In 1127 an edict was issued forbidding the exportation of metal, and ordering all payments to be made from henceforth in money alone. It is recorded in Chinese annals that at a considerably later date a French vessel came up the river Shu-Kiang and fired her cannons in an aggressive manner, so that relations with foreigners were broken off. In 1425, however, an embassy from Portugal resulted in the re-admission of foreigners to Canton, and a century later the Dutch also obtained a footing in the city. [Sidenote: ENGLISH MONOPOLY OF TRADE] They in their turn were, however, supplanted by the English, who practically enjoyed a monopoly of trade from the beginning of the eighteenth century until 1834. At that date their prosperity began to decline, one dispute succeeding another, and in 1839 open war broke out between England and China. In 1841 Hong-Kong was ceded to the former power, and in 1842 the Treaty of Nanking was signed, opening to British traders the five ports of Canton, Amoy, Fuchau, Ningpo, and Shanghai. Fresh friction was caused by the arrogant assumptions of the Chinese and the vacillating policy of the English, culminating in the war of 1856, the immediate cause of which was the capture by the Chinese of a lorcha, or small hybrid vessel of European build, with the rigging of a Chinese junk flying the British flag. After a fierce struggle a peace was again patched up, but the factories outside Canton had all been destroyed by the mob, and prosperity has never since fully returned to the city. It was not until 1860, when the Convention of Pekin was signed, ratifying the Treaty of Tien-tsin, that anything like cordial relations were established between England and China, and since then these relations have been again and again disturbed. Before the bombardment of Canton by the united fleets of England and France every foreigner found within the walls of that inhospitable town was beheaded at once. Naturally, with the memory of all that had so recently happened fresh in my mind, I hesitated when M. Vaucher, representative on the island of Hainan, of the Swiss house of the same name, suggested that we should go together through the streets of Canton in sedan chairs. I did not like to allude to the danger I might run myself, but I asked if I should not be exposing him to peril. "No," was his reply, "your fellow-countrymen have won the permanent respect of the people for all foreigners, and you will be able to boast on your return home of having explored the vast city with no other protector than myself." [Sidenote: A TERRIBLE REVENGE] M. Vaucher then told me the following story: