This was most disagreeable news, and made it suspected that the
furnishing the Centurion for her return to Great Britain might prove a
more troublesome matter than had been hitherto imagined; especially, too,
as the month of September was nearly elapsed without Mr. Anson's having
received any message from the Viceroy of Canton.
It were endless to recount all the artifices, extortions, and frauds,
which were practised on the Commodore and his people by the Chinese. The
method of buying all things in China being by weight, the tricks made use
of by them to increase the weight of the provision they sold to the
Centurion were almost incredible. One time, a large quantity of fowls and
ducks being brought for the ship's use, the greatest part of them
presently died. This alarmed the people on board with the apprehension
that they had been killed by poison, but on examination it appeared that
it was only owing to their being crammed with stones and gravel to
increase their weight, the quantity thus forced into most of the ducks
being found to amount to ten ounces in each. The hogs, too, which were
bought ready killed of the Chinese butchers, had water injected into them
for the same purpose, so that a carcase hung up all night for the water
to drain from it has lost above a stone of its weight, and when, to avoid
this cheat, the hogs were bought alive, it was found that the Chinese
gave them salt to increase their thirst, and having by this means excited
them to drink great quantities of water, they then took measures to
prevent them from discharging it again, and sold the tortured animal in
this inflated state.
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