examination, any fraud be detected, the goods may be confiscated by the Chinese government. Should any Portuguese merchant wish to re-export to a foreign country any goods imported, and upon which duties have been already paid, he will have to make his application in the same form as exacted at the re-exportation of goods to another port in China, in which case a certificate of drawback or of restitution of duties will be granted, and which will be accepted at any of the Chinese custom-houses in payment for import or export duties. Foreign cereals imported by Portuguese ships into the ports of China re-exported without hindrance if no portion of it has been discharged. may be ART. 46. The Chinese authorities will adopt at the ports the measures which deem the most convenient to avoid fraud or smuggling. they may ART. 47. Portuguese merchant ships may resort to only those ports of China which, by this treaty, are declared open to commerce. It is forbidden to them to enter other of the ports, as well as to carry on a clandestine trade on the coast of China, and the transgressor of this order shall be subject to confiscation of his ship and cargo by the Chinese government. ART. 48. If any Portuguese merchant ship is found smuggling, the whole of the cargo, no matter of what nature or value it may be, will be subject to confiscation by the Chinese authorities, who may send her away from the port, after settlement of all her accounts, and prohibit her to continue to trade. ARTICLE 49. The proceeds of mulets and confiscations inflicted on Portuguese subjects, in conformity to this treaty, shall belong to the Chinese government. ART. 50. All Portuguese ships-of-war which come with amicable intentions, or which cruise in pursuit of pirates, have full liberty to visit any of the ports in the dominions of the Emperor of China, and therein provide themselves with water or purchase provisions; and to enable them to do this promptly every assistance will be given them, as well as towards repairing the ships when necessary. The commanders of such ships will hold intercourse with the Chinese authorities upon terms of equality and courtesy. ART. 51. No Portuguese merchant or ship is allowed to carry provisions, arms, or ammunition of any kind to the rebels or pirates. And in case of contravention of this the ship will be confiscated, together with her cargo, and the guilty ones given up to the Portuguese government to be tried and punished with the utmost rigor of the law. ART. 52. All advantages and immunities which the Chinese government may concede to any other nation hereafter shall be extended to the Portuguese government; and on its part, the Portuguese government, when another nation concedes to China any advantages, will show, likewise, its friendship in the best way possible. ART. 53. It being possible, notwithstanding that there exist peace and amity between Portugal and China, that in the future some question may arise which the two high contracting parties cannot easily decide by common accord, it is hereby expressly stipulated that, in such case, each of the governments shalt invite a minister of any of the foreign nations who have treaties with China to decide the question, and that, in case these two ministers do not agree, a third one shall be named by them, with the accord of the two governments, whose decision shall be definitive. ART. 54. The ratifications of the present treaty by his most faithful Majesty the King of Portugal and his Majesty the Emperor of China shall be exchanged at Tien-tsin within the period of two years computed from the date of its signature. The ratifications being exchanged, the Chinese government will communicate the treaty to the high authorities of all the provinces in order that it may be put in complete execution. In testimony whereof, the plenipotentiaries signed and sealed the present treaty. Done at Tien-tsin on the thirteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, corresponding to the 18th day of the 7th moon of the first year of Tung-che. IZIDORO FRANCISCO GUIMARAES. CHUNG-HOU. [L. S.] Place of seal of the two Chinese plenipotentiaries. SWATOW.-C. W. BRADLEY, Jr., Consul. AUGUST 1, 1862. I have the honor to enclose to the department, as furnished me by the commissioner of customs at this port, a comparative statement of the trade of this port for the half years ending June 30, 1861, and 1862, which, I hope, will furnish information of service. You will perceive there is a slight falling off in the amount of tonnage, and in the import and export of certain articles; the former of which may be attributed to the more lucrative freights to be obtained at some of the northern ports, and the latter to the unsettled state of the country. Yet the real criterion of the prosperity of a port, its revenue collection, does not show a deficit; on the contrary, the present half year gives an increase of taels 12,985,5.8.4, equal to $18,305 55 In American tonnage there has been 1,361 tons increase over that of last year at the same period. I also enclose an article cut out of the Daily Press which gives much reliable and valuable information regarding this port. [From the Daily Press.] "Numerous large cities and walled towns are interspersed throughout this delta, and it is difficult to conceive a country more highly favored by nature for commerce and agriculture than this same district is. "The curse of the country has been the impotence of the authorities and the consequent prevalence of feud fights among the villages. To such a pitch did this reach that it became impossible for the denizens of some of the villages to pursue their honest and lawful vocations, however much they might be disposed to do so. They used to be attacked in the fields whilst employed at their agricultural labors; if they succeeded in ripening their crops the harvest would be gathered by some of their marauding neighbors. "Such being the cause, the effect produced can scarcely be wondered at. Hence it came to pass that all that anarchy and misery arose which have characterized Swatow since foreigners obtained a footing there. The people were absolutely eating one another for subsistence. The place became the very centre of the coolie traffic, simply because bitter starvation was the only alternative to emigration. At first this coolie traffic was confined to Siam and Singapore, and did not entail any of those horrors which characterize the trade when conducted by Europeans. It soon became known that flesh and blood were rocurable for a song at Swatow, and then followed those atrocities which pave indelibly tarnished Christianity in China. "However, this is beside the question-the state of things prevailing which we have described, and the coolie traffic resulting as a consequence, it necessarily came to pass that a coolie became an animal of some value, and consequently worth kidnapping. This circumstance materially added to the misery which prevailed. The denizens of one village would sometimes make raids upon the denizens of another village, simply for the purpose of kidnapping victims to sell as coolies. Reprisals would, of course, be provoked, and matters would naturally become worse, which they did. "There are a number of fishing villages near the coast, which appear to have been the foremost in exciting the anarchy and misery which prevailed. These became notorious under the designation of the eighteen villages. They did not form a confederacy, but went on the principle that all was fish which came to their net. They appear, however, from their locality near the coast, to have preyed on the trade between the sea and the interior, and to have almost annihilated it. Thus it was that foreign craft, being equal to the task of resisting their depredations, found so much employment at Swatow, ere the port became opened by treaty to foreign trade. "We should not omit to state that one peculiarity marked the state of demoralization to which the district contiguous to Swatow had fallen. The feature we are about to mention presents such a violation of Chinese ideas of propriety, and indeed is so repugnant to the feelings inculcated by civilization. generally, that nothing can more forcibly illustrate the debased state into which the district had fallen than a relation of it. We refer to the sale of women. These could be had in hundreds, and were exported in large numbers-habitually to Singapore and Siam-occasionally to Cuba. We believe that the price ranged from $15 to $30, and that they formed a regular article of merchandise to the straits and to Bangkok. "The legalization of foreign trade at Swatow, it could readily be foreseen, must have the effect of putting a stop to this sad state of things, as it would not only introduce some law-and-order element into the administration of affairs, but it would furnish the mandarins with a customs revenue to enable them to maintain a force requisite to establish peace and quietness. We do not wish to introduce the existence of the foreign inspectorate into our argument either one way or other. It may be supposed that in admitting the improvement which has taken place, that we are at the same time admitting the advisability of the establishment of the foreign inspectorate. This would be an erroneous conclusion. The inspectorate collects the duties only; it does not create them. Reform lay with the provincial authorities, not with the Peking government. The inspectorate account for the duties we suppose to the latter, and therefore they may possibly deprive the provincial authorities of the means they would otherwise have of establishing law and order. This is beside the question. "Certain it is that a revenue from foreign trade has been established at Swatow. We see from the customs returns just published that the gross half yearly customs dues collected from the 1st July to 31st December last year amounted to taels 119,528. We do not know how much the amount was for the previous half year, nor the comparative amounts of 1860 and 1861, but it certainly has rapidly increased for reasons which we shall show presently. The aggregate may be assumed at £80,000 per annum, which we think a very respectable sum. "The improvement of trade, and the augmentation of revenue combined, have induced both the people and the government to interfere with a heavy hand, and to put a stop to the misdeeds of these rebellious villages. The worst, or, at all events, the most powerful village of the number is named Sua-bue. The interference of the authorities took place in this wise: The Sua-bue people were carrying on one of their predatory fights against several of the other villages combined. Pitched battles were of continual recurrence-numbers on each side were daily slain, and the trade of the port became materially interfered with. Suddenly some thousand troops, despatched from the Foo city, appeared on the scene. The Sua-bue people fled to a man; negotiations between the authorities and the other villages then commenced. The most severe measures will of course be adopted, and the impression is that the days of anarchy have gone. "We should not omit to state that, independently of the movement of the authorities, the improvement in the state of affairs at Swatow, owing entirely to the development of foreign trade, has been great. We hear nothing now of the horrors of the coolie trade, nor of the distress which caused it; and although the legalizing of foreign trade naturally put a stop to the irregularities of the coolie traffic, still we know from the doings of the British emigration agency that coolies are by no means plentiful at Swatow now-a-days, even when fair means are employed to engage them. The occupation to the working population which a legitimate trade extends to a port is considerable. Indeed, the fact is too patent to require enlarging upon. "The returns of trade published by the foreign customs display the following results: Import trade, value in dollars, 1860, $4,898,724; 1861, $4,659,359; showing a decrease of a quarter of a million, which is fully accounted for on the two articles opium and cotton. The export trade, however, exhibits a very different result. In 1860 the value of the imports was $1,277,569. For 1861 the figures stand $2,214,655—an increase of nearly one million. In sugar alone the increase was 250,000 piculs. The inward foreign tonnage for 1862 was 85,000 tons. Our correspondent states that the coming crop of sugar is a good one; that of rice a bad one. Tobacco is good and plentiful." |