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.
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.