CHAPTER 3
Ecclesiastical patronage
Padroado and the Jesuits College at Macao
From his eyrie at Sagres Prince Henry was ever looking with visionary eyes southward, seeing the cities of the unknown world opening before him, and travelling in his imagination along the coast of his dreams, voyaging in his mind to the uttermost limits of far Cathay.11 These were not the idle speculations of a daydreamer, but the ability to peer into a dim future, given to a genius, divine-inspired, as it were, to see with a clear vision the distant realisation of the “Portuguese Empire yet to be”. In the preceding chapter we have outlined the outcome of the earliest successes of the voyages to the East. Other nations who trailed behind the intrepid discoverers of the sea route to China had in their minds trade and commerce; but not so the Portuguese pioneers. None will be found so bold as to deny that the Nations which followed in the train of the Portuguese in the successes resulting from the early voyages of discovery have not been singularly successful in founding colonies and developing a maritime trade which has brought to them colossal wealth. This wealth has been of cumulative effect.
“Before the day of Discoveries and Conquests the Gospel was almost entirely confined to Europe. But as soon as the Portuguese entered the gateways of the East and distributed their forts along the coasts of the Dark Continent and of Asia the light of Christianity quickly spread to all places, with an invitation to the peoples of territories accepting the new rulers no less than those who continued to rule themselves to accept the benefits of Christian civilisation.” 12 “… We are essentially a missionary nation,” concludes His Grace Dom José da Costa Nunes.
Antonio Bocarro is an early authority for the statement that Macao is “the port by which the Apostle Saint Thomas entered China by sea from India, and by which in these times (circa 1635) the Holy Gospel is carried by the religious of the Company of Jesus into these Kingdoms, and to those of Japan and Cochin-China, with great glory to God, and to the increase of His Church”. From this stage I rely on the authoritative account of the Portuguese Padroado by His Lordship the Bishop of Macao (now His Grace the Archbishop of Goa) contributed to the Macao Review of January, 1930. I quote:
The stately ruin of Macao’s San Paolo, which was in the day of its prime the headquarters of the mighty missions which depended upon Macao for their very existence, is spoken of by the Rev. Father J. D. Francis, in the Rock (reproduced in the Macao Review of March, 1930). He called it a “Symbolical Ruin”. We reproduce the description hereunder:
“We shall never understand Macao if we consider it merely as a 16th century edition of Hong Kong. The fact is that old Macao differed from new Hong Kong as much, and in the same way as the spirit of the old empires differed from the empires of to-day. Therein lies the difference between them and the ancient empires of Portugal and Spain. This is not to say that commercial motives did not play a part and an important part. Such a statement would be manifestly false. But commercialism was not the exclusive motive, nor even the dominating one, in the minds of the people. They believed that they were fulfilling a duty incumbent on Christian nations to bring the light of faith to those who sat in darkness.
“I have recently been reading an old book written in 1644 in Portuguese and later translated into Italian and finally into French. It is an Account of the (Jesuit) Province of Japan, by an ardent Portuguese missioner, Father Cardim. The author left the great Portuguese missions. He was to return to the East again later and then in his great Batalhas da Companhia de Jesus (1650) would be still more fervid in praise of Macao. But for the moment I am concerned with his first work. In it there is a passage on the trade of Macao and the spirit of its citizens which can hardly be read without thinking of Hong Kong and making comparisons which ndash; let us admit- are hardly in favour of the modern Empire’s outpost. ‘Macao, he writes, ‘is put together of very fair buildings and is rich by reason of the commerce and traffic that go on there by night and by day; it has Noble and Honourable Citizens. In fine, it is held in great renown through the whole Orient inasmuch as it is the store of all those goods of gold, silver, silk, pearls and other jewels, of all manner of drugs, spices, and perfumes from China, Japan, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Siam, Cambodia, Macassar, Solor, and above all for that it is the Head of Christendom in the East’.
“Notice the last passage. Trade was a big factor in Macao; it is the only factor in Hong Kong. The old Empires doubtless had their eye to business, but “above all” they claimed to be the bearers of the Gospel of Christ. It makes little difference to our present subject that they often fell woefully short of this ideal. At any rate, they had an ideal.
“In the Batalhas da Companhia de Jesus (1650), Cardim sings the praises of Macao in an even more unrestrained tone. It becomes the foster-mother of martyrs, the fortress whence captains sally forth to defeat idolatry and hell, the quiet harbour whence bodies broken with toil send forth merit-laden souls to heaven. In fine, the Province that bleeds in Japan or Cochinchina, and toils gloriously in Annam or Tonkin, Hainan, Cambodia, and the Laos should be called, not the Province of Japan but the Province of Macao.
“This was no empty nor lightly won praise. In 1640, for instance, Macao had sent a noble embassy, led by some of its most distinguished citizens, to Japao and sixty-one Portuguese or Chinese members of it had been put to death; the survivors testified how punctiliously “Roderic Synches de Paredoz” had assured himself by a thrice-put faith of Jesus Christ. They got free of their bonds in order to scourge themselves with ropes in prison. Macao celebrated the news of their death, not with mourning but ndash; as was fitting for the death of martyrs ndash; with the pealing of church bells, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Te-Deums, salvos of artillery, and twenty days of festival.
“You catch this same atmosphere of triumphant faith in the Oriente Conquistado of de Sousa. At the end of the Fourth Conquest, for example, you have the description of the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament at dawn on Easter Sunday, with the music of drum and flute and hautboy, the torches and the dances, the maidens, flower-crowned at the windows, the roses and the rose-water flung upon the crowds and upon the Canopy over the Sacred Host.
“Such is the setting you must recall as you mount the broad stepped approach to Macao’s Sao Paolo. It is a Sacred Way and you are approaching an Arch of Triumph ndash; the Capitol of the Missions of the East is before you. Even the ruin is symbolical. It speaks at once of a glory that is gone, of the spirit that inspired what was best in the great age of a great nation. And it is not, perhaps, without significance that the ruins of Sao Paolo should be ever present to the eyes of the citizen of Macao as he dreams of an empire that has vanished and seeks for causes of its disappearance.
“Our photograph shows the approach (than which nothing more majestic was seen by Cardim, even in Rome itself) and the façade. The church was built in 1602 in honour of the Virgin Mother. The façade and the steps were added in 1640 through the labour of Japanese Christians, driven from their homes by persecution, and in 1835 the whole building was destroyed by fire leaving only the façade and the approach of granite steps. Even in its ruins, the church is a testimony to the prosperity of that town of “2,000 hearths and little less than 40,000 Christian souls, each family having twenty persons, the Portuguese there being in very easy circumstances with plenty of servitors and having constantly 8,000 soldiers in garrison for so important a place.’
“Let Father Cardim introduce the church and the college that stood to the right as one mounts the steps: ‘the college of the Society of Jesus at Macao, is built on a high group and ordinarily keeps sixty persons; it has the standing of an University; all the sciences from Grammar to Sacred Theology included are taught there and the degree of Doctor is there conferred upon the fit; our church is fair indeed and very spacious, having with other ornaments certain bronze statues of our Saints on its façade and moreover the statues of the Virgin of Virgins and of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul likewise of bronze; the Citizens attend in remarkable numbers and many of the Fathers are constantly employed in hearing confessions, in preaching and other functions.’ In the ‘Batalhas’ he tells us of the alms collected and distributed and of the private retreats made in the college by many citizens. It was an active life and the poor ruin must feel lonely now.
“When Cardim wrote those words in his ‘Account’ of 1644, he could not have seen the new façade; perhaps he had seen the plans or perhaps some sketch of the completed structure ndash; more likely the former for there are no statues of St. Peter and St. Paul on the building now nor could have been. It is indeed called São Paolo but that is a confusion and yet no wrong is done the missioners; the great Apostle was their favourite patron in Macao as in Goa. But the church was the Church of the Mother of God; so the proud carving over the main door proclaims and the whole façade confirms.
“It will not be unprofitable with the help of the photograph to read the story which this monument of old Macao wishes to tell us. The style is typical; it proclaims itself afar as the Baroque of the 17th century with all its associations of Rome and Europe – a Catholic style for all Christendom starting from Rome. The Ionic and Corinthian pillars have learned the newer style of Rome and there too learned the ornamental function of bearing only the weight of cornices and obelisks; and dwarf obelisks themselves have come from Egypt through the same Rome, a Rome that now weds them to Chinese characters and Eastern craftsmanship.
“The façade reminds me of the engraved frontispieces of the period, full of architectural design and symbolism with broad Latin lettering of the title of the book. Here the content is just a great sermon in stone – the vital story of the Incarnation and the great part which Mary played in it. Consequently in the three important central places, starting from the pediment above, you will find if you consult the accompanying photo, first the Dove of the Holy Ghost, next the Christ Child whose left hand once carried the orb of Kingship, and finally, the Mother of God. Under her is the empty space that was once a window and under that the door.
“Few façades tell their tale so clearly ndash; but few centuries have been so systematic in their theology as the 17th and few have been so finished in the logical and rhetorical utterance of their theology. If we could live into all the associations of this majestic ruin, the streets, the harbour, the sea at Macao would be peopled for us with visions of ardent, heroic men and their ships bearing the name of the Great Captain to the people that were sitting in darkness and the shadow of death; the view from São Paolo would widen into Eternity, for me who lived within that college walls often bore the slashes of pagan tortures for the adornment of their bodies and in that church men once said Mass who thereafter died in the smoke pits of Japan.”
Enough has been stated in the preceding pages to establish the truth so forcefully established by Dom José da Costa Nunes that “We (the Portuguese) are essentially a missionary nation”. There is almost a paraphrase of that statement in the book Jesuits at the Court of Peking by a Protestant missionary, the Rev. C. W. Allen.13 The paragraph reads:
“It is a well-known fact that the early Portuguese navigators and discoverers were not merely traders seeking new success of wealth, they were also filled with a zeal for the extension of the Catholic Faith. The opening up of the world presented new areas for the conquests of the Cross, and these hardy adventures were armed with royal commissions to occupy territory in the name of the Holy Church of Christ.
“The Papal Bull of Alexander VI which declared the King of Portugal ‘Lord of the Navigation, Conquests and Trade of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India’, indicated that all those territories came under the jurisdiction of the Holy See, claiming them for the Christian religion.”
From our long experience and intimate knowledge of Macao, it can be safely asserted that Christian evangelisation and medical missionary work go hand in hand. Montalto de Jesus14 writes: “Zealous as Macao was for the work of evangelisation, it was amidst great joy that the accomplished Ricci started to establish (in China) the mission which, scientifically as well as religiously, proved so glorious to Western prestige in China”. He thus anticipated the tribute so fairly paid to Macao by the American Medical Missionary Society at Canton. When that Society celebrated the first hundred years (1835-1935) of the foundation of the Canton Hospital, Dr. Wm. W. Cadbury, A.M., M.D., F.A.C.P., Superintendent of that institution, in collaboration with Miss Mary Hosie Jones, B.A., produced a report, in the form of a book under the title of At the Point of a Lancet, in which the following passage appears: –
“In 1557 the Portuguese acquired Macao which is situated on the coast, less than a hundred miles from Canton. This city has played an important part in the introduction of Christianity and western medicine to China. The Portuguese set up a hospital and a leprosarium soon after their possession of this city and it is possible that to them belongs the honour of founding one of the first hospitals in the world . . . Macao’s historical importance lies in the fact that she was the bridge to the almost hermetically sealed city of Canton. Had Macao not belonged to a foreign country, it is safe to say that Christianity and Western medicine would not have come into China until a much later date”. 15
To go into greater detail, it might be stated that the honour of setting up the hospital and leprosarium, referred to by Dr. Cadbury, belongs to the founders of the Santa Casa da Misericordia (the Holy House of Mercy), an institution created with funds first raised by the forefathers of many Portuguese now resident in Hongkong and elsewhere in the Orient. The hospital, St. Raphael’s, was founded in 1569 and is still functioning as a very useful and charitable institution. For example, free medical attendance is given to all comers seeking shelter in Macao; in most cases also medicine is distributed free on the prescription of the medical officer of the Hospital, whose professional services are also available free of charge to those not in a position to pay. It was through this hospital and its free services that the Chinese first came to know of the advantages of Western medicine, and the curative properties of the drugs used in Western pharmacopoeia. Chincona, from Brazil, was first introduced into Macao and the wonderful medicinal properties which this famous bark contains were made known to the Chinese who obtained the advantages of Western treatment by the doors of St. Raphael’s being open to them.
Wherever they went the Portuguese sought for plants with curative properties. Among the precious documents in the archives in Lisbon there is a letter addressed to the King of Portugal, dated at Cochin, 26th January, 1516, “regarding some plants, and medicinal drugs in the Indies”. It was written by Thomé Pires, who was later selected as the first Portuguese envoy to China, and this letter proves his exceptional medical qualifications ndash; that he was not a mere apothecary, as some writer have tried to make out, but that he could write (at a time when few except the clergy could even read) and that his knowledge of medicine was not limited to the treatment of ills but also included special qualifications in the selection and study of plants of curative value, while he enjoyed the privilege of direct personal communication with his sovereign. Among the medicinal plants and drugs listed by him are Incense, Opium, Tamarind, Galangal, Myrabolams, Aloes, Spikenard, Myrrh, Mummy, Betel, and Seed-pearl. In many cases he explains the properties of each, the value of the familiar Rhubarb being extolled in Pires’s list.
It should be noted, in passing, that rhubarb, from China, figured as an important article among Far Eastern exports to Europe, and continued to figure prominently in the invoices for nearly four hundred years.
Speaking of rhubarb, Garcia da Horta says, “it comes from China by land, horses are purged with it in Persia. It is called ravam chini, and the Moors call it only ravam, but all confess that there is no other but that from China. So that the rhubarb of ravam indico does not come from Barbary, but that which is brought to India is taken on to Barbary, coming first from China to India”.
Mention must also be made of Garcia da Horta’s famous book16 which may well be called a classic, but to which justice was not done till very recent years. It is an exhaustive treatise of all the medicinal products of the Far East, with full particulars of the properties and uses of each, and details of the most important remedies for the common diseases. The book includes the very earliest description of cholera morbus, as a deadly tropical disease of the intestinal organs.
The medical services of the early Portuguese made an impression particularly in Japan, and though it cannot be said that their influence in China was rapid, it can be claimed that the acquaintance by the Chinese with a number of important drugs was due entirely to the work of the Portuguese. As a matter of fact, till very recent times, medicinal plants brought from Europe were to be found in the gardens of the gentry of Macao.
An example of the enthusiasm displayed by at least one among several Portuguese priests is given of Father João de Loureiro who wishing to enter Cochinchina decided to dedicate himself to the study of botany and thus serve the inhabitants of that country as a physician. He acquired the text book by Linnaeus, then just published, and applied himself so assiduously to his work that he was able to compile the Flora cochinchinensis, the publication of which earned for him all the highest scientific distinctions of Europe, including the Fellowship of the English Royal Society of Arts. He was the first Portuguese to be so honoured.
It was in Macao that vaccination against small-pox was first practised among the Chinese, also ophthalmic surgery, etc.
The establishment of the leprosarium at Macao in 1569 is another service of which the Portuguese may also well be proud. The priests in association with the laity were responsible for this humanitarian service.
With the arrival of Francis Xavier on the coast of China in 1552 the first serious attempt to establish a base for Portuguese missionary enterprise in China began, and the first documents traceable to Macao are two letters in Lisbon with the place date of Macao which show that even at that early date Portuguese missionaries became active in the missionary field. The letters were written respectively by Father Melchior Nunes Barreto and Fernão Mendes Pinto. The latter enjoys the reputation of being the author of the celebrated “peregrinations” and was one of the first Portuguese to land in Japan.
Between Malacca and Japan, Macao became the half-way house where travellers, priests as well as merchants, could rest between monsoons before continuing their voyages. It was not long before the Jesuits decided to establish a Mission at Macao, and in 1565, the first Mission House was established in the Portuguese colony, to be followed not long after by a college and seminary for preparing youths for the priesthood, in order that they might serve in Japan and other places where the Jesuits had commenced the work of evangelisation. From small beginnings grew the College of St. Paul, regarding the magnificent work of which Father J. D. Francis waxes so enthusiastic. The missionary successes of Francis Xavier and those who followed in his footsteps in the Portuguese missions stirred the imagination of scholars all over Europe, and learned men of all nationalities, anxious to take part in the services which the Portuguese discoveries enabled men to create, flocked to the banner of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the world-famed Jesuit Order. The Relations and Collections of Letters which were published in Europe describing the work of the Jesuit missions yet further served to stimulate the enthusiasm, while the Tractado das Cousas da China by Father Gaspar da Cruz, the first published description of China and the people of this country, became known to the literary world through several translations and plagiarised editions.
Father Matheus Ricci was one of the enthusiastic and learned missioners to reach Macao, and after a period of training here was sent to China. He set himself to work to master the difficulties of the Chinese language in Macao and entering China his great learning and zeal eventually brought him to the notice of certain of the literati, despite the jealousies of the eunuchs and the recalcitrant members of the Board of Rites. His tact and ability earned for Ricci the loyal friendship of several of the highest mandarins, through whom he was introduced to the Emperor Wan Li.
The success of Father Ricci made possible by the support he received from Macao, marked a great step forward in Christian evangelisation and it was not long before a wide circle of learned priests made their mark at the Court of Peking. This statement is supported in a letter dated Peking, 22nd August, 1608, which appears in Tacchi Venturi’s Opere Storiche del P. Matteo Ricci (Macerata, 1913), Vol. II, p. 367, from which it is gathered that Father Matheus Ricci, founder of the Peking Mission and justly styled the “First Sinologue”, did not stop from appealing to the Provincial General of the Society of Jesus to send more and more men of letters and learning ndash; “huomini di buono ingegno e litterati” – and with reiterated appeals he begged that he might be given, for the Court of Peking, “one astronomer capable of correcting with certainty the astronomical errors of the Chinese and so earn for the missionaries the necessary authority for the ministry as Masters of Religion”. The wishes of the illustrious sinologue were suitably complied with and the knowledge of the mathematicians and astronomers and geographers who came to the Court of Peking was something new in the eyes of the astute Emperor. Thus it was not long before Wan-Li was conferring distinctions upon these scholars from the West. Nothing was too good for them: land and money for churches and colleges were heaped upon them and the highest honours were given to the priests, not only in their lifetime but posthumously.
For instance, upon the death of Ricci in 1610, Emperor Wan Li allotted the land, north of Peking city, now known as the Cemetery of Chala, within the extensive grounds of the imperial estates, and now forming part of the beautiful and well-kept grounds of the Provincial House of the Lazarist Mission, and of the College of the Marists Brothers. Among the tombstones erected in the Cemetery of Chala is one in marble, over Father Ricci’s tomb, presented by the Chinese Emperor with an inscription traced from the Emperor’s own calligraphy. This tombstone survived the vandalism of the Chinese fanatics of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Within this cemetery now stands a chapel dedicated as a memorial to the Catholic priests who suffered martyrdom in that Rebellion, and round the walls of the chapel can be read the names of all these martyrs. Also buried in Chala are famous missionaries like Fathers Verbiest, Francisco Cardoso, Caetano Pires (Bishop of the Lazarist Mission), Gabriel de Magalhães, Antonio de Magalhães, Nicolas Longobardi, Thomas Pereira, Alexandre de Gouvea (Bishop of the Lazarists), João Schall von Bell, Augustine de Hallerstein, Felix da Rocha, André Pereira, and, among many others who made their mark, several Macao-born priests of the Jesuit Order.
The mention of these great names brings to mind the fact that the mathematicians and other scientists sent to China by the Superior General of the Society of Jesus included priests who would have been recognised as astronomers of the first rank even in Europe at the time. Father Adão Schall von Bell, a German, and his Portuguese colleagues, Fathers Gabriel de Magalhães and Manoel Dias, were followed by the celebrated Father Ferdinand Verbiest, a Belgian, and Father Thomas Pereira, Portuguese astronomer, machinist and musician.
Together these form a splendid combination of talent and would have left their mark in any court of Europe. Father von Bell was made President and Director of the Observatory not without the envy of some of the Chinese, with honours never before conferred by the Chinese on any foreigner. Father Magalhães was his humble and modest assistant at the Astronomical Board, and together with Father Manuel Dias he directed the work of between a hundred and fifty and two hundred assistants. Father Manoel Dias also wrote on geography and astronomy and his books printed in Chinese are classics which attest the admiration in which his knowledge was held by the Chinese. Father Verbiest succeeded Father Schall as President of the Astronomical Board and his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics marks him as one of the greatest scientists of his day. After him came Father Thomas Pereira at the Mathematical Board, as President and he, like his predecessor, whose assistant he was for many years, was a mandarin in China of the highest rank. He served the Chinese as Envoy to Russia for the demarcation of the boundaries between Russia and China.
As geographers, these priests drew the first satisfactory maps of China, works which are still considered wonders of accuracy. In this work they had the splendid example and tradition of the fine maps and charts which the Portuguese cartographers of the XVIth century had made celebrated. The travels of the priests overland, often forgotten by modern travellers, are achievements which would be considered remarkable even at the present day when modern equipment and paraphernalia and the best means of transport are available. Father António de Andrade visited Tibet in 1600, walking overland from Goa, and in the land of the Lamas set up a mission which survived for many years, but closed down through shortage of missioners. The journey of Brother Benedict de Goes, overland from India to Peking, is now better known, through the efforts of modern writers, and is an achievement of the first rank.
The priests at Peking had, as assistants, scholars from the College of St. Paul in Macao, among them Chinese students whose education had qualified them for admission into the Church. The superiors at Peking were glad to welcome them as invaluable coadjutors in the field of missionary labour in the expanding communities of converts in China. Among the converts of the pioneering missionaries were Chinese officials of very high rank who proved themselves to be of the utmost aid to Christianity throughout the Empire. Hsü Kuang-chi, a Ko-lao and a native of Shanghai, who gave the Portuguese Mission the property of Siccawei which the French Jesuits now occupy, and Li Chih-tsao, another high ranking official, accepted the Christian faith. The services of these two officials to the cause of Christianity in China deserve the highest praise and have earned for them recognition which has created for them niches in the temple of fame to preserve their names in undying memory. The first Chinese to become a Jesuit hailed, as might be expected, from Kwangtung. His name was Ching Ming-chen; he was also known by his Portuguese name of Sebastião Fernandes. He came of a wealthy family but gave up all worldly attractions to follow in the footsteps of his teachers, whom he served long and well.
Foreign rivalries in Japan had been followed by the terrible persecutions in that country, and at length not only the priests but Portuguese traders were forbidden to set foot on Japanese soil. This was a severe blow to Portuguese trade centred at Macao, from which were derived the funds to enable mission work to be carried on all over eastern Asia, and the success of the Jesuits at Peking led the Portuguese to hope that a new era was about to dawn in China. As a matter of fact, Christianity in the Middle Kingdom was making such headway that it is recorded that members of the Court had embraced the Catholic faith. It was at this juncture that the Manchus invaded China, and the Portuguese of Macao can take special pride in the fact that they equipped and despatched several expeditions, including cannon, artillerymen and troops, to aid the Ming emperors against the invaders. At this time they taught the Chinese the art of casting the modern culverin which had been manufactured with such success in Macao.
Major C. R. Boxer, in one of his studies regarding the Portuguese in China, published, in this connection, an excellent article containing much material, based on long and assiduous research, in the Tíen Hsia Monthly (Shanghai), August, 1938, from which the following telling extract is made:17
“Most important . . . was the help rendered to Yung Li, the last, and for a time the most successful, pretender to the Ming Throne. Yung Li had raised the standard of rebellion in 1646, and was soon master of the southern provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. The Manchu counter-attack was not long delayed, and Canton fell to the Tartars in January 1647. Yung Li retired to Kweilin, provincial capital of Kwangsi, which sustained a five months’ siege from March to July, when the assailants finally withdrew. The repulse of the Manchus from the walls of Kweilin in July 1647, was the signal for a general revolt in South China, not only in Kwangtung but seven provinces in all rallied to the banner of Yung Li. This successful defence of Kweilin was due in no small measure to the assistance rendered by a Portuguese contingent of 300 men from Macao under the command of Nicolao Ferreira, who had apparently been enlisted towards the end of 1646… According to other contemporary sources, Yung Li again appealed for help to the City of Macao in the autumn of 1648, shortly after the baptism of several members of his household, including his mother, wife and son and heir. It is said that on this occasion the Portuguese supplied a further contingent of 300 men with full equipment and two mortars . . . (but) Yung Li was again in desperate straits, and the victory of the Manchus was clearly only a matter of time. In November 1650, the Manchus retook Canton with great slaughter and Kweilin fell a few days later. Yung Li was now little better than a hunted fugitive in Kweichow and Yunnan, in which last province he met his death at the hands of Wu San-kwei, after having been betrayed by the Burmese with whom he had taken refuge… Fortunately- and somewhat inexplicably ndash; the Manchus at first do not seem to have borne any grudge against Macao or the Jesuits for their staunch support of the failing Ming cause; and, in fact, the new dynasty at first treated the foreigners with even greater consideration than their immediate predecessors.
“Summarising the different occasions on which the Portuguese rendered military assistance of one king or another to the Ming Dynasty, we find the following:
1620. Proposal by Drs. Hsü and Li to use Portuguese cannon against the Tartars.
1621. Four guns and bombardiers sent from Macao. Bombardiers turned back at Canton but guns let through.
1623. Board of War memorializes Emperor in favour of Portuguese gunners.
1624. Seven Portuguese gunners arrive in the North, one of whom João Correa, is killed afterwards in an accident.
1630. Expedition of Gonçalves Teixeira and Antonio del Campo from Macao to Nanchang in Kiangsi, where majority are sent back.
1631. (?) Death of Teixeira in the defence of Tengchow
1643. One cannon and four gunners dispatched from Macao to Canton and Nanking at request of Cantonese provincial authorities.
1646. Nicolas Teixeira and 300 men join Ming pretender Yung Li.
1647. Successful defence of Kweilin by Ferreira.
1648. Alleged formation of an expeditionary force of 300 men and 2 mortars in Macao in behalf of Yung Li”.
History records many debts of gratitude owing from the Chinese nation to the Portuguese at Macao. In the sphere of scientific, cultural and medical knowledge, the Jesuits from their headquarters at St. Paul’s College spared no sacrifice or personal labour to contribute to the store of knowledge among the Chinese not only in the Imperial capital but all over the provincial districts of China from the earliest times of missionary activity in the Middle Kingdom to the present day. In the carrying of the doctrine of Christianity to the furthermost borders of China so great was the belief of the early missionaries in the Divine injunction for them to go and preach to all nations that many sacrificed even their lives in fanatical persecutions to uphold the Christian doctrine in the new world open to them through the successes of the earliest Portuguese navigators.
During the Manchu invasion of China, when the cause of the Ming dynasty was declining, the Portuguese at Macao offered to help China against the foreign invaders. Meanwhile Hsü Kuang-chiwas persistently endeavouring to persuade the Chinese Emperor to accept Portuguese military assistance. Up to this stage the Emperor remained indifferent and when China’s cause appeared on the point of being completely lost the Chinese Court eventually thought better of their rejection, and so accepted the friendly help proffered by the Portuguese at Macao. It will be seen, by the extract from Major Boxer’s careful study, how the Portuguese as genuine friends in case of need were willing to sacrifice their lives, and sometimes did so, on behalf of the Mings.
With the assumption by the Manchus of the government of China and their seizure of the reins of Government at the Capital in 1644, Macao’s trade was badly hit and piracy once more became rampant on the coast of China, to the serious detriment of the trade of the would-be saviours of the Ming, that is a Chinese and not a foreign dynasty. The set-back to the commerce of Macao had its reflection on the colonial resources and it is not to be wondered at that with the diminution of trade and the curtailment of the revenues of the traders the contributors to the Mission resources were also affected to the extent that they could not live up to the contributions which it had been their wont to make in the past. With curtailed means, the missionary society was restricted in its efforts and its work suffered in consequence. Furthermore, the immunity enjoyed by the Jesuits at Peking against persecution at the hands of the Manchus came to an end when the Regents of the Empire, during the minority of Emperor K’ang Hsi, ordered the arrest and imprisonment of all the priests in China.
Arrest and imprisonment of all the priests in China! What irony of Fate! Was that the sum of reward for the sacrifices, gallantry and chivalry of the priests, for services rendered without any thought of gain to free the Chinese nation from foreign domination! The Catholic priests of the Mission under the patronage of Portugal were no mercenaries. As heroes among the earliest successful Portuguese navigators, the priests had subordinated material gains to the victory of the Cross in order to preach the doctrine of Christianity in a country where they came for “Christians” first and then for “gold”.
There were compensations. With the coming of age of Emperor K’ang Hsi there began in China one of the most brilliant pages in the history of Christianity in the Middle Kingdom. The young monarch was to learn of the great capabilities and disinterested service of men from “the Western Ocean”, and he took the lead in showing that “of all the nations it is China that appreciates more than others the sciences of Mathematics and Astronomy to such an extent that it might appear that she considers that the conservation of the monarchy and good government of the State depend upon these sciences”.
Father Verbiest, who had already displayed such outstanding qualities under the Mings, was to achieve even greater fame, curiously enough, under the Manchus. His successor as Chief of the Portuguese Mission, Father Thomas Pereira, was a worthy disciple of Verbiest, the distinguished master. So great was the influence which Father Pereira was able to wield at the Court that he obtained from Emperor K’ang Hsi the promulgation of the celebrated Edict of Toleration, in 1692, that which no law of the old Empire gave greater liberty of action to foreigners in China.
Subsequent to the issuance of this famous Edict and as a token of gratitude to the Jesuits for having effected his recovery from two attacks of illness, Emperor K’ang Hsi made the gift of a piece of land with a home thereon inside the Imperial City. This evidence of Imperial favour was made in July, 1693. K’ang Hsi did not stop at this gracious act and later donated an adjoining piece of ground, with a substantial subscription for the erection of a Church. In due course the edifice was built and dedicated in December, 1703. In an age when intolerance and bigotry reigned almost supreme in Europe, here was a Chinese emperor, who, through the genial advice and friendly prompting of a Portuguese priest, showed the way to the nations of the West how to set aside religious prejudice so detrimental to the advancement of Christianity. Sects of mushroom growth in recent years, in foreign countries, and introduced into China, have shown a tendency to undermine the fundamental principle of the Christian doctrine of the Golden Rule.
Father Pereira was not only President of the Chinese Board of Astronomy but was also a mandarin of the highest rank, and had the ear of the Emperor in many things. Never did the chances of Christianity in China seem so bright. It might have been thought that they would have been seized upon to advance the Cause so devotedly advocated by the Portuguese chief of the Mission, but the short-sighted handling of the situation by the officials in Rome and Paris, who thought more of their national interests, brought all Father Pereira’s efforts to naught. K’ang Hsi’s famous Edict was allowed to lapse.
After the death of Father Pereira another Portuguese priest, Father Francisco Cardoso, a distinguished teacher of mathematics in Portugal, was sent to China and he, too, succeeded in gaining the good graces of Emperor K’ang Hsi, in spite of the cloud under which the priests were labouring due to the errors of judgment on the part of Cardinal Tournon. Cardoso’s knowledge of geography and map drawing was a special qualification. At the head of a number of assistants, among whom were several Jesuit priests, Fr. Cardoso set out to map the regions of Western China. For five years he travelled through the length and breadth of China and the result of his labours was the fine map published at Peking in 1718, reproduced by Father Du Halde in his famous Book on China, and first printed in Paris in 1730-1734. For his service, Father Cardoso was also created a mandarin of high rank.
Father Andre Pereira, a new missionary, reached China while Father Cardoso was still at work on his maps of China. After studying the Chinese language at Macao he proceeded to Peking, where his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics won him instant recognition. His work and observations reported in European academies were applauded by scientific institutions, and Father Andre Pereira took rank among the great astronomers of his day. He was made an Assessor and high ranking mandarin by the Emperor of China. His work carried out in conjunction with Father Hallerstein, another member of the Portuguese Mission, an Austrian and an astronomer of distinction, deserves to be better known.
Father Felix da Rocha was one more, among many other Portuguese, to earn mandarin rank. And though the influence of the priests had begun to decline at Peking, especially after the death of Emperor K’ang Hsi (1722), the Jesuits continued to direct the work at the Imperial Observatory under K’ang Hsi’s successors Emperor Yung Cheng, who reigned from 1722 to 1735, and Emperor Ch’ien Lung, who reigned from 1735 to 1795. Father Rocha was president of this service from 1774 to 1781. During Father Rocha’s term of office as President of the Observatory important maps of the outlying parts of China were drawn, the work being entrusted to Father José de Espinha, who visited Tartary, travelling to the borders of Turkestan.
For more than two centuries, from 1583 to 1805, in spite of frequent persecutions and of the ill-will and jealousy of mandarins, the Jesuits succeeded in carrying on their good work in China as scientists and even as craftsmen of clockwork contrivances – lions and tigers that walked, and figures of men that moved were made by them ndash; by retaining the presidency of the Board of Astronomy, until the death of the last of the Portuguese Jesuits in China. When Father Bernardo de Almeida passed away on 12th November, 1805, at the advanced age of 77 years, he was the last of the foreign priests to attain mandarin rank in China.
The history of the Imperial Observatory of Pekin has yet to be written, but when the time comes for this to be done a conscientious writer will be called upon to reveal the full extent of the services rendered to China and to science by all those priests who worked there under the aegis of the Portuguese Mission, while the University of Macao – as the College of St. Paul might well be called ndash; will fill an important page in that history. The community of this colony, who provided liberally that the work might go on, will also be remembered.
In the middle of the XVIIIth century, the Royal College of St. Joseph was established at Macao for the training of evangelists from Macao and of Chinese nationality for the China missions. It is a melancholy reflection that the work of St. Joseph’s College had to cease, when St. Paul’s was also closed down, before it had accomplished anything, and the Jesuits were compelled to leave Macao in 1762. Intellectual posterity and Portuguese prestige in China were made to suffer when that step was taken! The tragedy of it all is that the bigotry of hasty legislators does not seem to pause and reflect upon the dire consequences of far-reaching import to which ill-conceived legislation may lead a nation. The persecution of the Jesuits is one of the instances in point, for it cost Portugal a great deal. But other nations have been made to suffer also by precipitate legislative enactments. St. Paul’s at Macao, as is well known, was destroyed by fire over a century ago, but St. Joseph’s, an educational off-shoot of St. Paul’s, is functioning again, after various vicissitudes, and may yet one day come to enjoy the reflected glory and learning of the parent institution.
The work of Peking Observatory continues at Siccawei, near Shanghai, on the grounds bequeathed to the Portuguese Mission by Hsü Kuang-chi. At Siccawei the French Jesuits now conduct the famous Siccawei Observatory on a settlement housing thousands of persons composing a native community almost entirely Catholic. The prominent steeples of the Siccawei Cathedral, which stands on the grounds nearby, and the Observatory, can be seen for distance of miles from the French Concession of Shanghai. The Observatory is of world-wide repute and has been a God-send for the sea-faring community and “all who go down to the sea in ships”. It supplies Shanghai regularly two or three times a day, and oftener when necessary, with meteorological observations and weather fore-casts of almost mathematical accuracy. These observations are broadcast by wireless to all weather Stations along the Coast of China, and have been the means of correctly predicting weather conditions on the China coast. In the typhoon season mariners have placed more reliance on the Siccawei storm-warnings than on anything else. They have been the means of saving thousands of lives from shipwreck; and ships with valuable cargoes are steered into shelter by cautious shipmasters guided by the timely warnings received from Siccawei during the typhoon seasons.