a large island in the Eastern Seas, more properly called Tywan. It is about 180 miles in length by 50 in breadth, is distant 100 miles from the south-east coast of China, and lies between the twenty-third and twenty-sixth degrees of north latitude. The Dutch at an early period established a settlement on this island; and it was long subject to their authority. In 1625 the viceroy of the Philippine Islands sent an expedition against Formosa, with a view to expel the Dutch, and to propagate the Roman Catholic religion in the island. But after erecting fortifications, the Spaniards abandoned the island. About the middle of the seventeenth century it afforded a retreat to 20,000 or 30,000 Chinese, from the fury of the Tartar conquest. These refugees were, according to the usual habits of the Chinese, very industrious; and they carried on a lucrative trade with their countrymen in China, which proved the source of an abundant revenue to the Dutch government. A profitable trade was also carried on by the Dutch with Japan. In 1653 a conspiracy of the Chinese inhabitants against the Dutch was discovered and suppressed; and soon after this, Coxinga, the governor of the maritime Chinese province of Tchihchiang, applied for permission to retire to the island, which was refused by the Dutch governor; on which he fitted out an expedition consisting of 600 vessels, and made himself master of the town of Formosa and the adjacent country, and afterwards besieged and took Fort Zealand, when the Dutch were all allowed to embark and leave the island. The loss of this convenient station and entrepot of trade was severely felt by their East India Company. Coxinga afterwards engaged in a war with the Chinese and the Dutch, in which he was defeated and slain. But they were not able to obtain 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, and it has ever since remained in possession of the Chinese. In 1676 the English had a factory for Formosa, the chief object of which was to curry on a trade with Japan. In 1803, through the weakness of the Chinese government, the Ladrones pirates had acquired possession of a great part of the south-west coast of Formosa.