W i t h C h in a ,
Sic.
fixty merchants attend the annual ambaffadors; they travel in
March, and crofs the ice of the gulph in fledges; fo fevere’is the
cold, even in this latitude! Others go in Augujl in large veifels,
diicharge their cargoes' in the Chinefe ports, and carry it by land
to Peking. They bring with them great quantities o f the window
paper, umbrellas, fine mats, tobacco, ftriped cotton, furs, and
dried fifh taken from a large fhell on the coaft of Japan. This
dried fifh. is only a covert to the other articles o f commerce.
They import belides great quantities o f gold and filver in ingots,
and part in Spanijh Pijloles, and carry back prodigious cargoes o f
raw and fine filk, which they manufacture at home; thin filks,
the kind called by the Chinefe, Kao-li-Poanza, or Korean damaik;
tea, vaft quantities o f cotton, china ware, and white copper vef-
fels of all forts.
T h a t penetrating writer, Mr. Campbell, has given an excellent
account o f the comm erce of this people. My plan is o f that
confined nature, that I muft content myfelf with a reference;
and requeft the reader’s perufal o f Mr. Campbell’s * account, in
his colle&ion of voyages, which will amply repay them.
T h e Koreans trade openly with China, clandeftinely with
Japan, the PhiUippine ifles, and perhaps Java; under the general
notion of their being Chinefe, they may traffick in difguife to
many other places. Their trade with the nations to the north,
and north-weft, and probably with the Ruffians o f their AJiatic
dominions, comes under the fame defcription ; all this is ftriftly
prohibited by the Chinefe emperor; who even keeps a Mandarine
at the Korean court, to take care that the order be obferved;
this precaution, with fo corrupt a nation, has very little effeit.
* Vol. ii. 1000.
T he
T h e intercourfe to the north, is the moft dreaded by the R u s s ia n s .
Chinefe. The Ruffians have made great advances on that fide,
and had formed fettlements on the Amur, which runs through
the northern part of the empire. This brought on more than
one war. The Koreans are faid either to navigate the river
Songor, or the Scbingal, till they arrive in the Amur; or to fail
along the coaft, and proceed direiitly up its mouth, and trade
either with th e . fubjeits of Ruffia, or pofiibly with the Ruffians
themfelves. All the intervening track from Korea is affedtedly
given wrong by the Chinefe, in order to keep both their own
fubjedts and thofe o f Ruffia in ignorance; but in vain; the
Koreans are a match for them in cunning. They pretend in
their voyage up the Amur that they come from fome diftant
ifle. Tfbrande Ides informs us o f this, hut without knowing
that they impofed on him. They trade even with the Manchew
Tartars, fubjeits o f the emperor; but thefe people, for gains fake,
content themfelves with the deception. From them, and from
the Ruffians, or Ruffian fubjects, they procure the quantities
o f furs which they pretend are the produce of their own
country.
T he Koreans, having their country three parts furrounded
by the fea, muft naturally be a naval people; they trade commonly
with Japan, and obtain the articles o f commerce of
thofe iflands. The Japanefe have ceded the little intermediate W i t h J a p a n .
ifle of Sufima, the Puitatao of the Koreans, on purpofe to facilitate
the trade.
By the pretence o f failing to the ifland of Quel-praet, feated
to the fouth of the-peninfula, to take in the Chinefe manufaiture
V ol. III. Z from