Adventurers, who could not command a lorcha, fitted up native boats, and hoisting some foreign flag, carried on like depredations in the estuaries and rivers. Others went so far as to open offices in the small towns for the sale of passes, which boats crossing from headland to headland were compelled to show, in order to escape from greater exactions when under way. Not a small part of the wrongs thus perpetrated were by natives attired in foreign habiliments and under foreign direction. Such was the fear entertained of foreigners, that a bold and unscrupulous man could do anything with impunity. Take the following occurrence as an illustration: At the mouth of the Ningpo river is a small village of salt makers, at which the salt commissioner stations a deputy. This officer, after having been cruelly beaten, was driven away by the Portuguese, who issued a proclamation authorizing their employés to collect the salt gabel in the name of the Portuguese consul! It is proper to remark that the transition from the protective to the piratical character of the lorchas was owing in some measure to the fatuous procedure of the mandarins themselves toward a formidable body of pirates, whose submission they purchased by conferring ranks and emoluments on the chiefs, and by giving employment to the whole fleet, constituting them guardians of the coast. In transforming the wolves into shepherds, a change of occupation was not attended by a change of character. In their new capacity as legalized fleecers, they came into collision with those of Macao; and what they lost as convoyers, they aimed to gain as pirates. A general massacre of the Portuguese at Ningpo, by the Cantonese pirates, served to mitigate the evil by calling the attention of the English and Portuguese authorities to the anarchy which drew much of its support from Hongkong and Macao. The Portuguese were subjected to greater restraint, and a greater degree of order was thereby secured. It is not easy to estimate the evil effects upon China of the possession of Hongkong and of Macao by the Portuguese. They are like corroding ulcers in her side. Imagine Bermuda and Nassau just off Sandy Hook, with every conceivable facility for smuggling into the port of New York; suppose the contraband traffic to be fatal to the health and morals of our citizens, as well as prejudicial to our revenue, and then extraterritorial privilege giving immunity to many of the foreigners' misdeeds; and the difficult position of Chinese authorities will be partially appreciated. It was in part a question of jurisdiction that led to the second war with England--the 'lorcha' war. But for the assumption, on the part of the British, that the Chinese were in a measure a subjugated people, or not in possession of full sovereignty, they could not have again invaded China with any show of reason.