On this point he did not deceive us; for two or three days after his visit, Lieut. Douglas, to our great pleasure, walked in: he was very indignant at the treatment we had received, and at our being confined in such a miserable place, and said he would get it altered immediately. We learned from him, that though the mandarins pressed the officers to write to their friends at Chusan, and promised that the letters should be safely conveyed, they had never kept to their word, but had detained the letters when they had obtained possession of them; perhaps as curiosities. The officers at Chusan, finding that the prisoners at Ningpo did not write, suspected the cause to be something of this kind, and therefore bribed a Chinese to carry letters from them to Lieut. Douglas and the others; and they answered them by the same person. They asked for all they wanted, in their letters by the Chinaman, and always mentioned the same things in those that were given to the mandarins, so that these gentlemen imagined the English were conjurors, or some such thing; for with all their cunning they never found out the spy, and the things that were written for, through them, always came, although they never sent the letters. Lieut. Douglas, therefore, knew all that was passing at Chusan, and could tell us what chance there was of our being speedily released. He told us he had tried several times to get up to see us, but that the mandarins would not allow him to come. He had sent us several things, and amongst the rest a bar of soap; but none of these things arrived, I suppose the Chinese ate the soap; as they have no such article themselves, they would most likely imagine it to be some eatable; and as they are in the habit of eating far nastier things, the soap might have been rather a delicacy to them than otherwise. After some more conversation, he gave us a dollar apiece to procure us better and more substantial food, and then left us, promising to see us soon again, and to improve our situation. Lieut. Douglas continued to supply us with money, at the rate of a dollar apiece for fourteen days; but the persons who brought it to us generally pocketed one or two dollars each time, and altogether robbed us of nine dollars; a large sum in that country, where the necessaries of life are so cheap. The proper exchange, I believe, is rather more than a thousand pice to the dollar, but we could only get nine hundred and thirty-two, or at most nine hundred and fifty.