A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 783 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 783 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11.

It were endless to recount all the artifices, extortions, and frauds which were practised on the commodore and his people, by this interested race.  The method of buying all things in China being by weight, the tricks made use of by the Chinese to increase the weight of the provision they sold to the Centurion, were almost incredible.  One time a large quantity of fowls and ducks being bought for the ship’s use, the greatest part of them presently died.  This alarmed the people on board with the apprehensions that they had been killed by poison, but, on examination, it appeared that it was only owing to their being crammed with stones and gravel to increase their weight, the quantity thus forced into most of the ducks being found to amount to ten ounces in each.  The hogs, too, which were bought ready killed of the Chinese butchers, had water injected into them for the same purpose; so that a carcass, hung up all night for the water to drain from it, hath lost above a stone of its weight; and when, to avoid this cheat, the hogs were bought alive, it was found that the Chinese gave them salt to increase their thirst, and having by this means excited them to drink great quantities of water, they then took measures to prevent them from discharging it again by urine, and sold the tortured animal in this inflated state.  When the commodore first put to sea from Macao, they practised an artifice of another kind; for as the Chinese never object to the eating of any food that dies of itself, they took care; by some secret practices, that great part of his live sea-store should die in a short time after it was put on board, hoping to make a second profit of the dead carcasses, which they expected would be thrown overboard; and two-thirds of the hogs dying before the Centurion was out of sight of land, many of the Chinese boats followed her, only to pick up the carrion.  These instances may serve as a specimen of the manners of this celebrated nation, which is often recommended to the rest of the world as a pattern of all kinds of laudable qualities.

The commodore, towards the end of September, having found out (as has been said) that those who had contracted, to supply him with sea-provisions and stores had deceived him, and that the viceroy had not sent to him according to his promise, saw it would be impossible for him to surmount the embarrassment he was under, without going himself to Canton and visiting the viceroy; and, therefore, on the 27th. of September, he sent a message to the mandarine who attended the Centurion, to inform him that he, the commodore, intended, on the 1st of October, to proceed in his boat to Canton, adding, that the day after he got there he should notify his arrival to the viceroy, and should desire him to fix a time for his audience; to which the mandarine returned no other answer, than that he would acquaint the viceroy with the commodore’s intentions.  In the mean time all things were prepared for this expedition; and the boat’s crew in particular,

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.