CHAPTER V
Dutch and English envious of Portuguese trade
No account of international relations in the East can overlook the fact that the death of King Sebastian of Portugal in 1580 leaving no issue, and the usurpation of the Portuguese Throne by the King of Spain, involved the Portuguese colonies in the quarrels between Spain on the one hand and England and the Netherlands on the other. King Philip of Spain, the Champion of Catholicism, in 1594 closed the port of Lisbon, the principal market in Europe of the produce of the East, to the ships and traders of the peoples who had rebelled against the Church of Rome. Only too glad of an excuse to invade the Portuguese domains known to be the sources of great wealth, Dutch trading vessels and warships, followed some years later by English ships, came seeking the spices and other wares of Asia. It was not long before they began attacking the Portuguese colonies everywhere, and they eventually appeared off the China coast and even in the waters of Japan.
The English, it should be noted, confined their fighting to Indian waters. The Dutch, who sought to attack the Portuguese everywhere, ventured to harass Portuguese shipping. They attacked the most flourishing of the Portuguese trade depots, which fell into their hands. The warships which should have been sent from Lisbon to protect the Portuguese empire were diverted to the Great Armada, in King Philip’s abortive attack on England, or to convoy the treasure ships from the Spanish Main to Seville, while the Portuguese colonies lay at the mercy of freebooters. The Dutch penetrated to the China Seas, and appeared off Macao, pouncing upon peaceful ships engaged in the trade between Macao and Japan.
At length, the Dutch came against Macao with a powerful fleet, under Admiral Ryerszoon, the naval force consisting of eighteen ships of the line, with over a thousand men at arms.
The attack began on the 23rd June, 1622, when some of the ships engaged the Macao forts, to be followed by a landing on the following morning of nearly a thousand well equipped infantrymen at Cacilhas Bay. They advanced upon the city but were bravely opposed by the residents of Macao, who, though quite unprepared, put up a stout resistance, the tiny Portuguese garrison being assisted by the burghers and their retainers, while even the women took a hand in defending Macao against the invaders.
Many Dutchmen fell in the engagement, the Dutch commander being also killed by a well directed shot. The battle swayed backwards and forwards through the long summer day, and when late in the afternoon a shot from a culverin on Monte Fort hit and blew up their ammunition waggon, the Dutch were seized with panic and fled in disorder, seeking the shelter of their ships. In attempting to gain their pinnaces many more Hollanders were slain, a number being taken prisoner, and others were drowned in the overcrowded boats.
Drawing off, the Dutch set up Casteel Zeelandia on Formosa Island, from which they would sally forth and capture Portuguese ships plying between Macao and Japan. They made no further attempt to take Macao, so costly had been their adventure.
Among the leaders who distinguished themselves in the fighting at Macao were Lopo Sarmento de Carvalho, Captain-General of the city, Tomaz Vieira, Father Rho (the artilleryman-priest), and others. A marble pillar marking the place where the Dutch were routed has been erected in the park now known as the Vasco da Gama Gardens, but, following the repulse of the Dutch, called for almost three centuries the Campo dos Arrependidos.23
Had the Portuguese failed to hold Macao, the course of history would most probably have been changed, for in Portuguese hands Macao has served many peoples in the relations between the East and the West. It is not likely that any other people would have been so gracious as the Portuguese.
Macao still celebrates every year the victory won by the arms of her gallant and loyal residents. Poorly equipped though they were, the Portuguese beat off an enemy well organized, better armed, and greatly superior in numbers.
“Here (that is, in Malacca) is allsoe an Englishwoman Married to a Portugall Mestizo of some quality, are well to live, and have betweene them one pretty boy. Shee came from England some 18 or 19 yeares since when Captain Carter was Master of the Unicorne bound For Japan. Then was shee Maid-servauntt to one Furbisher, a Carpenter, who with his Family was passing thither to remayne in the Country as Cheiffe Carpenter to trymme and repaire the East India Companys shippes, having then trade in those parts. The said shippe Unicorne in her voyage thither was cast away on the Coast of China, and with what they saved From her boughtt China vessells, and proceeding on their voyage were taken by the Portugall Nere unto Macao, Wee then beeing att Difference with them in these parts; her and shee remayned among the Portugalls, where shee was brought upp by the Misericordia, an order that takes care of Orphanes and their bringuing uppe. At length this Man desired her to wiffe and For her Dowry had an office given in the Custom house. She was called Judith and now Julia de la garcia.”
Sir Richard Temple states that Peter Mundy’s details supplement the account of the Frobishers contained in the India Office Records. Frobisher, mentioned in the extract, served the East India Company as master carpenter, and in 1620 he sailed from England together with his wife and family and a maid-servant, Judith, in the Unicorn. The ship was wrecked off the China coast, but “the Companie saved themselves” and landed at Macao “with a chest of money” with which they bought “two barks”. Frobisher and his wife sailed for Malacca, leaving Judith behind in Macao. Frobisher died in Malacca but his wife was ransomed, though her children did not survive, and when she returned to England she petitioned the Court as “Johan Cranfield, late wife of Richard Frobisher, deceased… that her maid turned Catholic”. The reference by Mundy to the service rendered by the Santa Casa da Misericordia,25 founded at Macao in 1569 and still carrying on its charitable work, is very interesting; but Mrs. Frobisher’s case cannot be traced in Macao; the old records of the Santa Casa have been destroyed by white ants and only documents of more recent years are available for consultation.
The attractions of the China trade grew as the years went by, and by the beginning of the XVIIIth century English and French trading vessels were frequent visitors to Macao en route to Canton or to Amoy or Ningpo, where they were trying to persuade the Chinese to let them establish permanent trading settlements for foreign traders. The mandarins would, however, permit trading at no place except Canton, and ships had to wait off Macao, at the Taipa Anchorage, for permission to go up the river to Whampoa, the port of Canton. Eventually, the authorities at the provincial capital granted permission for the foreigners to establish only a small number of temporary factories on the foreshore at Canton, but required the traders to leave at the end of each trading season, that is, in February or March, saying they would be permitted to return in September or October, when the next trading season would begin.
All dealings with the Chinese had to be conducted solely through the members of the Co-hong, the membership of which was limited to a restricted number of wealthy Chinese merchants, closely in touch with the mandarins. The Co-hong was a system of dealing between Europeans and Chinese on a monopolistic basis, and was therefore a sort of link between the two parties – the official mandarinate and the foreign traders. From the Chinese merchants, the mandarins exacted commissions on the transactions with foreign traders. The Co-hong-ites paid over the required tribute in return for the monopoly they enjoyed of the foreign trade, which resulted in profits amounting to considerable sums of money in the aggregate. The leading Chinese Co-hong member is reputed to have accumulated the largest fortune in the world at that time. He was said to have been worth twenty-six million taels at the time of his death. In perpetuation of his memory, or as a reminder of the palmy days of the Canton trade, in quite a few “board-rooms” in Hongkong can be seen in frames on the walls a portrait of the last-century Croesus in China, painted by George Chinnery, the Irish artist who lived in Macao for twenty-seven years. This painting has been reproduced in a number of magazines and books.
The foreign merchants were not at all satisfied with the arrangement whereby they should leave China at the end of each trading season and return at the beginning of the next, and they cast about for some suitable place wherein to reside between seasons. The officials of the East India Company and other foreign traders had occasionally lived in Macao for short periods; for longer residence special permission had to be obtained from the Lisbon Government. After various negotiations the Macao officials decided to permit Portuguese residents to lend their names for the leasing of property to be occupied by the foreigners at Macao during the long summer months. Thus it was that in July, 1772, for the first time, it was possible for the officials of the English East India Company to report to London that they had 26
“Agreed with
Antonio Joze da Costa
Antonio Joze da Costa #40968
Birth: Moura, Alentejo
Marriage: Antónia Correia
Death: 3 February 1781, Macau
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for a lease of his large House on the Pria (Praia) Grande and the upper house for the term of three years … at the rate of Four Hundred and Fifty Spanish Dollars per Annum for the two Houses to be in our Option prolong the lease for two years more.”
It was not long before the other East India Companies were following the example of the English Company, and so it was that the French, Dutch, Danish and Swedish Companies came to occupy fine residences at Macao. They were followed by independent traders of other nationalities. For a time, the English East India Company succeeded in resisting attempts by “interlopers”, as they called them, to enter the China trade, but some of their own employees after retiring from the Company’s service began to go in for private trading by securing the consular representation of states such as Sardinia, Hanover, Sicily, Prussia, Spain, etc. As consular agents in China the new merchants were able to engage in trade, greatly to the irritation of the Company. The growth of the tea and silk trade became an important factor in China’s foreign trade, and there was keen competition for it.
Some of the smaller merchants found it more profitable to do their business entirely at Macao, and it was not long before the foreign community of Macao became a large one. In time the city assumed a truly cosmopolitan character, for persons of many lands mingled with the Portuguese at Macao.
The foreign merchants were not slow to appreciate the conveniences and comforts they enjoyed by living in Macao. The attractions of Macao as a place of residence have been extolled by several writers, but I cannot do better than quote from Basil Lubbock’s excellent book, The Opium Clippers :
“The Portuguese colony on the island of Macao has the distinction of being the oldest European settlement in the East. Just before Lintin became popular as an anchorage it was at the height of its prosperity, being an old-world walled city with grim forts frowning from its heights, and solidly built churches and houses bounding its plazas and streets, including a convent and a senate house. Here came the jaded Europeans from Canton, as soon as the tea season was over and the ships despatched to their destinations.
“Crowned by the Monte Fort and circling round its bay, Macao has been called the Naples of the Orient. The broad esplanade of the Praya Grande with its well-built row of houses, facing out across the outer harbour, has a fine view over the water towards the Nine Islands, in the North, and Lintin and Lantao to the North-eastward.
“The Inner Harbour, too shallow to accommodate large ships, was bounded by the island of Lappa, once built over with Portuguese villas and beautifully laid out with gardens, but abandoned to decay through the difficulty of combatting raiding pirates.
“In spite of its beautiful situation and its fine climate – it rejoices in ever-refreshing breezes – Macao, the “land of sweet sadness”, has gradually lost its position as a world port…
“The Praya Grande is now occupied by wealthy retired Chinese merchants; beneath the banyan trees that fringe the low sea wall one no more sees the ‘foreign devils’ dozing in the shade, but a band plays in the Plaza, below the railed-in grotto and garden of Camoens, where black-eyed Portuguese signoritas flirt their fans at young garrison officers. Macao, even in its most busy and prosperous days, was a sleepy, easy-going port, which only woke up for a while on the arrival of the Factory of the John Company at the end of the N. E. monsoon. Then indeed the influx of young English and Americans caused a flutter amongst the dove-cots; picnics were promoted; sailing matches took place; and daring cavaliers stormed the barred windows of the old Praya Grande mansions.”27
And writing of Macao in that charming little work, Bits of Old China, Mr. William C. Hunter, who lived in Macao in the good old days, closes a description of the little Portuguese colony with these words:
“altogether such views as few cities can offer, and full of interest geographically, historically and politically. If thereto be added the salubrity of its climate, the pureness of its skies, and its balmy atmosphere, it is not a matter of surprise that many ‘old Cantoners’ chose it for their permanent abode”.
Alluding to the practice of securing the help of local Portuguese for permission to reside in Macao, Mr. Hunter mentions his own experience as follows:28
“Macao has been from 1722 the summer resort of the residents of Canton. The custom existed of having to be secured’, as at Canton, and to declare the length of sojourn for which a permit was granted, but there was no difficulty in renewing it. My own ‘security’ was Senhor Bartolomeo Barretto, whose family had identified itself with the place for many generations”.
The Barrettos mentioned by Hunter were an old Portuguese family of merchants of good repute in India, whence they travelled farther East to settle at Malacca, Singapore, Macao and Hongkong, and latterly at Manila. In Calcutta and Hongkong the surname Barretto is found among the best known families in social circles. As late as the last quarter of the last century, great-grandsons of the earlier Barrettos were in prosperous business at Hongkong. Four brothers of the same family were in partnership as import and export merchants. They held a leading position in the rice export trade from Hongkong to San Francisco and to South American ports.
Hunter was employed in the firm of Messrs. Russell & Co., the leading American firm in China for over half a century and predecessors of Shewan, Tomes & Co. He was a sociable gentleman and during his residence in Macao he made many friends among the Portuguese.
“At Macao”, Mr. Hunter states in his Bits of Old China, “visitors can freely enjoy the exquisite climate, its magnificent view over sea and islands of every form and in endless number. The Macaistas generally speak English and are a kind and hospitable people. They enjoy the privilege of living in a city untouched by change as regards its public building and defences, which remain to-day as they were originally built nearly three hundred years ago, and which bear silent witness to the courage and enterprise of their forefathers, the first to lead the way via the Cape of Storms to the Far East, and who have here left many of the works of their own hands”.
Another interesting reference to Macao was made by Sir George Staunton, Secretary to Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China in 1792-4:29
“In this small spot the Portugueze, to whom it (Macao) was granted at the period of their power and enterprize, carried on for long a considerable trade, not only with the Chinese empire, where they, almost alone of all Europeans, then resorted; but likewise with other countries in Eastern Asia … In this traffic they soon enriched themselves, the marks of which remain in many large and costly public and private buildings in Macao, several now in a neglected state. It was so much a colony of commerce, that its government often lent money to individuals to carry it on, at a certain rate of interest, which the profits of their voyages enabled them to pay … Events took place which deprived them of all intercourse with Japan, one great source of their advantages. Revolutions in other countries where they traded, rendered speculations there precarious, and often unfortunate to the undertakers. The settlement gradually fell from its former prosperity.
“The Portugueze settlers lend their names, for a trifling consideration, to foreigners belonging to the Canton factories, who reside part of the year at Macao. These, with more capital, credit, connections, and enterprize, are more successful; but require to be nominally associated with Portugueze, in order to be allowed to trade from the port of Macao”.
Relations between the foreigners and the Portuguese at Macao were maintained on a very friendly footing, even though, in the sphere of commerce, the newcomers were in some cases in active competition with the Portuguese merchants themselves. The foreigners were able to avail themselves of the services of Portuguese assistants in various capacities. As interpreters and translators, clerks and copyists, many Macaenses rendered excellent service to their employers. Some of them were gifted linguists, interpreting with ease English conversation into Chinese and vice versa, or from English to Portuguese; in the tri-lingual rendering of the two European languages into Chinese, their work has been recognised as specially meritorious. Considering the importance of accurate translation at the time, the purpose for which it was required, and the necessity of secrecy in mercantile transactions, the foreign traders were indeed fortunate in being able to secure the services so rendered of capable and trustworthy Macaense assistants, often upon a nominal monetary consideration only.
It became in time practice of smaller Chinese merchants not enjoying the privileges of membership of the Co-hong to conduct their business with foreigners in Macao, in direct opposition to the law in Canton prohibiting dealings between Chinese and foreigners except through the medium of the Co-hong. The law was honoured more in the breach than in the observance; and this became more and more apparent as the clandestine opium trade, which was proscribed in Canton, assumed greater proportions in Macao.
In explanation of the Chinese attitude towards foreign merchants, Staunton in his Authentic Account remarks that:30
“the vast superiority of rank, over all merchants, assumed by persons in authority in China, became an obstacle to all social or familiar intercourse between them, and the only Englishmen who went there. And, notwithstanding a British factory had been established upwards of an hundred years, not the least approach was made towards that assimilation of manners, dress, sentiments, or habits, which, in similar institutions elsewhere, tends so much to facilitate the views of commerce, as well as to promote the comforts of those immediately engaged in it … One port only was left open for foreign ships; and, when the trading season came for their departure, every European was compelled to embark with them or leave, at least, the Chinese territories: thus abandoning his factory and unfinished concerns, until the return of the ships in the following year. There was little scruple in laying those restrictions on foreign trade, the government of China not being impressed with any idea of its importance to a country including so many climates, and supplying within itself, all the necessaries, if not all the luxuries, of life”.
It was Emperor Ch’ien Lung, to whom Lord Macartney’s Embassy was despatched, who was responsible for the statement:”The Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its borders. There is therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own products”.
As tea and silk became more popular and large importations were made into England from China, it became increasingly difficult to balance the trade between the two countries, since China at that time did not see itself under the necessity of importing merchandise from England to offset the value of tea and silk exported from China. The British had therefore to look about for items of export that could make up for the drain of bullion from England. Raw cotton furnished the first commodity to make up the deficiency in part, cotton in bulk being shipped from Calcutta to China; and this found immediate favour with Chinese importers and consumers. The East India Company found it difficult to control the trade by themselves, because of native “interlopers” who shipped cotton from Calcutta on their own account. This was a time when Portuguese merchants of substance were prosperous in Bengal; they in their turn saw the benefit to themselves of shipping the procured fibre to China, through Macao. Defeated in their attempt to establish a monopoly in cotton, the English East India Company then resorted to the doubtful expedient of sending large consignments of opium to China, the trade in which was developing by the independent action of the outside traders.31
Opium was used in China at first for its medicinal properties only, but a new use was found for it later. Lionel Curtis is an important authority to quote in this connection:32
“The conquest of the Philippine Islands by Spain presently led to a large immigration of Chinese, who there acquired the habit of smoking tobacco, which the Spaniards brought from America. Their surgeons had learnt to treat malaria by mixing opium and arsenic with the tobacco smoked by their patients. The Chinese copied this treatment and presently found that opium could be smoked by itself. It was thus, through tobacco that a useful drug began to demoralise this enormous section of the human race.”
In the same manner, the Dutch had a share in spreading the opium habit among the Chinese. As a matter of fact the first recorded mention of an opium-smoking divan is contained in Kampfer’s History of Japan, where he explains that visiting Java in 1689, he smoked there opium diluted with water and mixed with tobacco.
The habit took long to spread, however, and it was not till the middle of the XVIIIth century that the popular demand for the deleterious drug began to grow; and since the East India Company did not countenance the trade at first, it was carried on by the “outside” traders. In course of time the enormous profits of the opium trade became an obsession, and the so-called “interlopers” were making such profits as led the Company, in 1781, to embark upon the trade in China too, against Chinese official condemnation of the traffic. Sad to relate, Portuguese merchants at Macao were not above trafficking in the “black mud” of such evil repute.
The Macao authorities looked askance at the opium trade, however, and, upon representations by the Canton Government, the Portuguese subjects gave up that traffic. The non-Portuguese foreigners, loth to part with the large profits earned from opium, changed the location of the opium depot from Macao to Lintin Anchorage, on the Pearl River.
Authorities agree that, as the Dutch controlled Formosa and its trade from 1624 to 1662, it is more than probable that the practice of opium smoking among the Amoy Chinese, who visited Formosa for purposes of trade, began at this time by the use of opium mixed with tobacco.
The supercargoes of the English East India Company became more important as the China trade increased in value, and eventually each of the five supercargoes had a grand residence of his own in Macao, while two large buildings on the Praia Grande were occupied by the rest of the staff. The chief supercargo became quite a lordly personage, his salary and emoluments amounting to about $25,000 – fully a quarter of the total allowance made by the Company for expenses in China. The Company leased, from Mr. Manuel Pereira, for the residence of the Chief, the property known to-day as Camoens’ Gardens, the finest estate in the colony.
Let us borrow the picturesque description of “Camoens’ Grotto” by Sir George Staunton, as the place appeared to him at the time of his visit to China, in 1792:33
“The cave”, wrote the Ambassador’s Secretary, “is a little below the loftiest eminence in the town, and called Camoens’ Cave, from a tradition current in the Settlement, that the Portuguese poet of that name, who had certainly resided a considerable time at Macao, wrote his celebrated poem of the Lusiad in that spot. This interesting cave is now in the middle of a garden belonging to a house where the Embassador and two of his suite resided at Macao, upon an invitation from one of the gentlemen of the factory, who dwelt in it when not called upon to be at Canton. This house and garden command a very extensive prospect. In laying out the latter, none of its advantages have been neglected. It preserves every variety of surface, and contains a number of beautiful shrubs and fruit trees, growing in such apparent irregularity as to look like the spontaneous production of the place.”
It was amidst surroundings of such sylvan beauty, that Jean François Galaup, Comte de Laperouse, in command of the French geographical expedition aboard the Boussole and the Astrolabe, in 1787 was able to carry out observations for scientific information regarding terrestrial magnetism. All the courtesy due to the high rank of the French visitors was extended to them by the Macao Governor, Bernardo Aleixo de Lemos, who ordered the Macao pilots to take the ships to the naval anchorage at Taipa Island. “Governor Lemos received these officers as if they were his own countrymen, complied with all their wishes in the kindest manner, and even offered to place his own dwelling at their disposal”. On an eminence in Camoens’ Gardens, at a point overlooking the Inner Harbour, the Observatory was built. Up to recent years, the pavilion was still intact. It is a sad commentary that not a vestige of this historical construction can be found in the gardens at the present time.
Birth: 21 April 1825, Sé, Macau Marriage: 7 August 1838, at the chapel in the home of Lourenço’s father, Domingos Pio (Reg. Sto António), Macau, Lourenço Caetano Cortela Marques Death: 23 August 1901, at her home at 3 Largo de Camõoes (Reg. Sto António), Macau
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Birth: 7 September 1852, Sto António, Macau Unmarried Death: 5 March 1911, at his home at 3 Largo Luís de Camões (Reg. Sto António), Macau
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Birth: 3 November 1850, Sto António, Macau Unmarried
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Birth: 1 May 1859, Sto António, Macau Death: 10 September 1903, at 3 Largo Luís de Camões (Reg. Sto António), Macau
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Register or login? none of whom was married and all three of whom are since deceased. A descendant of Manuel Pereira appeared in Hongkong on military service over fifty years ago, when he took part in the organising of the First Hongkong Regiment, a British force of Chinese recruited for the most part from the hefty natives of Shantung Province. He was a junior officer at the time; later he became Brigadier-General Wm. Pereira in the British Army. He lost his life as a member of an expedition which attempted to reach the summit of Mt. Everest in the Himalayas.
Visitors of various nationalities have contributed verses of charming beauty dedicated to Portugal’s epic poet; and the verses have been engraved in marble and granite tablets erected on both sides of a pedestal surmounted by a bust of Camoens. The bronze bust was cast in Lisbon to the order and at the cost of Commendador Lourenço Marques; who, besides, kept an autograph album in his own mansion to preserve memories of distinguished persons who had visited the Grotto. In this album appear the signatures of such prominent men as Ex-President Ulysses Grant of the U.S.A., His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, Sir John Davis and Sir John Bowring, both Governors of Hongkong, to mention only four among many others. Bowring’s Sonnet is here reproduced for its singular beauty:
Gem of the Orient Earth and open sea,
MACAO! that in thy lap and on thy breast
Hast gathered beauties all the loveliest,
Which the sun smiles on in his majesty.
The very clouds that top each mountain crest
Seem to repose there, lingering lovingly.
How full of grace the green Cathayan tree
Bends to the breeze – and now thy sands are prest
With gentle waves which ever and anon
Break their awakened furies on thy shore.
Were these the scenes that poet looked upon,
Whose lyre though known to fame knew misery more?
They have their glories, and earth’s diadems
Have naught so bright as genius’ gilded gems.
Not to be behind his foreign colleagues, a Manchu mandarin dedicated to Camoens a verse inscribed on a pailau, or honorific commemorative arch, erected in front of the Grotto. This arch is unfortunately not now standing.
One of the last tributes to the memory of Camoens came from a British diplomat when on a holiday visit to Hongkong and South China. It was a bronze laurel wreath from Sir Miles Lampson, H. B. M.’s Minister to China, and it was placed with due ceremony at the foot of the granite pedestal.
Shortly before the death of Commendador Lourenço Marques, he sold the Gardens and mansion to the Government of Macao. May this national memorial never be alienated by the Portuguese Government on any consideration!
Prominent among the independent traders in Macao, in the second quarter of the 19th century, were the brothers Magniac, who were succeeded by Dr. Jardine and Mr. Matheson, working in partnership, as consular agents for Prussia and Hanover. The name “White Horse Hong”, in Chinese, still commemorates the occupation in those days of the firm’s premise at Rua de Hospital, Macao, by the firm. Jardine, Matheson & Co. still flourishes as one of the leading British trading companies in China. Others were Mr. Thomas Dent, founder of the firm of Dent & Co., representing Sardinia; Andrew Ljungstedt, Consul for Sweden, long after all legitimate Swedish trade in China had ceased; Thomas Beale; James Innes; and the American Samuel Russell, founder of the celebrated Russell & Co., an employee of whose (Mr. William C. Hunter) was the author of Bits of Old China, The Fankwae at Canton, and Old Canton, telling us in a number of pen-pictures many stories of the old China traders.
The above-mentioned Mr. Beale owned a fine house on the slopes of Monte Hill with an extensive garden and an aviary. A contemporary journal 34 gives an account of this interesting estate:
“Up to 1838, Mr. Thomas Beale’s aviary of curious and beautiful birds was one of the principal attractions of Macao. It was a wire house about 40 feet long and 50 feet high, surmounted by a dome, and contained a variety of shrubs and even large trees with basket nets. The greatest attraction was a living Bird of Paradise from the Moluccas, which was in the owner’s possession eighteen years; also a magnificent peacock from Damau, besides nearly thirty species of pheasants, among them the Reeves’s pheasant from the north, whose tail feathers approached the extraordinary dimension of six feet, forming a magnificent train. Four cocks were brought from Canton in 1830, purchased for $130, also a medallion pheasant with a beautiful membrane of resplendent colours (purple, red and green). There was also a large assortment of macaws and cockatoos, a pair of superb crowned pigeons (Goura coronata), several Nicobar ground pigeons, Mandarin ducks with their brilliant and variegated plumage, except during four summer months when changing feathers; and some one hundred and fifty other birds of different sorts.”
“The Botanic Garden which contained this aviary was also a valuable collection of trees and plants and upwards of 2,500 pots, mostly Chinese flowers, probably the richest collection of Chinese flowers ever made by any foreigner – serving in fact as the nursery in which some of the rarest productions of China have been prepared for transmission to the West.”
Macao, for its diminutive size, has been a nursery of considerable value from which the great cities of Europe have drawn quite a number of influences; as a matter of fact many curious Oriental plants cultivated in Macao were introduced to Europe by Portuguese travellers returning from China in the early days.
Besides the merchants, there lived in Macao, in those times, other foreigners who have made a name for themselves, notably George Chinnery, the artist, and Robert Morrison, the missionary. Morrison reached Macao in 1807, on board an American ship from New York, having been refused permission by the East India Company to take passage in a British vessel from London. The British community in China rallied to his help, and it was mainly through the efforts of Sir George Staunton that he was given a salary of £1,000 a year as interpreter for the East India Company, to enable him to carry on missionary work, for which purpose the East India Company also sent out from England a complete printing press and two professional printers, at considerable cost, in 1813.
In connection with the printing press, which had been such a feature in Portuguese cultural work in the interest of China in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries, it might be stated that it came into considerable prominence at Macao in the early days of the XIXth century, when it was used to a great extent by the English, in Macao. The visitors printed a large number of important books, tracts, papers, etc., in Chinese and English. In Macao Morrison prepared and published his Chinese-English dictionary, as well as other books.
It speaks well for the tolerance of the Macao authorities that they closed an eye despite the fact that to the publishing work then being illegally carried on by Morrison and others in the colony of Macao, the Portuguese themselves were prohibited by the Lisbon Government from doing any printing in the colonies. This liberal gesture by the Portuguese in favour of Morrison’s work has never been acknowledged, so far as I know, by any writer at any time. Since the English and all other foreigners were forbidden by the Chinese to publish books at Canton, during the months when they resided in the foreign settlements for purposes of trade each year, Morrison’s work, as well as that of his missionary colleagues who followed him, was greatly facilitated by the impetus which the printing of these books in Macao gave to the spread of the gospel by the London Missionary Society and similar organisations at the time.
The Manchu authorities at Canton opposed, to the point of fanaticism, the introduction of Christianity into China. What they really feared was the introduction of new ideas – ideas which, they felt, might conflict with all the traditional deep-rooted Chinese beliefs and the classical learning associated with the mandarin system which then prevailed in their country. Thus, by not impeding Morrison’s work in the printing laws, the Portuguese did indirectly assist Protestant missionary work in China.
That gesture was typical of the people of Macao. All through the long history of this colony, the Portuguese have distinguished themselves by their invariable courtesy and open-hearted hospitality to those who have visited Macao. Foreign visitors have almost always been granted facilities which Portuguese visitors to foreign lands would probably not have enjoyed in other countries, and it is a sad commentary on the conduct of not a few the visitors that they have not shown anything like proper gratitude or even common courtesy for the concessions and hospitality given to them in Macao.
In some instances the Portuguese have even been insulted by men who have been sheltered in Macao. The history of Macao contains many glaring instances of this kind, but the most flagrant of these was the case of Mr. Andrew Ljungstedt’s studied affront to his Portuguese hosts, for he went so far as to repay their generous hospitality with the most outrageous libels and incivilities. I feel called upon to take up the cudgels against Ljungstedt on behalf of the Portuguese.
In order that what follows may be correctly appreciated, it will be necessary to reproduce the opinions of Ljungstedt on the origin of the Portuguese race in China from the time of the settlement of Macao in 1557. The author of the book 35 in question, Andrew Ljungstedt, actually had been for a time a resident of Macao in the capacity of a merchant-consul, and had abused the hospitality of the colony in his references to the origin of the Portuguese. He took advantage of that hospitality even beyond strictly social matters; he availed himself of the library of the Macao Senate, and obtained the loan of documents and notes in the possession of scholars like Bishop Saraiva and Mr. Miranda e Lima, who placed their own rare books and manuscripts unreservedly at his disposal when Ljungstedt expressed a wish to write an account of the Portuguese settlements in China. What the object of his approach to the Senate and to the Church dignitary and also to the Macao official must have been it should not be difficult to discern! He must have had in view the obtaining of material for the preparation of his essays, with the purpose of offending the very people whom he so barefacedly approached for favours which he used for an unworthy and undignified purpose.
In the preface to his book Ljungstedt, the author, made the admission that since his “two Historical contributions”, concerning the Portuguese settlements in China, and principally that of Macao, might be of some public utility, “I resolved to revise my essays, correct mistakes, enlarge the view and connect occurrences in a natural series of chronology, … that any inquirer may satisfy his curiosity by referring to the places alluded to, and decide on their relative merits”. It is in the revised version of the “Essays” that the offensive passages appear. Chapter IV of the work is devoted to a glaringly imperfect and ill-digested summary of the “population” of Macao so as, in the words of the ‘preface’, to “gratify general inquisitiveness”.
It is necessary to set up Ljungstedt’s bogey of alleged facts “concerning the Portuguese settlements in China” in order that it may be most effectively and completely demolished by the citation of authoritative writings by authors of various periods who enjoy a reputation above that of the bigoted Ljungstedt.
The opportunity of rebutting Ljungstedt’s charges offers itself on the present occasion when I feel that, for the honour of my ancestors, I must accept what I regard as a challenge, and seek, to the best of my power, to dissipate the falsehoods that have obtained currency far too long.
From Chapter IV the following paragraphs 36 are extracted. They contain all the ingredients of the most insulting calumnies. Serious exception is taken to them from the fact that they have been quoted in books that have commanded a certain degree of attention and have remained unchallenged all these years. I now call into question these paragraphs and take up the gauntlet defence of the progenitors of Macaistas (or Macaenses), who are proud to trace their origin to the intrepid followers of great Portuguese of sterling character and distinction like Prince Henry the Navigator and Afonso de Albuquerque.
The following are the extracts referred to in the above paragraph:
“The inhabitants of Macao are divided into three distinct classes, viz., vassals of Portugal, vassals of China, and foreigners; of each we shall in turn give a brief account.
“If what a grave historian asserts- and there is no ground for impeaching his veracity – be true, that the ‘prisons of Portugal are now and then emptied, and the vicious tenants, and even culprits, who should have finished their career in the galleys, were sent on board the royal fleets to serve in India; – we have less reason to shudder at the enormities perpetrated by the Portuguese in many parts of Asia. Some of this unholy stock respected neither friends nor foes; they seized every opportunity to enrich their commander and his horde. They were at times pirates or smugglers; at times strolling merchants. Several of this contaminated caste settled, no doubt, at Macao, with men of more correct morals. By this mixture, those who had reluctantly run the race of vice, were by good example recalled to the comforts of social life, which were soon enhanced by nuptial ties. Malay, Chinese, Japanese, and other women became their partners in wedlock, and mothers of a generation the descendants of which are perhaps still members of the community. Their progeny is distinguished by the denomination of ‘Mestiços’, or mongrels. Next to this class range those whose forefathers were not Portuguese, but either Malays, Chinese or Japanese converts; but they, like the posterity of the Portuguese, are free citizens.”
By contrast let the writing of a Portuguese author speak for itself. “The influence of the Portuguese in the East,” J.J.A. Campos writes in his History of the Portuguese in Bengal, “has not yet been adequately dealt with, though a lot has been written on the Portuguese navigators, their conquests, and their heroic feats. The permanent Portuguese influence, largely working unknown, is felt in numerous walks of life in India. The Portuguese were the first to establish an intimate contact between the East and the West. The first impressions of the East about the West were largely such as the Portuguese created. These impressions were, therefore, more profound and lasting than is generally recognized”. Campos was one of the joint editors of The Century Review, and was a member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
“Mongrels”, applied to the Macaenses, is a word possessing neither the merit of truth nor elegance! Campos, on the other hand, is proud to think that among the various relics the Portuguese have left “the most notable are their descendants.“
Ljungstedt’s choice of words is unjustifiable, to say the least; his language is as unfortunate as it is offensive. The use of the term “Mestiços” – or “mongrels”, with its malicious implication –
and perverted phrases like “unholy stock” and “contaminated caste”, betray a mentality above which Ljungstedt does not appear to be able to rise.
It is refreshing and profitable to consider, in its true light, the other side of the gloomy picture presented by Ljungstedt.
Major C. R. Boxer, who has carried out careful research into the history of Portuguese exploration and colonisation and has published the results of his findings in learned books, has this to say of the first Portuguese who settled in China: 37
“From the year 1514, in which the Portuguese first came to China, they trafficked in various parts of this Kingdom … In the year 1555 the trade was shifted to the island of Lampacao, whence in 1557, it was transferred to this part of Machao, where a populous settlement arose through trade and commerce. In the year 1585, when Dom Francisco Mascarenhas was Viceroy of India, it was made a city by His Majesty, under the title of the Name of God, being granted the Cross of Christ for a coat of arms, and these liberties which it enjoys under the same privileges as the city of Evora… The families in this city number 850 Portuguese with their children” – (who certainly cannot, except by a diseased, prejudiced imagination, be described as mongrels)- “who are much stronger and lustier than any others in the East … In addition to this number of married Portuguese, there are about as many native families, including Chinese Christians … Besides these, the city contains many Portuguese sailors, pilots and masters, the majority of them married in the Kingdom (i. e., Portugal) whilst other are bachelors, who sail in the voyages to Japan, Manila, Macassar, Solor and Cochin-China. There are over 150 of these, some of them very wealthy with capital of over 50,000 xerafims”.
Dr. Edgar Prestage is another authority to cite. He is an author with a name and a reputation to maintain; he is a Professor in the University of London, he holds the degrees of M.A., F.R.H.S., F.R.G.S., and he is acknowledged as one of the leading authorities in the world on Portuguese Literature and History. His writings certainly command a far wider hearing and entitle him to much greater respect than do those of an obscure, pretentious person like Ljungstedt. I quote the following from one of Dr. Prestage’s historical works: 38
“When Albuquerque died in 1515, he had laid the foundations of European sovereignty in the East, and his action has special importance in world history, because the Portuguese, after breaking through that fear of unknown seas which kept Europe apart from Asia, set up a model which their successors imitated in varying degrees. They had in the beginning no idea of establishing a political dominion. As happened afterwards to the Dutch and English, it was forced upon them when in the pursuit of legitimate trade. The latter, however, had only commercial objects in view, but the Portuguese monarchs were also crusaders and evangelisers. They sought to continue in the East that war against the infidel which they had waged for centuries in the West, and to spread the Gospel. Under the banner of the Quinas, which displayed the symbol of Redemption, the missionaries they sent out founded native Christian communities which still exist on the Malabar coast and in Ceylon, and in Japan a church which, though destroyed by persecution, gave martyrs not inferior in heroism to those who adorned Rome under the Caesars. But this work of evangelisation, associated with the name of St. Francis Xavier, began only in the reign of John III; the time of King Manoel was one of empire-building and trade, of which Albuquerque was the great instrument. His first task was to drive Mohammedans from enemy states off the Indian Ocean, and next to regulate its commercial traffic for the benefit of his countrymen, an undertaking new to history. His predecessors had required that every native vessel should carry a Portuguese passport. He enforced this, but would give none for the Red Sea. On the land he rested his dominions on four bases; direct rule over the chief trading centres, Ormuz, Malacca and Goa, the last being the pivot of the whole; fortresses at strategic points on the east coast of Africa and in India, as naval bases, and to protect the factories; where fortresses were impracticable, suzerainty over the native rulers, who paid tribute to the King of Portugal; and, lastly, the colonisation of the territory of Goa, by means of marriages between Portuguese and native women.”
Wise and far-sighted was Albuquerque, greatest of Portugal’s governors of India, in advocating a policy of inter-marriages as one of the bases of successful colonisation. Bigoted and narrow-minded was the man Ljungstedt who sought to cry down this policy by defaming the descendants of persons of mixed races.
It was in the XVIth century that Albuquerque enunciated his policy of inter-marriage of Europeans and Asiatics. Confucius would have been in complete accord with that idea, nor did he not say, “Within the four seas, all men are brothers”? Whole-hearted agreement with such an idea was expressed in a commemorative tablet erected by a distinguished Chinese scholar in the Temple of the Queen of Heaven, at Mongha in Macao at the end of the devastating Taiping Rebellion, over three and a half centuries after Albuquerque (Within the precincts of this same ancient, historic temple was the first treaty of commerce and friendship signed between Caleb Cushing, the American Plenipotentiary, and Commissioner Ki Ying, on behalf of the Emperor of China.) A free translation of the commemorative tablet reads as follows:
“Where beauty lingers in mountains and streams, Nature is king. In the midst of such loveliness in Macao, men’s hearts were touched with goodness. That is why, though many places in China were destroyed and many people were killed during the Taiping Rebellion, the people of Macao lived tranquilly and at peace. And refugees came to Macao, to escape the turmoil of China. The Portuguese colony became a little paradise on earth, protected by the holy invocation of the gods, as a reward for the goodness of its people. Let it be hoped that the residents of this place will honour one another, live and inter-marry harmoniously, trade profitably, harvest plentifully, worship faithfully, and then will happiness reign supreme.”
To continue the extracts from Dr. Prestage’s book: 39 c
“He (Albuquerque) hoped by this policy (of inter-marriage) to induce his countrymen to settle down and forma loyal population. As it was impossible to send white women to India, his scheme of mixed marriages seemed the only solution, and it was made practicable by the fact that the Portuguese had no objection to mixing their blood. They had already done so at home with Africans brought home by the early navigators. He could not keep his officers in the East, but he was anxious to maintain there a body of artisans, soldiers, and especially gunners, for his power depended, next to personal valour, on artillery. After his final conquest of Goa, he married some hundreds for his men to natives, mostly widows of slain Moslems. He presided at the wedding and is said to have conducted the ceremony himself, and he gave dowries. There were many candidates for these unions, but according to his own statement he chose them carefully, and only ‘granted leave to marry to men of good character and services’. It seems, however, that at first they were convicts, which made the fidalgos laugh at him. They said that the Christian community he aimed at could never be established by such means. But they were wrong, as Barros points out, for in his day the first settlers of the island of St. Thomas and later those of Australia belonged to the same class.
“The half-caste population which came into being tended to degenerate, and had not the virility of Europeans… Albuquerque suggested that they should be sent to Portugal at the age of twelve and only return at twenty-five. Yet some of these half-breeds were to distinguish themselves both in military and civil posts, and in view of the scanty population of Portugal and the calls on it from settlements in so many quarters of the globe, her Eastern rule could scarcely have been supported so long as it was in any other way.”
“The district of Goa contained a large native population, which could not be displaced and had to be governed. Albuquerque kept the city under his own authority, established a senate modelled on that of Lisbon, the first in the East, but he entrusted the administration of justice and finance to native officials. He respected Eastern customs, except in the case of the cruel practice of sati, which he abolished at once, while the English tolerated it for long after they had established an effective rule. He maintained the ancient village communities, an integral part of Indian life, and after his death a register was complied which served as a guide to future administrators. He made use of Hindu clerks, not only in the revenue department, but also in the factories, and established schools to educate native children and teach them Portuguese. The language of the conquerors became a lingua franca throughout the East and, though much corrupted, it is still used in some parts, while their names are found everywhere. The Dutch, who ruled for about as long, left no such trace behind them.”
Contrast Dr. Prestage’s guarded caution in approaching the question of the coming of the Portuguese to India with Ljungstedst’s unrestrained language. “It seems that at first they were convicts,” writes Dr. Prestage. Because some, a few perhaps, of the first arrivals, in India may have been convicts, is it in any sense fair, reasonable, or just to class, as Ljungstedt does, all persons in Macao of mixed Portuguese and Asiatic descent as “mongrels”? “Several of this contaminated caste settled, no doubt,” Ljungstedt goes on, “at Macao … those whose forefathers were not Portuguese, but either Malays, Chinese, or Japanese converts, like the posterity of the Portuguese, are free citizens”. By a complete lack of common courtesy, not to say honesty of purpose and moral dignity, Ljungstedt displays his true motive: to insult, brazenly and unjustly, the people who permitted him to live at Macao, when he could not do so in China, and who treated him hospitably, assisted him and even entertained him in this colony for so many years.
Albuquerque’s hope that his policy of marriages between the Portuguese and native women would induce his countrymen to settle down and forma loyal population was fully justified. The distinguished Portuguese Governor served as the chief instrument in the carrying out of his monarch’s “King Manoel’s) scheme of empire-building and trade, based on the Christian principle of founding Christian communities. In the colonization of territory, to a great extent by means of marriages between Portuguese and native women, Albuquerque was singularly successful. These unions were not indiscriminately permitted. There were many candidates for these mixed marriages, but Albuquerque, according to his own statement, “chose them carefully, and only granted leave to marry to men of good character and services”. The soundness of this policy was amply demonstrated with the passing of years, in the growth of a large population of persons of mixed parentage in the East, many of whom were endowed with the best qualities of the Western and Eastern races.
An outstanding characteristic of the descendants of the Portuguese settlers in Asia is loyalty to the Fatherland and to Mother Church which India’s first Portuguese Governor envisaged as a result of the principle of inter-marriage.
Friendliness and hospitality; readiness to please and to serve; industriousness and fidelity to employers; courage in the face of danger, fortitude in adversity. These are all notable qualities of the people of mixed Portuguese and Asiatic blood. Last but not least: kindness and sympathy with those in distress and practical help in relieving their distress, are manifested wherever these people have settled.
Certain prejudiced writers, ungrateful foreign guests in Macao, lacking that Christian spirit which some of them were at such pains to impress upon their readers, have even gone so far as to dispute the tenure of Macao by the Portuguese. I need not quote from either Ljungstedt or Morrison, two among those guilty of base ingratitude, but the appositeness of a quotation from Sir George Staunton is obvious. Staunton, it should be noted, was a careful observer, an able writer, and an accomplished sinologue. The passage referred to reads:40
What more indisputable authority can be quoted than the provisions of a solemn treaty? Article II of the Protocol, done at Lisbon, on the 26th March, 1887, and signed by Henriques Barros Gomes, on behalf of the Portuguese Government, and James Duncan Campbell, on behalf of the Government of China, provides that:
“China confirms the perpetual occupation and government of Macao and its dependencies by Portugal, as any other Portuguese Possession.”
The Rev. W. H. Medhurst, who lived with Robert Morrison in Macao, referring to the situation in Macao in 1816, states:42
“In the senate house, which is built of granite and two stories high, are several columns of the same material, with Chinese characters cut into them, signifying a solemn cession of the place (Macao) from the Emperor of China. This solid monument is, however, an insufficient guard against the encroachments of its Chinese neighbours, who treat the Portuguese very cavalierly; exact duties sometimes in the port of Macao; punish individuals within their walls for crimes committed against Chinese, particularly murder.”41
As for Ljungstedt’s ideas of propriety, I do not seek to disguise my contempt for his disparaging remarks concerning the Portuguese in Macao and assertions of historical “facts”. Unfortunately they have been repeated by several writers who have accepted unsifted, distorted statements as facts.
The Portuguese were partly to blame for not having troubled to refute Ljungstedt’s claims long before now and for allowing his book to remain unchallenged for so many years. That indifference was unfortunate, for Ljungstedt’s ungracious statements have been repeated in later publications whose authors, relying on Ljungstedt for their material, have perpetuated the uncomplimentary language to which I take such strong exception. Hunter, whose little book I have quoted so often, also fell into like error in all good faith, in his belief that Ljungstedt was “really” an authority, and he had this to say about the Swedish writer:
“There lived at Macao when I arrived there (the self-styled) Sir (?) Andrew Ljungstedt and Mr. Ullmann, the former the last chief of the old Swedish Company’s Factory, the ‘Suy Hong’. Both finally retired to Macao and eventually died there, the former in November, 1835, after sixty years, and the latter after sixty-five years from the date of his arrival. During the last years of his life Sir (?) Andrew occupied himself in writing a history of the Portuguese possessions in the East, and a history of Macao, both full of most curious and reliable information.”
As to the “reliability” of the information I must join issue with Mr. Hunter, who was in no position to judge of the “reliability” to which he refers. Subsequent investigations confirm me in my first judgment, which I have no hesitation in re-stating for the greater reason that, in the course of my reading of historical records relating to Macao, I have regretfully come across, besides others, the following passage in a book by Mr. R. Montgomery Martin:43
“Their (Portuguese) progeny is called mongrels. Next to this class are those whose forefathers were either Malay, Chinese, or Japanese converts.”
I have already stated, at some length and in unequivocal language, my opinion of Ljungstedt. He and men of his ilk have failed to understand that there is no dishonour in being descended from Christian parents of different races, legitimately married according to the sacred rites of the Catholic Church, and in accord with the policy of inter-marriage first enunciated and actively encouraged by Portugal’s governor and the greatest of European Viceroys of India.
It bears repeating that the selection of partners for the mixed marriages was not perfunctorily or indiscriminately carried out; care was exercised to see that the husbands were men deserving of their Christian spouses. We the descendants of the Portuguese pioneers in Asia, are happy and proud to think that we are inheritors of the Christian faith and ideals of our forefathers. We seek to be guided by the Christian morality enjoined by the Sacrament of Matrimony, and to provide, as far as in us lies, for the spiritual no less than the material well-being of children who are the offspring of unions contracted and solemnised with all the formalities and requirements of our Holy Mother the Catholic Church.