“To allow the barbarians to settle at Canton was a mistake. Ever since Macao was given over, in the reign of Chia Ching (1522-1567) of the Ming dynasty, to the red-haired barbarians, all manner of nations have continued without ceasing to flock thither. They build forts and fortifications and dense settlements of houses. Their descendants will overshadow the land, and all the country beyond Hsiang-shan will become a kingdom of devils. ‘Red-haired’ is a general term for the barbarians of the western islands. Amongst them there are the Dutch, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, English, and Yü-sŭ-la [? Islam], all of which nations are horribly fierce. Wherever they go they spy around with a view to seize on other people’s territory. There was Singapore, which was originally a Malay country; the red-haired barbarians went there to trade, and by and by seized it for an emporium of their own. So with the Philippines, which were colonised by the Malays; because the Roman Catholic religion was practised there, the Western foreigners appropriated it in like manner for their own. The Catholic religion is now spreading over China. In Hupeh, Hunan, Honan, Kiangsi, Fuhkien, and Kuangsi, there are very few places whither it has not reached. In the first year of the Emperor Yung Chêng [1736], the Viceroy of Fuhkien, Man Pao, complained that the Western foreigners were preaching their religion and tampering with the people, to the great detriment of the localities in question; and he petitioned that the Roman Catholic chapels in the various provinces might be turned into lecture-rooms and schools, and that all Western foreigners might be sent to Macao, to wait until an opportunity should present itself of sending them back to their own countries. However, the Viceroy of Kuangtung, out of mistaken kindness, memorialised the Throne that such of the barbarians as were old or sick and unwilling to go away might be permitted to remain in the Roman Catholic establishment at Canton, on the condition that if they proselytised, spread their creed, or chaunted their sacred books, they were at once to be punished and sent away. The scheme was an excellent one, but what were the results of it? At present more than 10,000 men have joined the Catholic chapel at Canton, and there is also a department for women, where they have similarly got together about 2000. This is a great insult to China, and seriously injures our national traditions, enough to make every man of feeling grind his teeth with rage. The case by no means admits of ‘teaching before punishing.’