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purpose, not to be deterred by any obstacle or disheartened by any failure, the Dutch adopted the expedient of making themselves so hurtful as enemies that their friendship should become obviously desirable. They raided the Chinese coast, alternating the operation with offers of amity in exchange for commercial privileges. At this stage a clever thing, as international cleverness goes, was done by the Chinese. They informed the Dutch, through an envoy sent by the latter, that trade would be sanctioned provided that the Pescadores were evacuated in favour of a settlement in Formosa. Now Formosa could not be regarded as an appanage of China at that time. She had never made any attempt to occupy it. Some of her traders settled there in the fifteenth century, but no protection was given to them by their own country. Thus China might as well have sent the Dutch out into space as to Formosa. The Dutch, however, had to make the exchange eventually, and the fact that the necessity was forced upon them by the tenacity and courage of the troops sent against them from the mainland may be noted parenthetically as a signal evidence of Chinese military prowess at that epoch. The doings of the Dutch in Formosa are not germane to this page of history. The only apposite fact is that they sacrificed Christian propagandism on the altar of commercial expediency. Their ministers of the Gospel were winning many converts in Formosa at the time when Japan def-