The Chinese servants in the employ of Europeans at Macao, Canton, and Hong Kong, are, without exception, the most consummate set of scamps it has ever been my fortune to encounter. Their whole study from morning to night and from night to morning, is, how to cheat their masters. There is not an article put upon the table, that is not charged at four times its value. If you keep a cow, or even a dozen cows, not one drop of milk can you obtain, more than barely enough for daily use; and should any attempts be made to punish either the cowkeeper or the head servant for their villany, ten to one that your cows are poisoned before another week passes over your head. This state of things might be, in a great measure, put a stop to, were masters to pay more attention to their domestic affairs; but most of the European merchants of China, being men of wealth, and engaged in mercantile transactions of great importance, deem such matters beneath their notice; and thus, the system goes on to the serious loss and inconvenience of less wealthy men. I knew one instance in which a housekeeper by perseverance reduced his market-bill from 150 dollars per month to 45 dollars; but the consequence was, that his servants to a man left him: he could obtain no good ones in their place, and was ultimately obliged to give in. As a set-off against this crying evil, I may mention the practice which prevails, of the compradore (or head servant) becoming security for those under him, and finding security on his own part to a certain amount, varying according to circumstances; so that, if any of the under-servants steal the plate or any other property of their master's, the compradore, as a matter of course, makes good its value. The Negroes here, as in most other parts of the world where they are met with, are slaves, poorly fed, hard worked, and occasionally very severely flogged. Every house in Macao occupied by a man of any substance, has its slaves; and the Government is a large slave-holder. All the porters at the Custom-house and other public offices are slaves. These unfortunate creatures are brought from Papua by Portuguese vessels, which pay an annual visit to the settlements of their countrymen on the Island of Timor. How they are obtained from Papua, I am not aware; but that some hundreds of them are carried to Macao every season, and sold there, is a fact beyond contradiction. This abominable traffic received a check last season (1843) from the Java Government. It appears that a Portuguese barque called the Margaretta, the owner of which was a wealthy inhabitant of Macao, sailed from Timor for Macao in the month of September, with some fifty slaves on board, all children under ten years of age. Some accident compelled her to call at Batavia for repairs, where her master reported the children as having been sent by the authorities at Timor to Macao, to be brought up in the Roman-Catholic faith. The suspicions of the Dutch Authorities were, however, awakened, and the proceedings of the Portuguese ship-master were narrowly watched. A few days only had elapsed, when he was detected in endeavouring to sell two of the unfortunate infants to a Chinese for 500 guilders (42l.) each. This led to the examination of his bills of lading and other papers, when it was found, that the children had been regularly shipped and manifested as slaves. The result was, the confiscation of ship and cargo, and the liberation of the young captives, who, I presume, (though I am not sure on the point,) were, as usual, apprenticed out as domestic servants to families in want of them. I gave the admiral on the China station full particulars of this event; and hope that he will cause a sharp look-out to be kept on the Portuguese vessels returning from Timor next autumn.
The market of Macao is well supplied with game, butchers' meat, pork, poultry, fruit, and vegetables: all these might be had on very reasonable terms, if the Chinese seller were allowed his own way; but, before he reaches the market from his home, he is taxed and re-taxed by every petty rogue of a Mandarin whose station he may happen to pass on his way. On reaching the market, he is taxed again, and is compelled to sell to the general dealer, who squeezes him to the last cash, and re-sells at an exorbitant profit to the Englishman's compradore, who charges his master, on a moderate calculation, four times what he gave; so that, by the time the Englishman's dinner is on his table, it costs him no trifle. Game is plentiful only in winter, which sets in in November. Wild ducks, teal, pheasants, partridges, snipe, with an occasional deer, are to be had, all fat and in prime order, at this season. The Chinese bullock is a compact little animal, and, when fattened, yields remarkably good beef.
Macao, like all Portuguese towns, is well stocked with priests; and were we to judge from the number of them who are seen parading the streets, as, also, from that of women constantly bending their steps church-ward, the inhabitants must be a very devout race. From seven in the morning till dusk, the streets are rarely free from church-going ladies; many of them followed by Negro slaves carrying their kneeling-rugs and prayer-books. One of the greatest nuisances in Macao is the perpetual ringing or tolling of church-bells, day and night: as soon as one stops, another begins; and the sleep-killing ding-dong is kept up at a rate that, in the warm nights of summer, is enough to drive a stranger frantic.
Every house has a watchman, who goes his rounds from eight in the evening till daylight next morning, and, every half hour, beats a hollow bamboo with a heavy stick, making noise enough to disturb the soundest sleeper. This keeping a watchman is neither more nor less than paying black-mail. Any housekeeper who should seek to evade the imposition by doing without a guardian of the night, would infallibly be plundered in a week or two, the thieves being, most probably, conducted to his premises by some neighbour's watchman.
The streets of Macao being narrow, rough, crooked, and, in general, very steep, wheel-carriages of any description are entirely unknown. Their place is supplied by sedan-chairs of Chinese make, carried by Chinese porters: these may be hired for a dollar per day, and are very convenient, either in wet or in extremely hot weather. The bearers, like those of their profession in England, are apt to impose upon strangers, who must be on their guard till they become acquainted with the ways of the place.
Macao is infested with loathsome beggars, who scruple not to expose their ulcerated legs, arms, &c. for the purpose of exciting the charitable feelings of the passer-by. They make a point of stopping at the door of any shop in which they see a European, whose ears they immediately assail with the most discordant noise, by beating a hollow bamboo with a stick; a mode of annoyance which the law of China allows, and which is carried on in Macao; but, in the neighbouring British settlement, an entire stop has been put to it. This, they well know, will soon cause the shopkeeper to give them a cash[21] or two, or his customer to leave the premises. In China, no native can turn a beggar from his door, till he has given him something in the shape of charity: the merest trifle, however, is sufficient to authorize the forcible expulsion of the applicant. I have seen as little as a tea-spoonful of rice given on such occasions, when the sulky and grumbling mendicant took his reluctant departure towards the next door, where he would, perhaps, meet similar treatment with a repetition of "curses not loud, but deep."
The Portuguese of Macao made a great ado on Sir Henry Pottinger's declaring their settlement, in as far as British subjects were concerned, part of the dominions of the Emperor of China: this, at first sight, appeared strange to many people besides the Macao citizens, but, when the subject received due consideration, Sir Henry was found to be quite correct in the view he had taken of it. Macao is not a Portuguese settlement, in the proper sense of that word, but only a territory leased to that Power on certain terms, for which an annual tribute or rent is paid to this day. The Chinese laws are in force here; their Mandarins levy duties, and tax every article sold in its markets; its porters, boatmen, compradores, &c. require Chinese licenses, but not Portuguese: in short, the Chinese are lords of the manor, and the Portuguese are mere tenants, with leave to build forts, and to levy certain duties on the commerce of the place. Looking at the matter in this light, every unprejudiced person must admit, that Sir Henry Pottinger, in exercising the power vested in him by Her Majesty's Government, and in framing regulations for the wholesome restraint of Her Majesty's subjects visiting China, (some of whom, it may be remarked, are troublesome and very unruly characters,) was perfectly right in including the peninsula of Macao in the dominions of His Celestial Majesty. The Portuguese were very indignant; at least, they pretended to be so; but it never would have done, to allow British subjects, fleeing from their creditors or from justice, to have an asylum where they could safely evade the laws of their own country, at a foreign station scarcely forty miles from the new British settlement of Hong Kong.[22]
The trade of Macao was of very little importance, and its revenues never paid its expenses, till the late Chinese war broke out. Circumstances then drove the British merchants from Canton, and nearly the whole of them took up their abode in Macao, where they continued till the Portuguese Government was called upon by the Chinese to refuse them further protection. They were then compelled to seek shelter on board the shipping of their country, where many of them remained for nearly twelvemonths, till the course of events allowed of their returning to Macao. Their presence soon attracted hundreds of wealthy and respectable Chinese dealers, and quadrupled the trade of the place, as well as its revenue; which enabled the Portuguese Governor to make a handsome remittance to Lisbon, in place of drawing upon that city for some 40,000 dollars annually, as he had hitherto been in the constant practice of doing, to rebuild many of the public edifices, and to improve the town generally, while it added much to the wealth and comfort of almost every woman and child in the place. This was a piece of good fortune the Portuguese of Macao most certainly did not deserve, their system, as regards foreign commerce, being as illiberal as can well be imagined. During the time they were reaping this rich harvest from British trade, British subjects were not permitted to land or ship a single package of goods nor to have their names entered in the Custom-house books. On the arrival of a ship with goods suited to the Macao market, the English consignee was obliged to employ a Portuguese citizen to enter and pass them through the Custom-house, before a package could be landed. The duties, also, were exorbitant; and, strange as it may appear, they even taxed money, which could not be imported without paying one per cent. duty. I have elsewhere seen an export duty put on treasure; but the Macao Government is the only one I ever knew to impose any restrictions on the importation of a commodity which most Governments, as well as individuals, are generally anxious to receive, in unlimited quantity, without taxing those who bring it to them. No English vessel was allowed to enter their inner harbour: this privilege was reserved for Spaniards and Portuguese. On one occasion, a small British schooner of war was proceeding into this haven, her commander never imagining that the restriction put on the merchant vessels of his country could possibly extend to Her Britannic Majesty's pennant: he was mistaken, however, and the first battery he came near, threatened to fire into him. The threat was of course disregarded, and the little schooner, in defiance of Portuguese batteries, quietly pursued her way.
How this state of things could be so long put up with by the British Government, it is hard to understand. When one considers that Portugal owes its very existence as a nation to England; that Macao, on more than one occasion, was saved from the fury of a Chinese army and rabble, during the late war, by British ships and men; that nine-tenths of the money that passes through its coffers, is English money; that Portuguese citizens visiting the different ports of British India, are free to come and go, land and ship their goods in their own names, hold houses and other fixed property, and act in all respects as British subjects, and as seemeth most for their own interest; when, I say, these facts are considered, one is utterly at a loss to conceive why Great Britain should suffer her subjects to be cramped in their mercantile pursuits by so very insignificant a power as Portugal. Now that it is too late, the Authorities of Macao have discovered their error, and mended their manners, by opening the inner harbour to British shipping, by allowing British merchants to land and ship goods in their own names, and by lowering the duties on several articles of British manufacture. These changes, which would have been accepted as boons two years before, were adopted only when the Portuguese found nearly every British merchant building warehouses and private dwellings in Hong Kong. Had they been made prior to the commencement of those buildings, I have good reasons for supposing, that many of them never would have been begun, their proprietors having a great dislike to the new British settlement on account of its reputed unhealthiness,—a reputation, I am sorry to say, it has too well sustained. Dozens of houses in Macao are already vacant; dozens more will be so before another six months shall elapse; hundreds of families who have depended on their house-rent and on money earned in other ways from British subjects for their daily bread, will be reduced to want; many of them will and must emigrate to Hong Kong; and Macao, with its streets of new houses, built in anticipation of the continued residence of foreign merchants, will sink into utter insignificance, and become as a place that has been, but is no more. Its Governor will again have to draw, for the means of paying the expenses of the place, on his Royal Mistress at Lisbon, who will then reap the well-merited reward of an illiberal and short-sighted policy.
If a passenger, on his arrival at Macao, lands in the inner harbour, he has to pass his baggage through the Portuguese Custom-house, where it will be not only thoroughly examined, but also, very probably, plundered. A trunk of my own, which I saw carried into this building along with several others, never came out again: its contents were valuable, and were much missed by my family. What became of them, I know not; but certain I am, that the Custom-house authorities of Macao made away with them. If the passenger chooses to land at the outer harbour, he encounters the Chinese Custom-house, where he is charged so much for each package, in the shape of duty, and is allowed to pass on without bare-faced robbery. Some sixteen years ago, this Chinese Custom-house was in the practice of levying a dollar per package on a passenger's luggage, a similar sum on his wife, and on every female child, while the boys passed free. This does not tell to the credit of Chinese gallantry. Things are altered now, however; and ladies with their daughters are permitted to land without let or hinderance.