sive, have gone on the principle of forbidding alike the emigration of natives and the immigration of strangers. Standing in need, however, of foreign supplies; and being unable to provide for their own subjects, they have, in the first place, been induced to allow a sort of restricted commerce at Canton; and, finally, to wink at the departure of natives to foreign lands. Still they consider those who go abroad, as forfeiting all claim to the protection of their own government, constituting themselves outlaws, as well as aliens, by the same act of expatriation. When a misunderstanding occurred between the Chinese colonists and the Dutch authorities, at Batavia, some years ago, and a massacre of the Chinese followed: the colonial government afraid, lest the emperor of China should take umbrage at the transaction, sent an embassy to that country, explaining the matter, and attributing the blame to the emigrant Chinese themselves. The emperor, however, coolly replied, that, as they had chosen to place themselves without the pale of his benign and fostering sway, they were no longer entitled to his protecting influence; thus, whatever happened to them, he should not interfere. Those who return to their native land, after having amassed considerable property, if not screened and sheltered by their friends and relatives, are liable to be accused of having had intercourse with barbarians; when their crime increases in malignity, according to the amount of their possessions, until, by repeated extortions, they are deprived of all. Notwithstanding, however, the original restrictions on emigration, the forfeiture of the rights of citizenship which they thereby incur, and the prospect of a good squeezing when they return; yet, such is the difficulty many
