A person is never raised to the dignity of a prince, or governor of a city, until he has attained to his fortieth year; for then they say he has acquired experience.  When one of these princes or viceroys holds his court, in the city of his residence, he is seated on a tribunal, in great state, and receives the petitions or complaints of the people; having an officer called Lieu, who stands behind the tribunal, and indorses an answer upon the petition, according to the order of the viceroy; for they null no applications but what are in writing, and give all their decisions in the same manner.  Before parties can present their petitions to the viceroy, they must be submitted to the proper officer for examination, who sends them back if he discovers any error; and no person may draw up any of those writings which are to be presented to the viceroy, except a clerk versant in business, who must mark at the bottom that it is written by such a man, the son of such a man:  And if the clerk is guilty of any error or mistake, he is punished with the bamboo.  The viceroy never seats himself on his tribunal until he has eaten and drank, lest he should be mistaken in some things; and he receives his subsistence from the public treasury of the city over which he presides.  The emperor, who is above all these princes or petty kings, never appears in public but once in ten months, under the idea that the people would lose their veneration for him if he shewed himself oftener; for they hold it as a maxim, that government can only subsist by means of force, as the people are ignorant of the principles of justice, and that constraint and violence are necessary to maintain among them the majesty of empire.

There are no taxes imposed upon the lands, but all the men of the country are subject to a poll-tax in proportion to their substance.  When any failure of crops makes necessaries dear, the king opens his store-houses to the people, and soils all sorts of necessaries at much cheaper rates than they can be had in the markets; by which means famine is prevented, and no dearth is of any long continuance.  The sums that are gathered by this capitation tax are laid up in the public treasury, and I believe, that from this tax, fifty thousand dinars are paid every day into the null of Canfu alone, although that city is not one of the largest.  The emperor reserves to himself the revenues which arise from the salt mines, and those which are derived from impositions upon a certain herb called Tcha, which they drink with hot water, and of which vast quantities are sold in all the cities in China.  This is produced from a shrub more bushy than the pomegranate tree, and of a more pleasant smell, but having a kind of a bitterish taste.  The way of using this herb is to pour boiling water upon the leaves, and the infusion cures all diseases.  Whatever sums come into the public treasury arise from the capitation tax, the duties upon salt, and the tax upon this leaf.