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 trade was carried on from ports of the various provinces south of the Yang-tse-Kiang. The first European vessel reached Canton in 1516, and was of Portuguese nationality. It was received in a friendly spirit, and created a favorable impression on the authorities. It was followed the next year by an armed fleet of eight vessels, seeking trade and bearing an envoy to the emperor of China. Delay and disappointment were experienced by the envoy, and the presence of such a fleet soon created suspicion, which was followed by a collision with the Chinese navy. Other vessels followed the visit of the fleet, and Portugal, then at the height of its power, pushed its commerce with China along up the coast, establishing entrepôts at Amoy and Ningpo. By their violent conduct they brought upon themselves within a few years the hostility of the natives. At Ningpo, in one assault alone, eight hundred Portuguese were slaughtered and thirty-five ships burned. One of the charges of lawlessness which brought about this act of vengeance was that the Portuguese were accustomed to send armed parties into the neighboring villages and bring in the women who fell into their hands.

Holland early became a formidable power in the East. In 1622 a Dutch squadron of seventeen vessels appeared off the coast of China, and after being repulsed at Macao by the Portuguese, with whom they were at war, they seized the Pescadores Islands, lying between the mainland and Formosa, established themselves there, and