Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas

by W. Hastings Macaulay

Seu answered, that the murderer of Amaral, Shing-Chi-liang, had been apprehended, tried, sentenced, and executed.

That in consequence of his confession, the place where the head and hand had been buried was discovered, and that a deputed officer had been sent to deliver them up, but the council still detaining the three soldiers apprehended at the Barrier, the officer did not dare to take upon himself the responsibility, and concludes his dispatch, with true Chinese sententiousness, in these words: "Here is the cause of the delay and of this confusion. All things should be managed with reflection, and in a proper way. Obstinacy cannot bring affairs to a conclusion," &c., &c.

Upon the 29th of the November succeeding, the Council published their manifesto, in which Seu and the Chinese authorities are accused of connivance in the murder of Amaral. This, Seu, who is evidently not to be written down, answers by accounting for the disposal of the murderer of the Governor, and his accomplices, and sends the confession of Chou-asin. Matters remained in this position until the 24th of December of the same year, when the Macào Council sent the three Chinese prisoners to Seu, and assuming that these men, on duty at the time at the Barrier, were at least cognizant of the murder of Amaral, demand their trial, informing Seu at the same time, that in placing them in his hands, they hold him responsible for them. When Seu had obtained these men, after some delay, he sends the head and hand, which were delivered to a commission appointed by the Council to receive them, on board a Lorcha, off the Praya Grande. They were conveyed to the cathedral, and after funeral service had been performed, placed in consecrated ground with solemn ceremony. Thus His Excellency Governor-General Sen gained his point. What became of the three Chinamen I did not learn, but suppose they were allowed to escape.

A new governor was commissioned and sent out in the Portuguese corvette Don Joas Primero. Pedro Alexandrino da Cunha, captain in the royal navy, reached Macào on the second of May, 1850, and immediately assumed the reins of government.

It was now supposed that something more efficacious than writing would be resorted to; but he died very suddenly on the sixth of July following, within about one month before the anniversary of the assassination of his predecessor. A singular coincidence.

Some have been bold enough to assert that his sudden demise was to be attributed to the effects of poison administered by Chinese servants, bribed by their government, but I think that the report of his death from cholera is correct.

After the death of Da Cunha, the administration of government devolved again upon the "Council," of which D. Jeronimo Joze de Matta, Bishop of the Province, was the head, assisted by a Chief Justice, Mayor, Judge, Procurator, and Fiscal.

This was not very popular, as what government can be, to a declining people, who will not exert themselves, but complain to Hercules, without putting their own shoulders to the wheel.

The walks in the neighborhood of Macào are pleasant, and the views very fine; among the best are those from Penha hill on the southern point of the peninsula, and Guia fort on its northern side. From the latter position the entire possessions of this Portuguese province can be comprised at a glance, and Macào lies beneath you a miniature city, with pigmies moving along the Praya and its principal streets. This fort, from its commanding position, is used as a telegraphic station, and news of any unusual event is communicated to the town by signals.

From its elevated ramparts the eye takes in the course of the Hong-shan, or "Broadway;" Casa Branca; Ilha Verda; Camoen's grotto; the Barrier and Barrier forts; the harbors, both inner and outer; the Lapa hills, and numerous islands, as far as it can reach.