170 
HISTORY OF FORMOSA. 
in regard to it from other sources. The Encyclopaedia 
Britannica says, — 
“ The Dutch at an early period established a settle- 
ment on this island, 
“ In 1625, the viceroy of the Philippine Islands sent an 
expedition against Formosa, with a view of expelling the 
Dutch. It was unsuccessful. . . . About the middle of 
the seventeenth century, it afforded a retreat to twenty 
or thirty thousand Chinese from the fury of the Tartar 
conquest. ... In 1653, a conspiracy of the Chinese 
against the Dutch was discovered and suppressed; and, 
soon after this, Coxinga, the governor of the maritime 
Chinese province of Tehichiang, applied for permission 
to retire to the island, which was refused by the Dutch 
governor ; on which he fitted out an expedition, consist- 
ing of six hundred vessels, and made himself master of 
the town of Formosa and the adjacent country. The 
Dutch were then allowed to embark and leave the 
island. . . . Coxinga afterward engaged in a war with 
the Chinese and Dutch, in which he was defeated and 
slain. But thoj were unable to take possession of the 
island, which was bravely defended by the posterity 
of Coxinga; and it was not till the year 1683 that the 
island was voluntarily surrendered by the reigning prince 
to the Emperor of China. ... In 1805, through the 
weakness of the Chinese government, the Ladrone 
pirates had acquired possession of a great part of the 
southwest coast.” 
The Encyclopi?edia Americana says, — 
The island is about two hundred and forty miles in 
length from north to south, and sixty from east to west 
