CHAPTER XI
Early relations between Macao and Hongkong –
Last Days of Portuguese Shipping in the East.
In earlier chapters we have seen how cordial were the relations between the Portuguese and the British at Macao during the opening decades of the last century. This was specially in evidence shortly before the outbreak of the “Opium” War, when the British merchants evacuated Canton and sought refuge with their families within the confines of Macao. The friendly relations then established between the British and Portuguese authorities were continued in the early days of the settlement of Hong Kong, and have remained unimpaired for a hundred years.
Successive governors have maintained the old friendship between the neighbour colonies of Macao and Hongkong. An interchange of official visits and personal calls became a matter of recognised practice, strictly observed by every new governor after his assumption of office.
The earliest governors of Hongkong, Sir Henry Pottinger, Sir John Davis, Sir George Bonham, and Sir John Bowring, were frequent visitors to Macao. During the period of their administration, conditions not only in Hongkong but also in Macao were by no means conducive to a restful existence. Sporadic disturbances of the peace were a market feature of life, and affrays involving the shedding of blood were not uncommon. One of the most tragic of these was the assassination of the Governor of Macao, Councillor João Maria Ferreira do Amaral.
Mr. (later Sir) Rutherford Alcock, who became an important figure in diplomatic circles in the Far East, gives an account in his book
110 of the lamentable incident which occurred at Macao, in the evening- just before sunset- of the 22nd August, 1849, when the Portuguese Governor, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, was set upon by a band of Chinese ruffians just inside the Macao Barrier. The affair is well known, but a sympathetic reference by a contemporary British official of the standing of Sir Rutherford, bears quoting:
“Captain Amaral, the Governor here alluded to, was a distinguished naval officer, who fell a victim to his zeal for the improvement of the colony, and its emancipation from Chinese rule. He was assassinated in open day while riding out, by a hand of Chinese, and his head was carried off to the Chinese authorities, by whom it was carefully pickled; and only delivered up to the Portuguese some weeks later, after an enormous amount of hard swearing. This act of atrocity, so well illustrating the principle on which the Chinese rulers would fain have regulated their dealing with foreigners, was a fit sequel to the torture and murder of four English clerks, at Whang-chu-kee, a village near Canton, only a short time before. The present Governor (in 1861) of Macau, Captain Guimarães, a naval officer also, of great ability and energy, has known how to draw all profit that was possible from the emancipation from Chinese rule which his predecessor had effected at the cost of his life. Aided by the unsettled state of the whole province, which induced the Chinese to flock to the colony for security, the revenue so wonderfully improved, that a surplus was remitted to the mother-country – very much to its surprise, it must be imagined: Portuguese colonies, like our own, being chiefly known as sources of expenditure – draining the home exchequer instead of feeding it! Holland and Spain alone seem to have preserved the art of reversing the process, and making their colonies pay.”
After the murder of Amaral, the government of Macao devolved upon the Government Council, who decided “to notify the lamentable occurrence to the Ministers of Spain, France, and the United States of America (all of whom resided at Macao at that time) and also to the Governor of Hongkong, as representatives of countries that were Allies of His Most Faithful Majesty the King of Portugal.” The Governor of Hongkong, Sir George Bonham, hastened to offer his services to the Colony of Macao in case of need, and his despatch reproduced below, dated Victoria, Hongkong, 24th August, 1849, is proof, were evidence needed, of the friendship between Hongkong and Macao. The document reads:111
“Excellent Sirs: –
“It is with extreme pain that I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch of yesterday’s date, with its enclosure, which has just reached me, relative to the distressing subject of the death of Your late Excellent Governor.
“Early yesterday the sad tidings of the melancholy events reached me, and Captain Troubridge of Her Majesty’s Ship Amazon, the Senior Naval Officer, at this Station, having volunteered his services to proceed immediately to Macao, left this Harbour about mid-day, together with H. M. steamer Medea. These vessels, no doubt, arrived last night, and I am in hopes that their presence will prove sufficient to ensure the tranquillity of Macao, and to suppress the excitement that must naturally be expected in a settlement the Governor of which has been deprived of his life in so atrocious and brutal a manner.
“Captain Troubridge will remain at Macao for the present, and I trust the arrival of H. M. vessels at this juncture will be sufficient to shew the Chinese Authorities that the British Government fully sympathize with that of Her Most Faithful Majesty on this distressing occasion, and that the Chinese will, if evilly disposed, be induced in consequence to refrain from any further acts of aggression.
“I yesterday addressed a Letter to the High Commissioner on the subject of this atrocious murder, and informed him that I conceived it to be one in which all the Representatives of the Foreign Powers in China were directly concerned, and that I fully expected that he would cause the perpetrators of the bloody deed to be at once apprehended, should they have taken refuge within the dominions of the Emperor of China.
“Condoling with You as I do in all sincerity on this distressing occasion, – I have the honor to remain, Excellent Sirs –
(Signed) S. G. Bonham.
“The Right Reverend Dom Jeronimo,
Bishop of Macao, etc.
His Honor Joaquim Antonio de Moraes Carneiro,
Major Ludgero Joaquim de Faria Neves,
Miguel Pereira Simões, Esq.,
José Bernardo Goularte, Esq.,
Manoel Pereira, Esq.,
Council in charge of the Government of Macao.”
The effect of this news – of the murder of Governor Amaral – upon the Portuguese community in Hongkong, a small community so recently arrived from Macao, where there were ties of blood and friendship, can be well imagined. I remember being told that when the awful tidings reached Hongkong, the entire community wanted to volunteer for service for the defence of Macao. Awful rumours spread like wild-fire among the small, but patriotic, Portuguese community in Hongkong, while the daily newspapers, carrying the news of the occurrences in Macao, were eagerly awaited and were read with bated breath.
Suddenly, however, their anxiety was relieved by the thrilling report of an exploit that will be remembered as long as Macao lives.
The Chinese officials, whose interests had been affected by the measures which Amaral had introduced, and who, it is believed, had instigated the murder of this governor, had mustered a force of some two thousand “warriors” in a fortress overlooking the Barrier Gate of Macao. From this stronghold they were meditating an attack. The Portuguese colony was in dire peril. At this critical moment, a brave Macaense lieutenant of artillery, Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita, in a feat of daring, led a small band of his fellow-nationals against the Chinese positions, utterly routing the would-be invaders and freeing Macao from the threatened attack.
The story of this achievement is well known, but so large does it loom in the minds of the Macaense that space must be given to it in the pages of this book. Montalto’s version112 compiled from sources contemporary with the events, is well worth reproducing:
“On the morning of the memorable 25th August 1849, while the conscripts patrolled the city, a detachment of the regulars proceeded with a field-piece to guard the barrier-gate. Other available detachments followed. From the fort of Pakshanlan, about a mile to the north, the Chinese forthwith opened fire upon the barrier. The Portuguese forces there posted now numbered but a hundred and twenty men, with three guns. At the inner harbour an armed cutter and a lorcha stood by, guarding the approaches thereto from Pakshanlan. The Chinese forces numbered over two thousand, about five hundred being lodged in the fort, and the rest posted with artillery along the adjoining heights, with reinforcements pouring in from inland routes. The field-pieces at the barrier, the guns of the lorcha and cutter, proved of little or no avail; and while the enemy’s position stood beyond range of the fortresses at Macao, the artillery of Pakshanlan ranged as far as the barrier; and such was the fire that soon the Portuguese found their exposed position untenable. It was imperatively necessary either to silence that fort or to abandon the barrier. But whilst a retreat would have paved the way for an imminent descent upon the colony, a sortie was deemed unadvisable, in view of the inadequate forces for offensive as well as defensive purposes, at a moment when Macao stood endangered from within and without. Moreover, the foreign ministers dissuaded the council from adopting offensive measures under actual circumstances.
“At this psychological moment a young Macaense sub-lieutenant of artillery, Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita, then serving as the council’s aide-de-camp, resolutely stepped forward and, in forcible words pointing to the urgency for prompt, decisive measures, volunteered to storm the fort of Pakshanlan with a party selected by himself. The foreign ministers, who attended the council, deemed it the height of temerity. The council, however, granted Mesquita the desired leave, and exemption from any possible hindrance on the part of Captain Sampaio, the commanding officer at the barrier. The president of the council, Bishop Matta, enjoined Mesquita to observe above all the strictest prudence, dismissing him with a waving of the hand suggestive enough of a benediction as off he dashed for the front.
“At the head of sixteen men with a howitzer – the gift of a French naval commander to Amaral – Mesquita rushed to the scene of action, handed Captain Sampaio an order from the Council to advance with the forces as far as the paddy fields, and there himself loaded and trained the howitzer. The shell, bursting where the crowd stood densest in the fort, created an evident scare. It was the only effectual shot fired. At the recoil a wheel broke, disabling the howitzer. Mesquita then formally asked leave of the commanding officer to storm the fort, producing the council’s warrant for this purpose; then, addressing the troops, he bade those who would follow him to step to the front. Twenty braves113 did so, and with the select sixteen who had brought the howitzer, proceeded in single file along the slender tracks hedging the paddy fields, beyond which, on the crest of a craggy hillock, the port of Pakshanlan puffed and boomed. At their approach, its cannonade and fusillade were such that Captain Sampaio ordered a retreat. At the bulge-call to this effect, Mesquita, sanguine of success, ordered his bugler to sound the advance; and as this was done, a shot, sweeping past, rent the bugle in twain. Urged by Mesquita’s shouts, forward then dashed the gallant thirty-six, with an élan worthy of the proudest days of Lusian prowess. The spirit of the one-hundred hero of Itaparica114 seemed to dwell now upon the dashing hero of Passaleão – as Pakshanlan was thenceforth called. Those who from Monte witnessed the exploit, including the foreign ministers, stood rapt in admiration of the sight of that handful of men advancing under a ceaseless fire, across an open, difficult track to storm a stronghold teeming with defenders. But fortune favoured the braves; as they neared the hill-crested fort, its artillery, high-ranged, could no longer be brought to bear on them.
No less ineffective was the fire of unwieldy jingals, to which alone they were now exposed. As they scaled the craggy height firing, the enemy got panic-stricken and abandoned both the fort and the adjoining hills. Almost exhausted under a scorching sun, Mesquita and his followers bounded into the fort just in time to shoot a soldier who was about to fire the magazine by means of a flint. The guns – twenty 18-pounders – were then spiked. One of the heroes, who brought a Portuguese flag folded up in his breast, unfurled, and amidst frantic cheers, waved it over the battlements of Passaleão, carried at the cost of only one soldier severely wounded. The enemy’s loss could not be ascertained as the retreating forces carried away both the wounded and dead. A mandarin who, stretched over an embrasure, distractedly offered a futile resistance, was the last to fall. With questionable taste, his head and one of his hands were cut off, affixed on spears, and brought away as trophies. From the magazine Mesquita laid a train down to where the party now mustered, and there ignited it. With a fearful boom the magazine flew into atoms, and the adjoining wall gave away, dismounting several guns.
“Meanwhile despairing citizens of Macao prepared for the worst, dismayed ladies and children prayed for deliverance, at the sight of a signal of distress hoisted at the Fort of São Francisco- the national ensign flown upside down. In response, British marines landed, but did not march to the front; and on a proposal to guard the fort being declined, they were stationed before the headquarters at Praia Grande. In the absence of news from the scene of action, the city laboured under strange and dark illusions. The distant roar of artillery having ceased, the silence was regarded as confirmatory of the apprehension that some disaster had befallen the handful of defenders at the barrier-gate, and that the invaders were rushing into the city unopposed. At the headquarters bewildered crowds, anxiously awaiting news, now stood aghast at what was believed to be a cry of alarm resounding from afar; thus was misconstrued the hearty cheers with which the guards of Monte hailed the flag waved at Passaleão. In hot haste a messenger on horse-back now approached the headquarters; his excited appearance seemed to bespeak the apprehended catastrophe. The British marines, shouldering arms, stood on the alert. A moment of breathless suspense, of feverish curiosity, ensued. Then came the happy disillusionment. Great was the relief when the messenger imparted to the council the welcome tidings of Mesquita’s heroism and triumph. Enthusiastic crowds ran forward, and meeting the heroes in the way back, greeted them with an ovation worth of the feat of arms which not only averted the doom of Macao, but also vindicated the military prestige so impaired of late, and, foiling the sinister designs of mandarindom, consolidated Amaral’s glorious achievements.
“Further danger, however, was apprehended. By way of a demonstration, the British marines, under Captain Troubridge, marched up to the scene of Mesquita’s exploit the day after. The inadequacy of the colony’s defensive resources led the foreign representatives to adopt precautionary measures against any sudden and treacherous attack… Reinforcements were requisitioned from Goa and Lisbon.”
All these details and more were related in Hongkong, and great was the pride which swelled in the hearts of the Portuguese there over the exploit of Mesquita and his gallant little band. And when “a stirring call to arms was addressed to the Portuguese it was promptly responded to by several patriots at Hongkong,” adds Montalto.
It is difficult, after the lapse of years, to recapture the scenes of enthusiasm which swept through the little community of Portuguese in Hongkong. I remember, as a young man, hearing my elders speak of them, and wish some of those old gentlemen had left some written description of what happened in the little Hongkong community, as it was then. It is known, however, that they decided to commemorate Mesquita’s achievement by offering him a sword of honour. For this purpose a circular was printed and circulated among the Macaense in Hongkong. Translated, it reads:
CIRCULAR
“Some of the Macaenses residing in this Colony of Hongkong, feel that a bounden duty devolves on them to give expression, publicly and openly, to the gratitude which is felt to Second-Lieutenant Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita, their fellow countryman, for the singular valour, intrepidity, and intelligence shown by him in the memorable action which took place on the 25th August last, and in particular for the courageous manner in which Passaleão Fort was captured. This enterprise was successfully effected with the help of only thirty-two heroes under his command, in the case of the hottest artillery and musket fire by the Chinese, and it was a feat that is not only a glorious achievement for Portuguese arms but it has saved our city and our families from alarm, terror, and even death and conflagration. It has been thought fitting, therefore, to invite subscriptions for the purpose of presenting a sword to Lieutenant Mesquita as a memento of appreciation and in acknowledgment of his services. The above mentioned Macaenses believe that their fellow members of the community in this settlement (Hongkong) are moved by identical feelings and should not be deprived of an opportunity to participate in this public manifestation, and have resolved therefore that this circular should be sent to every single Macaense in Hongkong without exception.
“Hongkong, 3rd September, 1849.”
The patriotic elation over Mesquita’s exploit did not die out for many a day, and there was a splendid response to the appeal for funds. A sword was ordered from Portugal, and a year later the presentation ceremony took place, when a small delegation of Portuguese citizens from Hongkong, led by Mr. Francisco Candido Pereira de Silveira, visited Macao, on the 1st September, 1850, and handed the sword to Lieutenant Mesquita.
The sword is described as being of splendid workmanship, with letters engraved in the blade, inlaid with fine gold. The inscription read:
Translated this may be rendered:
“To the intrepid valour of Lieutenant of the Artillery Vicente Nicolao de Mesquita, his fellow countrymen, the Macaenses in Hongkong, in memory of the feat of the 25th August, 1849, dedicate this sword.”
Mesquita became the hero of all his countrymen in the Far East. His name and his deeds have become things to conjure with among his fellow-nationals. In Macao, a large statue of the hero – a composition very dramatic in appearance – stands in the principal square of the city, before the Senate building;115 in Shanghai, the Portuguese Company of the Volunteer Corps has been named after him; and his memory lives on among all the Portuguese communities in the Orient.
Co-operation between Macao and Hongkong was once again seen not long after the Amaral incident, when a concerted expedition, organised in Hongkong, of British, American, Portuguese and Chinese forces was sent against a fleet of piratical junks anchored at Koulan Island (or Kuhlan) near Tylo Island, some sixty or seventy miles south-west of Macao. As a result of consultations between the Governor of Hongkong (Sir John Bowring) and the British Naval Commander-in-Chief, Sir James Stirling, and the Viceroy of Canton, it was decided to comb the waters within the Imperial Jurisdiction of China for a particularly daring band of pirates.
The American Commodore placed a steam vessel (the Rattler) at the disposal of the British Admiral, and the Governor of Macao also offered to assist with a ship and a naval detachment. The Portuguese contribution to the punitive flotilla was the lorcha Amazona, commanded by Lieut. Commander José da Silva Carvalho.
The expedition left Hongkong on the 3rd August, 1855, and the attack on the pirates’ stronghold began at dawn the following morning. The pirates of this region were adepts at the game of hide and seek, and the allied forces had their work cut to accomplish their task. The brigands’ lair was situated in difficult, hilly country, while the approaches to the island were guarded by a large fleet of comparatively well-armed junks. Despite the initial advantage of location enjoyed by the pirates, in their own waters, and on their own land, Captain O’Callaghan, who led the expedition, decided to attack. A whole week was taken up before the punitive force was able to report complete victory over the pirates, many of whom were killed and a number taken prisoner.
The victory was not gained before the sea-robbers had put up a desperate resistance, at the end of which, besides those killed and captured, they suffered the loss of fifty junks and the destruction ashore of two strongly fortified batteries with twenty-seven guns between them. A British officer’s eye-witness narrative of the combats related that the Portuguese and Americans were conspicuous in the affray. The Portuguese attached themselves to the marines (British), and with them scoured the island. Capt. O’Callaghan publicly thanked Lieut. Commander Carvalho and the gallant crew of the Amazona for the way in which they acquitted themselves in the battle.116
By her brilliant exploits the Amazona made a name for herself in the shallow waters of the Chinese coastal regions, not only near Hongkong but as far north as the waters in the vicinity of Ningpo. She was considered one of the best war vessels on the coast at that time. Owing to her shallow draft and splendid sailing qualities she had the facility of entering harbours where pirates sought shelter, destroying their vessels and villages, and rendering better service
than any other European gunboat in Chinese waters. Captain Silva Carvalho, her commander, was eulogised by the British and French admirals and by the Chinese officials for the services he and his men rendered against the Chinese freebooters. The Amazona, it is interesting to record, ended her career as a receiving ship for the water police in the Mozambique River.
The lorchas – the Amazona was a ship of this class – were first designed and built at Macao early in the XIXth century, on Portuguese stocks. They incorporated characteristics of European (mainly Portuguese) and Chinese sailing vessels, and were made of teak and camphorwood. Easily manoeuvrable, they were speedy and seaworthy craft, able to run down the fastest junks, in any kind of wind. Being armed with light cannon, the lorchas came to be engaged as armed escorts, to convoy fleets of trading junks from port to port, when piracy assumed serious proportions on the China coast, and the need arose for protection against the ruthless buccaneers infesting these waters.
The lorchas were generally of about 100 tons deadweight, but the largest exceeded 150 tons and the smallest were under 50 tons. The armament consisted of as many as 20 guns in the case of the larger ships, the cannon being mounted on swivels, while the crew were generally supplied with muskets, as well as pikes and other activities of the people of Macao at this period, mentions that the lorchas were “quaint-looking and gaily painted, adding greatly to the picturesqueness of Macao. They were her best hope, constituting as they did a pledge of her welfare economically as well as politically. And acting for the same cause which had shed lustre on the colony’s origin, the Macaenses showed that they had not lost the mettle of their historic forefathers in fighting the pirates and thereby winning China’s goodwill for Macao.”
Montalto devotes several pages of his history of Macao117 to the subject of the lorchas. He explains that “they frequented not only the treaty-ports, but any river or port on the way. The mandarins hired them, not only at the instance of merchants and fishermen but for their own safeguard too. As convoys the lorchas sometimes went as far as Corea, Japan, and Formosa… and were known to have ventured even across the Pacific to California.” The historian of Macao goes on to tell how the mandarins employed these little vessels (with their crews) as flagships of the Imperial fleets when expeditions went out against the pirates. Although the Portuguese craft sometimes fell victims to the pirates the Portuguese were usually successful in these encounters. For instance, “in 1847 seven Portuguese lorchas volunteered to sweep away the pirates that infested Ningpo waterways, and, after a bloody encounter, accomplished their hardy task, obtaining rewards from the mandarins as well as rich spoils from the enemy. In 1848 sixty imperial junks met at Ningpo, and led by five Portuguese lorchas, proceeded to dislodge the pirates from their strong-hold at Hoe Shan Island, which, after a desperate struggle, was taken – a feat which the imperial fleets of Shanghai and Chapoo had repeatedly failed to accomplish. Such was the confidence and good will won by the Portuguese at Ningpo that, when English and French convoys sought to oust them from the fisheries guarded by them, the leading fishermen proceeded to make a joint and formal declaration at the British Consulate, in 1855, to the effect that they wanted none but Portuguese convoys.”118
Ruffians of various nationalities soon appeared on the scene, hoping to wrest the service of convoying from the hands of the Portuguese. On one occasion a battle actually took place, at Chin-hae, not far from Ningpo, ending in the Portuguese convoys defeating some of their French competitors. After this, the Frenchmen recruited Cantonese pirates and were joined by British, Italian and American desperadoes. In the engagements which ensued many Portuguese lost their lives, not only lorchamen but peaceful Portuguese civilians on shore at Ningpo as well. Matters went from bad to worse and at last Mr. Francisco João Marques, Portuguese Consul at Ningpo, appealed to Mr. T. T. Meadows, British Consul, asking him to intervene, to prevent a meditated attack on the Portuguese. The British official, turned a deaf ear to all intercessions, and on the 26th June, 1857, an assault was made on all the Portuguese ashore and afloat at Ningpo. “The Portuguese consulate was pillaged and wrecked, the flag hauled down and trampled upon, and while a native Christian sheltered the consul and his family at the French chapel, from the British consulate hunted Portuguese refugees were driven out to meet the shot and steel that awaited them; and Portuguese prisoners were tortured and butchered within view of that consulate.”119
The arrival of the French warship Capricieuse “soon checked the pirates, and eventually brought away to Macao the Portuguese consul and his family, as well as other survivors.”
The sanguinary affairs at Ningpo are a black page in the history of Europeans in China. The abandonment of the convoy trade by the better type of Portuguese lorchamen left the business in the hands of blackguards of all nationalities, and the court records of Hongkong, with their many cases of crimes committed by foreigners at this time, indicate to what level the moral condition of many Europeans in China, had sunk. It must not be wondered at that Chinese officials thought so little of foreign generally in those days!
With the closure of Ningpo to the Portuguese lorchas, due to the activities of the outlaws of various nationalities, few Portuguese ships ventured into those waters, and Portuguese owners despatched their vessels to other places. Among the new ports where they strove to build up trade were Bangkok, Haiphong, Singapore, India, Batavia, and other places in the East Indies. But Hongkong had superseded Macao as the main entrepôt of foreign trade with China; and when the sail was displaced by steam, and steam warships of foreign powers appeared in Far Eastern seas, taking over the patrolling of Chinese waterways, the picturesque lorchas gradually passed from the seas.
It is unfortunate that the men who sailed these old ships do not appear to have left any written record of their adventurous lives. They were worthy successors to the Portuguese mariners who ventured in through unknown seas, braving, any peril that might betide. The earlier times story of the accomplishments of the lorchamen is fast fading; some accounts have been handed down from father to son, it is true, but they are in danger of being forgotten altogether. What tales might not a Joseph Conrad or a John Masefield have penned could he have drawn from the experiences that befell those hardly Portuguese sailors in Eastern seas – tales of running fights with pirates, tragedies of blood and fire, of capture and hideous torture at the hands of corsairs, stirring stories of heroism, and of victories against great odds! Much of the romance of the East and the West can be here found in the story of a few lives!
A number of Portuguese families in Hongkong can trace their connection with forefathers who owned and sailed the lorchas in Far Eastern waters for almost fifty years, during the XIXth century. (*) Of them, in due course, some interesting traditions may survive, which, handed down from generation to generation, will live on and testify to a courageous race. And let us hope that in some future day, when their stories shall be told, “no doubts of worldly-wise sceptics will rob the hearers of all the glorious realms owned by happy credulity.”
(*) The late Mr J.P. Braga left a few notes about the owners and masters of lorchas, intending to add to them. May I appeal once again to all those who can furnish any information on this and other aspects of the activities of the Portuguese in China to lend me their papers or notes? They will be returned, and if used due acknowledgment will be made. (Jack M. Braga)