The French ship Port de Bordeaux left Macao about the middle of January, bound to Havana with a cargo of Chinese apprentices. When one day out, an alarm of fire was given from the between decks forward, and in frantic haste the officers and crew ran down to put it out. No sooner were they there than a large number of the Chinese went aft and took charge of the arms, and then quietly told the master that the alarm was a ruse devised for the purpose of procuring his return to Macao. Some fifty or sixty of them, they said, had taken their passages on board thinking the vessel was going to the Straits only; they had not agreed to go to Havana, and go they would not. Of course, having no choice in the matter, the master hove about immediately, and on reaching Macao threw up his charter. The actual apprentices made no demur to being trans-shipped, and have since left in a Dutch ship. The tail, given to us on what we believe to be excellent authority appears incredible. It is incredible that European Agents, after so many warnings, should still exhibit so much laxity in sending Coolies away; and no less incredible that the Chinese should exhibit so much wisdom and praiseworthy forbearance.
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After the above was in type we learned by the schooner Mazeppa of another COOLIE HORROR. As the Mazeppa passed Breaker Point, she saw there, high and dry, the French ship Armais. This vessel was dispatched from Swatow recently, with a cargo of Chinese apprentices for Havana. The day after leaving the master was cut down with a hatchet, and the other officers and some of the crew dispatched in detail. The vessel was afterwards run ashore were seen by the Mazeppa, and the Chinese, said to number some six hundred, went their ways. The rest of the crew are in the hands of the villagers, and, under the supposition that they are English, will be massacred unless speedily rescued. -Friend of China.
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