In attempting to proportion punishments to the degrees of crimes, indeed of awarding the same punishment for stealing a loaf of bread and taking away the life of man, the Chinese legislators, according to our notions, seem to have made too little distinction between accidental manslaughter and premeditated murder. To constitute the crime, it is not necessary to prove the intention or malice aforethought; for though want of intention palliates the offence, and consequently mitigates the punishment, yet it never entirely excuses the offender. If a man should kill another by an unforeseen and unavoidable accident, his life is forfeited by the law, and however favourable the circumstances may appear in behalf of the criminal, the Emperor alone is invested with the power of remitting the sentence, a power which he very rarely if ever exercises to the extent of a full pardon but, on many occasions, to a mitigation of the punishment awarded by law. Strictly speaking, no sentence of death can be carried into execution until it has been ratified by the monarch. Yet in state crimes, or in acts of great atrocity, the viceroy of a province sometimes takes upon himself to order summary punishment, and prompt execution has been inflicted on foreign criminals at Canton when guilty only of homicide. Thus, about the beginning of the last century, a man belonging to Captain Shelvocke had the misfortune to kill a Chinese on the river. The corpse was laid before the door of the English factory, and the first person that came out, who happened to be one of the supercargoes, was seized and carried as a prisoner into the city, nor would they consent to his release till the criminal was given up, whom, after a short inquiry, they strangled. The recent affair of the unfortunate gunner is well known. An affray happened in Macao a few years ago, in which a Chinese was killed by the Portuguese. A peremptory demand was made for one of the latter, to expiate the death of the former. The government of this place, either unable or unwilling to fix on the delinquent, proposed terms of compromise, which were rejected and force was threatened to be used. There happened to be a merchant from Manilla then residing at Macao, a man of excellent character, who had long carried on a commerce between the two ports. This unfortunate man was selected to be the innocent victim to appease the rigour of Chinese justice, and he was immediately strangled[24].