MACAO.
Contrast with Hongkong -- An interesting survival --
Trading facilities -- Relations with Chinese Government --
Creditable to both parties -- Successful resistance to the
Dutch -- Portuguese expulsion from Japan -- English trading
competitors enjoy hospitality of Macao -- Trade with Canton
-- Hongkong becomes a rival -- Macao eclipsed -- Gambling,
Coolie trade, Piracy -- Population -- Cradle of many
improvements -- Distinguished names.
The three hours' transit from Hongkong to Macao carries one into
another world. The incessant scream of steam-launches which plough the
harbour in all directions night and day gives place to the drowsy
chime of church bells, and instead of the throng of busy men, one
meets a solitary black mantilla walking demurely in the middle of a
crooked and silent street. Perhaps nowhere is the modern world with
its clamour thrown into such immediate contrast with that which
belongs to the past.
The settlement of Macao is a monument of Chinese toleration and of
Portuguese tenacity. The Portuguese learnt at an early stage of their
intercourse the use of the master-key to good relations with the
Chinese authorities. It was to minister freely to their cupidity,
which the Portuguese could well afford to do out of the profits of
their trading. To "maintain ourselves in this place we must spend
much with the Chinese heathen," as they themselves said in 1593 in a
letter to Philip I. Macao is, besides, an interesting relic of that
heroic age when a new heaven and a new earth became the dream of
European adventurers. The spot was excellently well suited for the
purposes, commercial and propagandist, which it was destined to serve;
for in spite of the crimes and cruelties of the sixteenth century
argonauts, the religious element was strongly represented in all their
enterprises.[36] Situated outside the river proper, though within its
wide estuary, and open to the sea, the settlement yet communicates by
an inner passage or branch of the Pearl river with the city of Canton.
It possesses two sheltered harbours adequate to the nautical
requirements of the Middle Ages.
The small peninsula of Macao combined business conveniences with
salubrity of climate in a degree absolutely unrivalled in the torrid
zone. Its picturesque scenery was always found refreshing to the eye
wearied by long contemplation of brick walls, malarious swamps, or the
monotonous glare of the melancholy ocean. From the Chinese point of
view, also, it was an ideal location for strangers, since they could
be thus kept out of sight, isolated like a ship in quarantine, and put
under effective restraint. The situation lent itself to the
traditional Chinese tactics of controlling barbarians by stopping
their food-supply, a form of discipline of which the efficacy had been
proved at an early period in the history of the colony. The Chinese
adopted all the measures they could think of to confine traders to
Macao, where certain indulgences were held out to them, subject to
good behaviour.
The Portuguese adventurers of the early sixteenth century, to whom the
modern world owes so much, did well in pitching on this "gem of the
orient earth and open sea" as a link in their chain of trading
stations, which extended from the coasts of Africa to the Japanese
islands. To trade as such the Chinese Government never seem to have
had any objection, nor, would it appear, to foreigners as such. So
long as there was nought to fear from their presence, the ancient
maxim of cherishing men from afar could be followed without reserve,
for the Chinese are by nature not an unkindly people. Tradition,
indeed, claims for the settlement of foreigners in the Cantonese
archipelago a purely hospitable origin, a storm-beaten vessel having
in the year 1517 received permission from the local authorities to
repair damages and dry her cargo there. The Portuguese frequented
several harbours before they settled at Macao, their principal station
being the island of Sanchuan, where Xavier was buried. About the
middle of the sixteenth century, the city of Canton being besieged by
a large piratical force whose base of operations was Macao, the high
provincial authorities in their extremity sought the aid of the
Portuguese, who came promptly to the rescue of the city, defeated the
pirates, and captured their stronghold. Moved by mixed feelings of
gratitude and policy, the Canton authorities thereupon sanctioned the
Portuguese occupation of Macao, not ill-pleased to set up at that
strategic point so effective a counterpoise to the native pirates.
It said as much for the tact of the Portuguese as for the forbearance
of the Chinese authorities that such an isolated position as that of
Macao should have been held without force, and only on the prestige of
past achievements, on terms of mutual amity, for nearly four hundred
years. The Portuguese squatters paid to the Chinese Government a
ground-rent of about £150 per annum, in consideration of which they
enjoyed practical independence. "The merchants, fully aware that their
settlement at Macao was due neither to any conquest, nor as a return
for services by co-operating in destruction of pirates, bore in mind
two principles--to be on good terms with the provincial authorities,
and to improve as much as possible their exclusive trade with China."
The forms of administrative authority were indeed maintained by the
Chinese, their permission being required to reside and to build houses
and so forth--regulations which were more vexatious, perhaps, in
theory than in fact. The exercise of Chinese jurisdiction over the
person was asserted with moderation as regards the Portuguese, though
full authority was maintained over the native population. The
Portuguese, however, became dissatisfied with the relationship which
had worked smoothly for three hundred years, and when the
treaty-making era arrived they sought means to improve their status.
By persistent efforts they gradually freed themselves from the
overlordship of China, this object being finally attained by good
diplomacy in 1887, when the Imperial Government ceded to Portugal
sovereign rights over Macao in consideration of assistance rendered by
the colony in the collection of the Chinese opium revenue.
Macao did not escape the fortunes of the long war of commercial
supremacy which was waged between Holland and Portugal, but the colony
successfully resisted two attempts to reduce it in 1622 and 1627. Its
resources at that period enabled the diminutive settlement even to
play some part in the game of empire in China itself, for we are told
that a force of 400 men from India, under the command of two
Portuguese officers, proceeded by land to Peking to support the last
Ming emperor in his struggle with the invading Manchus. These
auxiliaries returned whence they came without seeing active service.
Although the Dutch failed to take military possession of Macao, they
took other trading colonies, and succeeded eventually in wresting from
the Portuguese their Asiatic commerce. They supplanted them entirely
in Japan, whose "gold and spoils" had greatly enriched the colony.
Being expelled, not without reason, in 1662, the Portuguese fugitives
from Japan retired to Macao.
Other competitors also began to appear and to assert their right to
participate in the trade of the Far East, and Macao became the
hostelry for merchants of all nations, who carried on business with
the great Chinese emporium, Canton. Chief among these guests were the
Dutch and English East India Companies, both of which maintained
establishments at Macao for some two hundred years.
The English Company had made use of the Macao anchorage first under a
treaty with the viceroy of Goa, and subsequently under Cromwell's
treaty with the Portuguese Government in 1654, which permitted English
ships to enter all the ports in the Portuguese Indies. Before the
close of the seventeenth century ships were despatched direct from
England to Macao. The English adventurers were not satisfied with the
privilege of anchoring so far from the great emporium, but direct
trade with Canton had yet to be fought for. The energetic Captain
Weddell, commanding the ship London, in 1655 met the obstructive
tactics of the Cantonese authorities by bombarding the Bogue forts and
forcing his way up the river, after which he was received in friendly
audience by the viceroy, and was granted full participation in the
Canton trade, much to the chagrin, it is said, of the jealous Macao
merchants.
The loss of its own direct commerce was thus compensated for by the
tribute which the Portuguese colony was able to levy upon the general
trade of China, by whomsoever carried on. Massive houses, with immense
verandahs running all round them, and spacious and cool interior
recesses, attest to this day the ancient glory of Macao. Though now
neglected, and perhaps converted to baser uses, they afford a glimpse
of the easy life led by the Company's agents and the merchants in the
days before the treaty. During the business season, which was in the
cool months, the whole mercantile community repaired to the factories
at Canton while the ships lay at the deep-water anchorage of Whampoa,
and between these two points the work of the year was done--arduous
enough, no doubt, while it lasted. In spite of some contemporary
testimony to the contrary, one can hardly conceive the quasi-imprisonment
within the Canton factories as a kind of life to be enjoyed, but only
as one to be endured for an object. At any rate, when the last cargo
of tea had been shipped off the scene was like the break-up of a
school. The merchants and their whole establishment betook themselves
to their sumptuous river barges, and glided down the stream to Macao,
where the luxury of a long holiday awaited them. Once at least in
every year the foreigners were in full accord with the Chinese
authorities, who sternly forbade loitering, and kept up the form of
peremptorily sending the merchants away as soon as their business had
been done. Nevertheless, those who desired to remain found no
difficulty.
The Portuguese colony, whether or not under compulsion, played an
ungracious part in the troubles which preceded the outbreak of war
between Great Britain and China. To evict from their houses a company
of helpless people and drive them to sea, even at the bidding of an
oriental tyrant, was a proceeding little in keeping with the
traditions of Lusitanian chivalry. But Englishmen may very well
forgive the Portuguese this act of inhumanity, since it compelled the
fugitives to seek a home of their own in the Canton waters, destined
to eclipse the fading glories of "la cidade do nome de Deos da Macao."
The treaty of 1842, which enabled British merchants to set up house
for themselves, deprived Macao of a large portion of its revenue; but
even under this eclipse the era of its prosperity did not then come
quite to an end.
The occupation of Hongkong supplied to British traders all the wants
which Macao had previously furnished, accompanied by a security which
the Portuguese Administration was unable to confer. Its harbour was
incomparably superior, fulfilling all the requirements of a modern
seaport. These advantages were irresistible; nevertheless, the
merchants vacated with evident reluctance the roomy mansions in which
the pleasantest part of their lives had been spent. Several of them
retained possession of their Macao homes, using them for purposes of
recreation. "Dent's comfortable quarters at Macao" afforded an
agreeable retreat for Admiral Keppel, and no doubt many others of the
nautical brotherhood before and after his time; for the sea-breezes of
Macao were almost as great a relief to the denizens of Queen's Road as
to the community which, after the treaty, was permanently quartered in
the Canton factories. To this day Macao, well served by fast and
commodious steamers, remains a favoured resort for week-end tourist
parties, picnics, honeymoons, and the like.
[Illustration: DENT'S VERANDAH, MACAO.]
The population of Macao is estimated at 75,000 Chinese and under 4000
Portuguese, of whom the percentage of pure blood is not large. The
so-called Portuguese of the Chinese coast differ from those of Goa as
the Chinese differ from the Indian natives. They supply a want in the
general economy: in China, as clerks, for whose work they have, like
the indispensable babu, a natural aptitude; in India, as domestic and
personal servants. With the increase of typewriting and the practice
of dictation in mercantile establishments the clerical services of
the Macaese are likely to assume less importance. They are good
Catholics, smoke cigarettes, and are harmless.
Though for many years Macao suffered depression from the loss of its
foreign trade, its natural advantages in course of time attracted to
it new branches of industry, which to some extent revived its drooping
prosperity. Foreign and native merchants found it convenient to
conduct a certain portion of their trade in tea and silk and other
articles in the quiet old city, where burdens were light and labour
abundant. Traffic of a less desirable character found also its natural
domicile in the colony. It became the headquarters of the lucrative
coolie trade, which there for many years found an asylum where it
feared no law, human or divine. To the credit of the Portuguese
Government, however, this traffic was abolished in 1874. Opium and
gambling licences now provide the chief contributions to a colonial
revenue, the surplus of which over expenditure furnishes a respectable
annual tribute to the needy mother country.
There is yet another species of enterprise historically associated
with the colony which cannot be altogether omitted, though it should
be mentioned with the extenuating circumstances. Piracy, as we have
seen, was rampant on the coasts of Asia, as it was also in Europe,
before Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape; and it was not to be expected
in an age when successful buccaneers in the Atlantic were earning
distinction by harassing the common enemy Spain, that an isolated
colony in remote Asia, detached from Europe a century and a half
earlier, should have anticipated the ethical refinements of the
awakening conscience of Christendom. Slavery itself was tolerated
among the most enlightened races until the middle of the present
century, and if the Macaese did feel a sneaking toleration for
mitigated forms of it, as well as for other species of criminality
which flourished all round them, it must be admitted the temptation
lay very near to their hand. They had been brought up for centuries in
close familiarity with the practices of the sea-rover. Though it
cannot be said that piracy ever took rank as a domestic institution in
patriarchal Macao, yet the openings for young men were much restricted
by family custom, and instances have been reported of improvident sons
laying unfilial hands on their fathers' junks on the coast with a view
to rectifying the balance of the family finance. Whether or not such
modes of redress were ever actually carried into effect, the fact that
legends of this character should have woven themselves into the tissue
of local gossip within comparatively recent times, and in connection
with well-known names, indicates a state of feeling which should be
allowed for in considering the relation of Macao to Chinese piracy.
The influence of Macao on the history of foreign relations with China
extended much beyond the sphere of mere commercial interests. For
three hundred years it was for foreigners the gate of the Chinese
empire, and all influences, good and bad, which came from without were
infiltrated through that narrow opening, which also served as the
medium through which China was revealed to the Western world. It was
in Macao that the first lighthouse was erected, a symbol of the
illuminating mission of foreigners in China. It was there also that
the first printing-press was set up, employing movable type instead of
the stereotype wooden blocks used by the Chinese. From that press was
issued Morrison's famous Dictionary, and for a long series of years
the Chinese Repository, a perfect storehouse of authentic information
concerning the Chinese empire, conducted chiefly by English and
American missionaries. The first foreign hospital in China was opened
at Macao, and there vaccination was first practised. It was from Macao
that the father of China missions, Matteo Ricci, started on his
adventurous journey through the interior of the country in the
sixteenth century, ultimately reaching the capital, where he
established an influence over the Imperial Court scarcely less than
miraculous, thus laying the foundation-stone of the Catholic
propaganda in China. The little Portuguese settlement has therefore
played no mean part in the changes which have taken place in the great
empire of China.
Of the personages associated with its history, the most brilliant, or
at least the best known, was St Francis Xavier, the apostle of the
Indies,--a man of so magnetic a character that he was credited with
the miraculous gift of tongues, while as a matter of fact he seems not
to have been even an ordinarily good linguist, speaking to the natives
of the Far East only through an interpreter. Xavier died and was
buried in the neighbouring island of Sanchuan, whence his remains were
transferred first to Macao itself and afterwards to Goa. The names of
Xavier and Ricci cast a halo over the first century of the existence
of Macao. Another of the earlier residents of world-wide fame was the
poet Camöens, who in a grotto formed of granite blocks tumbled
together by nature, almost washed by the sea, sat and wrote the
Portuguese epic 'The Lusiad,' celebrating the adventures of the great
navigator Vasco da Gama. Of names belonging to the present century, or
the English period, two only need be mentioned here. One was Robert
Morrison, the father of English sinology, who was sent to China by the
London Missionary Society in 1807. This remarkable man had mastered
the initial difficulties of the Chinese language before leaving
England. This he accomplished by the aid of a young Cantonese, and by
diligent study of MSS. in the British Museum, and of a MS.
Latin-Chinese dictionary lent to him by the Royal Society. His teacher
accompanied him on the long voyage to China, during which Morrison
laboured "from morning to midnight." In Canton a Pekingese teacher, a
Catholic convert, was obtained, and the study of Chinese was carried
on assiduously. The most enduring monument of these labours was the
Chinese-English dictionary, which was printed by the East India
Company at a cost of £15,000. This standard work has been the fountain
from which all students of Chinese have drawn since his time.
Art has had but one representative, an Irish gentleman named George
Chinnery, who resided in Macao from 1825 till his death in 1852. Of Mr
Chinnery's drawings and paintings there are many scattered
collections, on some of which we have been able to draw for the
illustrations in these volumes.
[Illustration: GEORGE CHINNERY.
(_From an oil-painting by himself._)]
FOOTNOTE:
[36] Nomenclature alone sufficiently attests this fact--whether of the
ships that carried them or of the lands they christened, as Natal,
Trinidad, &c. The gigantic cross carved in the granite face of Table
Mountain (it is said) by Vasco da Gama proclaimed to the wide ocean
the sanctity of his mission. English adventurers were strongly imbued
with the same pious spirit. Down to our own day marine policies open
with the words, "In the name of God, Amen"; while the bill of lading,
which within the past generation has become packed with clauses like a
composite Act of Parliament--all tending to absolve the owner from
responsibility as carrier--formerly began with the words, "Shipped by
the grace of God," and ended with the prayer that "God would send the
good ship to her desired port in safety."