sent against them, who instead of awing them by his military power, suffered them to go unpunished, and so left a heritage of calamity to his successors, and the people. In the 21st year of the late reign, a Chinese of the name of Chang was plundered of more than a thousand sheep by these people. A military officer caught some of them and brought them to Changling, who instead of punishing them, reprimanded the officer. Since then, the black foreigners have been worse than before; and for the last twenty years, murder and rapine have destroyed one half of the inhabitants in the neighborhood of the lake. No one dares to make complaint against the black foreigners, who to this day denominate Changling their benefactor." It is scarcely necessary to say that the poor man was punished for obtruding his opinions on government; but they are probably true, as regards the plunder, notwithstanding.

It was the same people, perhaps, who made inroads in the Chinese territory, in the winter of 1832--33,‡ to steal the cattle of the inhabitants, but were repulsed by the military. We may form an idea of the occupation of the military in defending the frontier and quelling insurrections within it, since the Chinese have no other kinds of warfare, from the petition of a veteran general in his 62d year,§ who requested permission in 1827 to retire on full pay. He stated that he had been engaged in four wars; had fought one hundred and eighty-five battles; killed twenty-five rebels; taken three prisoners, and been once wounded. Another who was allowed to retire in 1833,|| had been in forty-eight battles, killed eight rebels, and been once wounded.

The hill tribes within the provinces, however, appear to occasion more employment for the military, then those scattered along the frontier. An account of these tribes in the Canton Register, ¶

* Mal. Observer, Ap. 8th, 1829.

+ Chinese Repository, vol. 1, p. 512. || Chinese Repository, vol. 1, p. 512.

+ Canton Register, Oct. 1st, 1831. Mal. Observer, Ap. 10th, 1827. Canton Register. Dec. 12th, 1829.

following a native writer, enumerates eighty of them, distributed through the provinces of Kwangtung (Canton), Kwangse, Kweichow, Yunnan, Hoo Kwang, Szechuen, and other provinces. A party of these mountaineers appeared in Canton in 1830. "They came down the western river," says the Canton Register,* "in small boats not larger than a London wherry, with oil for sale. They had acquired the mandarin tongue, as an uneducated, Highlandman or Welshman learns English. It was ascertained that their native tongue is entirely different from Chinese; that it is unwritten, and that consequently they have no books: they have no temples nor priests, nor set forms of religion, nor visible objects of worship. The only religious service they would acknowledge was new year's ceremony, which they had learned from the Chinese. Polygamy is confined to a few rich men among them. These men had not shaved their heads in the Tartar-Chinese manner, but braided up the hair on the top of the head, somewhat in the manner of Chinese women, which circumstance the poor Chinese seized hold of to distinguish them from their fellow country-men, whose dress in other respects, the mountaineers had assumed on quitting their native hills. They had been about a month in coming down to Canton." A similar description of these people is given also in the "Canton Miscellany," with a few words as a specimen of their language.

These mountaineers and their kindred tribes in the neighboring provinces have been unusually troublesome in the last few years. We find troops sent to Leenchow, in the northwest part of the province of Canton, to act against them in the beginning of 1820,‡ and the governor proceeding to Kwangse to quell an insurrection, later in the year. In 1826, the Meaoutsze of Kweichow are spoken of as making predatory attacks; § the governor in his dispatches to the emperor, at first recommended severe measures, but afterwards became alarmed, apparently, at the difficulties in his way; for the emperor told him in his reply, "that he must not, because of the difficulty of swallowing, give over eating altogether." Persevere, adds his majesty, or you will degrade the government altogether. We find the troubles continued in the following year. The fooyuen of Keängse reported in 1831,** that the people on the borders between Keängse and Kwangtung, are by nature, a fierce intractable race: robbery and rape are their common occupations." He had been obliged to call out the military, who had captured upwards of a hundred of the offenders: they fell sick, and the fooyuen being apprehensive that they would die and escape ignominious punishment, tried and executed them on the spot. The emperor added with the vermillion pencil to this report: "perspicacity and knowledge of governmental justice ought always to act thus." The emperor's perspicacity ought to have enabled him to foresee the probable result of such treatment:

* Canton Register, May 15th, 1830. Indo. Gleaner, Oct. 1820, p. 416. Mal. Observer, Nov. 18th, 1828. ** Canton Register, Oct. 15th, 1831.

t Indo. Gleaner, July, 1820, p. 345. Mal. Observer, Dec. 19th, 1826. ¶ Mal. Observer, Oct. 23d, 1827.

a furious rebellion broke out amongst the borderers in February 1832, of which some account, as well as of the manners of the people, will be found in this work.* The loss of life during this civil war, taking the Chinese accounts, could not have been less than 10,000 men, and the expense was estimated at about 2,100,000 taels, besides sacrificing the reputation of old governor Le.t One of the emperor's edicts respecting this war, affords a tolerable idea of the nature of the campaign.

The above rebellion involved the tribes in the mountains which separate the contiguous provinces of Kwangtung, Kwangse, Honan, and Kansuh, and the officers and troops of all those provinces were engaged. Besides the wild mountaineers on the western frontier of China and in the interior, there are others, in the islands of Hainan in the south and Formosa to the eastward of the empire, which are equally troublesome; especially in the last island. A rébellion broke out in March 1831, in Hainan, which was perhaps the exciting cause of revolt in the neighboring provinces mentioned above. Reports at Canton assigned two causes of the origin of the disturbance; one that the people who were suffering from famine, attacked the rice shops and put to death the magistrates who attempted to prevent them: the other that the wild tribes in the interior made a descent and murdered the Chinese officers. That the latter were engaged in the affray, appears by the report of Le,§ the governor of Canton.

His first communication of the rebellion to the emperor, was on the 19th March; on the 26th, he forwarded the report of the commandant at Hainan. "The said general," says the governor, "found on examination, that the Le banditti, to the number of about 1000, were encamped on the hill sides, and were in a state of obstinate resistance to government. The general, fearing that as he attacked the banditti on one side, they would elude him on the other, divided his soldiers into two bodies, who successively took possession of all the villages of the banditti, the inhabitants of which stockaded all the important paths and opposed the progress of the soldiers with swords and arrows. The governmental troops with guns and musketry broke down the stockades and carried on the slaughter with impetuous valor. The eastern division shot dead above forty of the banditti and killed (in close fighting) more than ten of them; and the western division shot upwards of a hundred and cut down also more than ten of them. Their stockades and encampments were burnt, and above one hundred bows, arrows, and swords were taken possession of. Some of the governmental soldiers were wounded by arrows, and a baggage carrier was killed. The banditti concealed themselves from the close pursuit of the troops, by going among the hills between the two divisions, where they again assembled and encamped.

* Chinese Repository, vol, 1, page 29, et passim. Canton Register, Oct. 3d. 1832.

Canton Register, Ap. 19th, 1831,

Chinese Repository, vol 4 p 69

"On the 4th day of the 1st moon (February 16), the said general united the two divisions, and marched at their head to exterminate the banditti, ou whom a fire of musketry and cannon was at once opened, whereby several tens of men were killed: a commander of one thousand men himself cut down four of the rebels. Owing to the unevenness of the narrow paths among the hills, and the high grass and brushwood, the banditti were able to conceal themselves on all sides; and when the troops again commenced the pursuit with impetuosity, the banditti, having no more strength left, set fire to the high grass, and shot at random with cross-bows, whereby an officer and one soldier were killed, and one soldier wounded with arrows; and some officers and eight soldiers burnt, and five soldiers scorched by the fire. The banditti then skulked off among the hills. The general, with the taou and foo (officers) are now deliberating and forming plans, to seize every one of the banditti."

The governor and his council add to the above report that the said Le banditti did in the thirty-first and forty-sixth years of Keënlung, and in the ninth year of Keäking (A. D. 1766, 1781 and 1804) commit depredations and create disturbances, and were subdued; "but what the names of the heads of these murderous bandits are, and what the origin of the bloody quarrel,-whether it has been excited by traitorous Chinese, or whether there is some other cause for it, has not yet been reported." The governor announced at the same time his intention to repair to the seat of war, and shortly afterwards we find a Tartar general with a thousand Mantchou soldiers ordered to follow.* On the 20th of June, the governor returned to Canton and the insurrection in Hainan was reported to be quelled; but on the 15th of July a deputation of sixteen of the residents of the island arrived in Canton,† to complain that the Le mountaineers had again issued forth to plunder and murder the Chinese villagers, several hundreds of whom, and two hundred of the emperor's soldiers, had lost their lives. The fooyuen who was now acting governor set off to quell this new insurrection, in which he no doubt succeeded, since we hear no more of it.

A good description of the island of Formosa, and of the trouble which it costs the Chinese to possess and retain it, will be found in vol. 2, page 400 of this work. Insurrections and minor disturbances continue to be frequent there, although they are not of the formidable character of that of 1788. In 1826, we find the emperor rewarding some of the officers at Formosa for suppressing an insurrection of inhabitants or an inroad of the native tribes;§ seventeen of the insurgents were beheaded. This insurrection seems to have been facilitated by the feuds between the Fuhkeën and Canton emigrants settled there.|| In 1830, the island was again represented to be in a state of insurrection,¶ and troops were sent from Fuhkeën to suppress it, and some success against the rebels was reported in the * Canton Register, June 6th, 1831. + Canton Register, July 4th, 1831. Mal. Observer, Dec. 5th, 1826. Mal. Observer, June 16th, 1827. Mal. Observer, Jan. 2d, 1827. ¶ Canton Register, Feb. 15th, 1830.

Peking gazettes a few mocths later and some officers rewarded for it;* but we have no further information upon the subject. In 1832, it broke out again, however, more seriously, having commenced with the massacre of twenty-six officers of government and seventeen hundred soldiers. Here again the affray arose from a quarrel between some Fuhkeën and Cantou settlers respecting five peculs of yams, but was aggravated by the interference and peculation of a magistrate, whom one of the parties turned upon and put to death. Five thousand troops were ordered to proceed from Amoy to the sent of war. The governor of Fuhkeën was ordered also to take the field, and two commissioners with a staff of thirty subalterns were sent thither from Peking.

We have no account of the proceedings of the commissioners, until a memorial of one of them appears in the Peking gazette of the 6th of September, 1833,§ announcing the final subjection of the rebels. "The perusal of this memorial," says the emperor, "has caused me the greatest consolation. This insurrection commenced in the intercalary 9th moon of last year; it was then a period of extreme winter and bitter cold. Many delays were occasioned also by the sea; vessels having either to wait at anchor for the winds, or being driven from the coast and scattered by storms so as to be unable to land the troops. But the moment that the commissioner and governor (of Fuhkeën) passed over to the island, inen's minds became settled. Accompanied by the general, they proceeded to search out the rebels; peace resumed its place in the hearts of the people, and all things were fitly adjusted. An amnesty was proclaimed; the abettors and followers of the rebels were separated. The head of a considerable party was seized, as well as many other leaders. Thus Formosa was pacified, and in the 5th moon of the present year, the whole work was announced as complete, and the settlers and cultivators returned to their former occupations. The speed with which the work was accomplished is well worthy of esteem and reward." His majesty rewarded the commissioner, accordingly with the honorary title of 'guardian of the heir-apparent,' and the governor with a peacock's feather, besides tobacco-pouches, rings, &c., to the inferior officers.

* Canton Register, June 15th, 1830. Chinese Repository, vol. 2, p. 423.

+ Canton Register, Dec. 20th, 1832. Canton Register, Dec. 5th, 1838.

VOL. IV. NO. XI.

63