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.
GEORGE CHINNERY.
(From an oil-painting by himself.)
CHAPTER XVI.
PIRACY.
Association with Hongkong and Macao—Activity of British navy in suppressing piracy—Its historic importance—Government relations with pirates—The convoy system—Gross abuse—Hongkong legislation—Progress of steam navigation—Fatal to piracy.
A factor which has done so much to shape commercial intercourse with China as piracy cannot be properly ignored in a survey like the present. The settlements of Hongkong and Macao were forced into contact with this time-honoured institution, for these places are situated as near to the piratical centre as they are to that of the typhoon zone. From the time of the first war down to quite recent years the British squadron on the China station was almost engrossed in the two duties of surveying the coast and rivers, and of repressing piracy,—services which were not interrupted even during the progress of a war with the Imperial Government. Both proceedings were anomalous, being a usurpation of the sovereign functions of the Chinese Government. That Government, however, never evinced more than a languid interest in operations against its piratical subjects. Piracy, as such, seems indeed to have enjoyed that fatalistic toleration which the Chinese Government and people are wont to extend to every species of abuse, on the principle that what cannot be cured must be endured. Nor is China the only country where banditti have established with their future victims a conventional relation like that of certain predatory animals which are said to live on easy terms with the creatures destined to become their prey. Successful leaders, whether of brigands or of sea-rovers, have from time to time attained high political status in the empire. Wingrove Cooke says:—
Whenever anything occurs of historic importance we always find that some bandit has had a hand in it. The land was always full of them. When the Tartars possessed themselves of China, one of these bandit chiefs had just possessed himself of Peking, and the last of the Ming race had just hanged himself. It was a pirate who drove the Dutch out of Formosa; the son of a "celebrated pirate" who helped the Cantonese to defend their city against the Tartars; and it was a pirate who the other day destroyed the Portuguese piratical fleet at Ningpo. In all ages and at all times China has been coasted by pirates and traversed by bands of robbers.