165 CHIN A. 



fixty merchants attend the annual ambafladors ; they travel in 

 March, and crofs the ice of the gulph in Hedges ; fo fevere is the 

 cold, even in this latitude ! Others go in Augujl in large veflels, 

 difcharge their cargoes in the Chinefe ports, and carry it by land 

 to Peking. They bring with them great quantities of the window 

 paper, umbrellas, fine mats, tobacco, flriped cotton, furs, and 

 dried filh taken from a large fliell on the coaft oi Japan. This 

 dried fifli is only a covert to the other articles of commerce. 

 They import befides great quantities of gold and filver in ingots, 

 and part in Spanijh Pijloles, and carry back prodigious cargoes of 

 raw and fine filk, which they manufa6lure at home; thin filks, 

 the kind called by the Chinefe, Kao-li-'Toaitza, ot Korean damaik; 

 tea, vaft quantities of cotton, china w'are, and white copper vef- 

 fels of all forts. 



That penetrating writer, Mr. Campbell, has given an excel- 

 lent account of the commerce of this people. My plan is of that 

 confined nature, that I muft content myfelf with a reference ; 

 and requeft the reader's perufal of Mr. Campbell's * account, in 

 his colle6tion of voyages, which will amply repay them. 

 With China, The Koreans trade openly with CZ'/;?^, clandeftinely with 



tic. 



Japan, the Phillippine 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 of their AJlatic 

 dominions, comes under the fame defcription ; all this is flridily 

 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 effea. 



* Vol. ii. 1000. 



The 



