The Portuguese themselves were, as might be expected, the first to take advantage of this expeditious route, and about the same time that they had succeeded in establishing a communication with the King of Siam they aimed at forming relations with China. On gaining information of the boundless wealth of the east and its empires in the productions of nature and art, King Manoel determined on despatching a squadron farther eastward to Bengal and China. This squadron, consisting of eight sail, the commander of which was Fernando Peres d'Andrade, selected on account of the ability he had shown previously in India, especially at Malacca, departed, after various unsuccessful cruises, from Malacca on the 17th June 1517, and arrived on the 15th August at the Island of Tamang (called by the Portuguese Beniaga), lying three miles from the mainland, where all foreign ships that trade to Canton must lie at anchor and transact their business.[3] In the harbour Andrade found Edward Coelho, who, in a previous expedition, had been separated from him by a storm, had wintered at Siam, and had already been there a month. Andrade caused it to be notified to the commander of the Chinese fleet, which was stationed off the coast there for the protection of merchant ships against pirates, that he was come on a peaceful embassy from the King of Portugal to the Emperor of China. The commander bade him welcome, but referred him to the Pio (great admiral) at Nanto upon the subject of his business. After various delays and difficulties, occasioned by the numerous gradations of rank amongst the Chinese authorities, their ceremoniousness, and the mistrust, imperfectly veiled by civility, of the Chinese towards strangers, Andrade reached Canton at the close of September, and ran into the harbour with all the usual nautical ceremonies. When surprise was expressed at this, he justified himself by referring to the practice of the Chinese in this particular when their ships came to Portuguese Malacca. He then begged that he might forward to the emperor the ambassador and the presents which he had brought with him, and that the Portuguese fleet might be dismissed as soon as possible. He was answered civilly, that they would receive the ambassador, and as soon as permission was obtained from the emperor, would escort him to court. Meanwhile the commander had permission to carry on trade in the town, after the ambassador had landed. Andrade now caused the ambassador, Thomas Pires, with seven Portuguese, richly dressed, to be put on shore with sound of trumpets and discharge of cannon. This Tomas Pires, erroneously called by Mendoza, Bartholomew, though a man of no rank, had been selected for this mission on account of his scientific qualifications, his tact, and experience. He was an apothecary by profession, and a practised and competent judge of the merchandize and productions of India. They not only granted him one of the best houses in the town, wherein he and his companions received visits from the most distinguished inhabitants, but also offered them maintenance, according to the custom observed with ambassadors. This, however, the commander declined, nor did he accept the invitation to come on shore, but, excusing himself, sent the factor with some assistants in his stead, and when a warehouse was granted them near the fleet, allowed the merchandize to be landed by degrees, and an interchange of traffic commenced.
Matters were in this prosperous condition, when circumstances rendered it necessary for the commander to leave Canton. Many of his people had become sick from malaria, and nine, including the factor, were dead. These and other disasters compelled Andrade to take leave of the Chinese commanders, and he went back to the island of Tamang, where he was plentifully supplied with all that he required for the repair of his ships. Before his departure Andrade caused proclamation to be made in Canton, Nanto, and the harbour of Tamang, that those who had demands on the Portuguese, should apply to him in order that they might be fully satisfied. This proceeding gave the Chinese a high opinion of the integrity of the Portuguese. At the end of September 1518, Fernando Peres d'Andrade again set saile with his whole fleet, and entered the harbour of Malacca loaded with renown and riches.[4]
At his departure from Canton, he left the affairs of the Portuguese so arranged that their trade with the Chinese might be carried on securely and peacefully, and with profit to both parties. His brother, Simon d'Andrade, received from the king a commission to make another voyage to China, and departed in April 1518 from Malacca. Upon his arrival in August in the harbour of Tamu, he found that the Portuguese ambassador, Thomas Pires, had not yet left Canton, as, in spite of three applications, no order had yet been received from the court to escort him thither. At length the order came, and Pires went in the beginning of January 1520 by water as far as the mountain range Malenschwang, thence to Nankin, where the emperor was, who ordered him to Pekin, where he himself usually resided on account of the nearness of the Tartars, with whom he was continually at war. In January 1521, the emperor came there, and immediately dismissed the embassy. He had received unfavourable accounts of the Portuguese from the authorities at Canton and Nankin, whom the King of Bintang had influenced by an emissary; they told the emperor that, under the pretext of trading, the Portuguese explored the country with the view of taking it by force of arms, and that in this way they had made themselves masters of India and Malacca. Pires therefore was admitted no more into the palace. Meanwhile the emperor fell ill and died, and the counsellors of his successor were of opinion that Pires and all his companions should be put to death as spies. The emperor however ordered the ambassador, real or pretended, to be sent back to Canton with the presents, and to be kept in custody there until answer should be received from the Portuguese authorities at Malacca. Until then no Portuguese or Portuguese merchandise was to be admitted into the empire. The emperor further commanded that the king of Malacca, who was an ally of the emperor, and who had been driven out by the Portuguese, should be restored.
The severe conditions imposed upon the Portuguese by the emperor are not to be wondered at, for all the accounts which he had received from his authorities respecting them were prejudicial, and Simon d'Andrade himself gave frequent occasion for complaint by inconsiderate or unjust regulations, contrary both to the laws and to the received opinions of the country, and provoked the Chinese against the Portuguese; and even his personal behaviour seems to have been calculated to provoke animosity.[5] At last a hot encounter took place between the Portuguese and Chinese ships, during which, fortunately for the Portuguese, a storm arose, which scattered the Chinese fleet and favoured the flight of the Portuguese, so that they happily reached Malacca at the end of October.
Thomas Pires meanwhile was, upon his arrival in Canton, thrown into prison with all his companions, and died in chains; the presents which he had brought with him were stolen. The letters, which two or three years afterwards arrived from the prisoners, contained lamentable descriptions of the oppressions they had to endure, and of the robberies which were committed in foreign ships, upon the pretence that they had Portuguese on board. The great stores of valuable merchandize, gold and silver from India, were entirely lost. Mendoza does not complete the tale of Pires's adventures, but some interesting details are given by Remusat in his Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques, page 205, tom. ii.
The next Portuguese adventurer who comes within the range of our special notice, is Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, who from the apparent extravagance of his accounts became proverbial as an accomplished romancer. Congreve, in his Love for Love, makes Foresight thus address Sir Sampson Legend: "Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude." Like most of his predecessors, however, in early travel, he has by this time recovered much of his forfeited reputation, and, as in their case, some of his most remarkable statements have been confirmed by more recent explorations. Being compelled to leave his country from some accident, which he describes as casting "him into manifest peril of his life", he took to the sea. The chances of his life led him to Abyssinia, and subsequently along the coast of Arabia to India. With his adventures in these countries we have here nothing to do, but pass at once to the circumstances under which he was thrown upon the coast of China. At Goa, Pinto hired himself as a soldier to Pedro de Faria, who was proceeding as governor to Malacca. In this employ he was selected as Portuguese agent in the company of the ambassador of the Battas, on the return of the latter to Sumatra from his complimentary visit to Faria, at Malacca, the seat of government. Here he fell in with one Antonio de Faria, with whom he joined in a great commercial expedition to be sent up the Gulf of Siam.
We pass over various romantic adventures with pirates, described in his narrative, especially those with one Coja Acem, a native of Guzerat, and an implacable enemy of the Portuguese, whom Faria at length overcame in a desperate encounter. The adventurers then sailed to Liampoo (Ning-po), where Faria gained intelligence of an island called Calempluy, in which were the tombs of seventeen kings of China, all of gold, and containing great treasure of various descriptions. This place they sought and reached, and having plundered, loaded their ships with the treasure. About a month after they had put to sea, they were wrecked in a furious gale in the Gulf of Nanking, and fourteen of the Portuguese alone escaped with their lives. The Chinese gave the shipwrecked pirates but a harsh reception; they were first thrust into a pond where they were almost devoured by leeches, and were afterwards sent with other criminals to Nanking, where they were punished with a severe whipping. They were subsequently sent to Peking, also chained together in parties of three, and on their arrival received thirty lashes apiece by way of welcome. Pinto gives an animated account of the magnificence of these two great capitals, but splendid as the objects he observed in them were, they would scarcely bear comparison with those which presented themselves along the great rivers and canals. The multitude of cities, together with the abundance which here prevailed, was almost incredible. The immense concourse of boats at the time of the great fairs, the mode of rearing water-fowl, their plan of hatching eggs by artificial heat, the industry and regularity of populace, and their fashion of eating with chop-sticks, are detailed with great exactness. Upon the whole, his remarks leave no doubt, we think, of the truth of his having been an eye-witness of what he records. Upon the subsequent occurrences of his eventful life, and his final return to Lisbon in 1558, we shall not here dwell, but proceed to the consideration of the next in order on our list of European travellers to China.
Among a series of letters in Spanish, received in 1555 from various Jesuits in the East, and appended to the 1561 edition of Francisco Alvarez's Historia de Ethiopia, occurs an account of some matters regarding the customs and laws of the kingdom of China, which a man (who was a captive there for six years) related at Malacca, in the college of the Jesuits. This valuable account, we believe, has never before appeared in English, and is here translated.
"The Chinese build their towns in the strongest situations, near rapid rivers, and chiefly at the curves, in order that they may serve in part for enclosures; and if the towns are half a league in circuit, they build walls of a league in extent, so that in case of war they may hold a considerable number of defenders. The towns are walled with stone built in mortar, for the most part; some, especially the large towns, have very strong brick walls. They contain very large buildings, and bridges of half a league, all of stone excellently wrought, and there are blocks in them so large that it appears impossible for men to have raised and set them by any contrivance. One of the things that surprised us much, was to see eight columns, upon which the government palace is built, in a town where we were for three years. We measured these columns, and two men stretching their arms round them did not touch each other; they appeared to us to be sixty feet high, little more or less; and it is very strange that men should have been able to raise them and place them where they are. The houses which are upon them are very high, all of wood, painted and gilded. An officer resides there who collects the revenue of the province, and there are similar ones in the other provinces. Each of these houses is separately enclosed by walls, within which they are accustomed to plant trees and make very pleasant gardens, with all kinds of fruit, which the Chinese are exceedingly fond of, and also of having ponds at their houses in which they breed fish for their amusement.
"What is generally considered by the nobility and principal men as the greatest distinction, is to erect edifices in front of their gates, in way of an arch going from one side of the street to the other, so that the people pass underneath; some build them of stone, others of wood, with all kinds of painting, colours of gold and blue, with pictures of various birds and other things that may gratify the sight of the passers by. And they are so curious and vain in this particular, that he who goes to the greatest expense therein, is thought most of amongst them. On the border of the arches are the name and arms of him who caused them to be erected, in letters of gold and blue.