at last made a corner-stone of the empire.  Joo-ming pardoned seven times Mang-hwo; and Kwan-kung three times set Tsaou-tsaou at liberty.  Ma-yuen pursued not the exhausted robbers; and Yo-fei killed not those who made their submission.  There are many instances of such transactions both in former and recent times, by which the country was strengthened, and government increased its power.  We now live in a very populous age; some of us could not agree with their relations, and were driven out like noxious weeds.  Some, after having tried all they could, without being able to provide for themselves, at last joined bad society.  Some lost their property by shipwrecks; some withdrew into this watery empire to escape from punishment.  In such a way those who in the beginning were only three or five, were in the course of time increased to a thousand or ten thousand, and so it went on increasing every year.  Would it not have been wonderful if such a multitude, being in want of their daily bread, had not resorted to plunder and robbery to gain their subsistence, since they could not in any other manner be saved from famine?  It was from necessity that the laws of the empire were violated, and the merchants robbed of their goods.  Being deprived of our land and of our native places, having no house or home to resort to, and relying only on the chances of wind and water, even could we for a moment forget our griefs, we might fall in with a man-of-war, who with stones, darts, and guns, would knock out our brains!  Even if we dared to sail up a stream and boldly go on with anxiety of mind under wind, rain, and stormy weather, we must everywhere prepare for fighting.  Whether we went to the east, or to the west, and after having felt all the hardships of the sea, the night dew was our only dwelling, and the rude wind our meal.  But now we will avoid these perils, leave our connexions, and desert our comrades; we will make our submission.  The power of Government knows no bounds; it reaches to the islands in the sea, and every man is afraid, and sighs.  Oh we must be destroyed by our crimes, none can escape who opposeth the laws of Government.  May you then feel compassion for those who are deserving of death; may you sustain us by your humanity!”

The Government that had made so many lamentable displays of its weakness, was glad to make an unreal parade of its mercy.  It was but too happy to grant all the conditions instantly, and, in the fulsome language of its historians, “feeling that compassion is the way of heaven—­that it is the right way to govern by righteousness—­it therefore redeemed these pirates from destruction, and pardoned their former crimes.”