During the north-east monsoon fires were quite frequent in the densely populated suburbs lying north of the factories. When they threatened the foreign quarter the Hong merchants, acting in consonance with the known wishes of the Mandarins, would send gangs of armed coolies to assist in the removal to boats provided by them of books, papers, treasure, and personal effects. All strange Chinese would be ruthlessly driven from the Square, and an unobstructed passage to the boats secured. I have witnessed this repeatedly. Should a foreigner get into a disturbance in the street, and it was generally safe to say it was through his own fault, the Chinamen went to the wall. When a mob of many thousand ruffians invaded the Factory Square, as in November 1838, shortly preceding the opium surrender, and with stones and missiles of all sorts drove the foreigners inside their gates, which they were forced to barricade, a not unnatural anxiety prevailed amongst us as to what might be the result. Yet this attack was _caused by foreigners, who interfered with the Mandarins_ while attempting to carry out Government orders. All foreigners who came to Canton, from the first arrivals, were considered as having no other object than that of commerce. The English and the Dutch made their appearance in the first half of the seventeenth century; successively arrived, the Danes, Swedes, and Austrians (Imperialists). The Spaniards invited the Chinese to their new settlement at Manila for a time, and afterwards they themselves came to the provincial city. Some amongst these different nationalities, tradition said the Dutch, had _red hair_, which led the Chinese facetiously to apply the term 'Red-headed Devils' ever after to all foreigners alike. They themselves give to the whole of their own race the name of 'Black Hair'd.' The authorities framed eight regulations for the especial government and control of these divers people from afar. They date from the year 1760, and are curious enough to recall. Never having been abrogated, they were assumed to be in force always. They were confirmed by an edict of the Emperor Kea-King in 1819, after a revision in 1810. Some of them came to be disregarded by the foreign community, particularly those referring to the Gardens, the Honam Temple, and pulling in their own boats on the river; but so far as regards women entering the Factories, an infringement of them in this essential particular took place in 1830, as will be seen hereafter. The chief sufferers in the event of a disregard of any important item of the regulations would of course be the Hong merchants. The 'Eight Regulations' were now and then brought to the Factories by a Linguist, as an intimation that they were not to be considered a 'dead letter.' Translated into English they read thus----