English first got footing in China must have operated to their disadvantage, and rendered their situation for some time peculiarly unpleasant."[1] It was thirty years thereafter before another British vessel visited Chinese waters for purposes of trade.
The Spaniards occupied the Philippines in 1543, and their cruel treatment of the Chinese who were established there operated to the great prejudice of the former at Canton and other ports, and their trade with the country never was of any considerable value. The French, in the early European intercourse with the East, never sought to establish trade with China; but the French missionaries entered the country more than two centuries before the European vessels reached it. They were not only successful in their missions, but had attained much influence with the authorities of the empire.[2]
In the sixteenth century the Chinese empire and its dependencies extended from Korea to India. Its rulers did not fail to note the aggressive spirit of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spaniards, who had taken possession by force of the Philippines, Java, and other islands, and had acquired a foothold in India and the Malay Peninsula. The early intercourse in its own ports with these nationalities and the English, so marked by violence and bloodshed, led the Chinese authorities to stringent
- ↑ Embassy to the Emperor of China, by Sir George Staunton, London, 1797, p. 8; 2 Hist. China, Gutzlaff, chap, xxiii.; 1 The Chinese, Davis, chaps, ii. and iii.
- ↑ For early Nestorian missions, see 1 Cathay, by Colonel Yule, preliminary essay, sec. vi.; for Roman Catholic missions, 2 Cathay, Yule, 529; 2 Hist. China, Gutzlaff, 43.
