The leader of a large fleet of junks, traders or pirates as occasion
served, known to the Portuguese of the day as Iquon, was compelled to
place his services at the command of the last sovereign of the Ming
dynasty, in whose cause he fought against the Manchu invaders along the
coasts of Fuhkien and Kuangtung. In 1628 he tendered his submission to
the Manchus, and for a time was well treated, and cleared the seas of
other pirates. Gradually, however, he became too powerful, and it was
deemed necessary to restrain him by force. He was finally induced to
surrender to the Manchu general in Fuhkien; and having been made a
prisoner, was sent to Peking, with two of his sons by a Japanese wife,
together with other of his adherents, all of whom were executed upon
arrival. Another son, familiar to foreigners under the name of Koxinga,
a Portuguese corruption of his title, had remained behind with the fleet
when his father surrendered, and he, determined to avenge his father's
treacherous death, declared an implacable war against the Manchus. His
piratical attacks on the coast of China had long been a terror to the
inhabitants; to such an extent, indeed, that the populations of no fewer
than eighty townships had been forced to remove inland. Then Formosa,
upon which the Dutch had begun to form colonies in 1634, and where
substantial portions of their forts are still to be seen, attracted his
piratical eye. He attacked the Dutch, and succeeded in driving them
out with great slaughter, thus possessing himself of the island; but
gradually his followers began to drop off, in submission to the new
dynasty, and at length he himself was reported to Peking as dead. In
1874, partly on the ground that he was really a supporter of the Ming
dynasty and not a rebel, and partly on the ground that "he had founded
in the midst of the waters a dominion which he had transmitted to his
descendants, and which was by them surrendered to the Imperial sway,"--a
memorial was presented to the throne, asking that his spirit might be