Brief Encounter at Macao

Author(s): Leonard Blussé

Source: Modern Asian Studies , 1988, Vol. 22, No. 3, Special Issue: Asian Studies in
Honour of Professor Charles Boxer (1988), pp. 647-664
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/312602

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Modern Asian Studies 22, 3 (1988), pp. 647-664. Printed in Great Britain.

Brief Encounter at Macao

LEONARD BLUSSE

University of Leiden

Introduction

The real issue at stake is the following: Since I595 merchants from Hollan
and Zeeland have sent ships for trading purposes to several islands of the
Indies that are not dependent upon Portugal. Now when the crews of thes
ships as well as the natives that were friendly to them had suffered great losses
of lives and possessions due to the mischief of the Portuguese and their
henchmen-unreliable and violent people who did not shrink from openly
attacking the Dutch with force of arms-only then did the Dutch at long last fit
themselves out to take revenge. After several hostilities from both sidesJakob
van Heemskerck received command over an Amsterdam fleet of eight sails and
with it he forced into submission on February 25th I603 in the Strait o
Singapore (that is, one of the two straits that separate Sumatra and Malacca) a
Portuguese vessel, a so-called caracca, named Catarina and loaded with mer
chandise. He released the crew and carried off the ship as a prize. Others have
performed such exploits before and afterwards, yet because this feat of arms
has caused the greatest stir, I have decided to emphasize it in my enquiry so
that one can easily judge the other events on basis of it.1

So run the opening lines of the introduction to DeJure Praedae Commen

tarius (A Commentary on the Right of Booty) which was completed in
the spring of I605, shortly after the Santa Catarina, a leviathan of 1400
tons, had reached the Dutch coast and the cargo had been put on public
sale. This treatise was drawn up by the 20-year-old lawyer Hugo de
Groot on commission of the Gentlemen XVII, the directors of the
recently established Dutch East India Company (I602). In order to
facilitate the execution of the assignment De Groot was provided with
'Boeck, tracterende van de wreede, verradische ende hostile pro-
ceduren der Portugesen in Oostindien' (a book pertaining to the cruel,
traitorous and hostile procedures of the Portuguese in the East Indies), a
collection of testimonies by Dutch sailors made to the Amsterdam
Damsti 1934: 4.

0026-749X/88/ $5.00 + .0oo ? 988 Cambridge University Press

647

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648 LEONARD BLUSSE

notary Kick in the autumn of 604.2 Among this evidence submitted to

De Groot was the sad tale of a sailor belonging to the fleet ofJacob van
Neck who described in detail how seventeen of his comrades had been
treacherously murdered by the Portuguese of Macao. Van Heemskerck
had captured the Santa Catarina to avenge this massacre.
The Gentlemen XVII had every reason to call in a lawyer. They
were confronted with remonstrances by shareholders who maintained
that the commercial enterprise was changing into a war-mongering,
prize-taking company, and, besides this division within the camp,
strong protests against the seizure of the carraque were anticipated
from foreign powers. Yet, by the time De Groot's treatise had been
completed it was no longer deemed necessary to publish it. For instead
of transmitting outcries of indignation from their governments, the
envoys of the French and English kings informed raadspensionarisJohan
van Oldebarnevelt, the secretary of the States General, that their Royal
Highnesses would be most pleased with a present of fine China from the
booty of the Santa Catarina. The French envoy De Buzanval even
received the kind assistance of Prince Maurice of Orange's stepmother,
Louise de Coligny, in selecting 'a fine dinner-service of porcelain, one of
the best, and a first choice table with two chairs'.3 By accepting these
presents, the two mightiest neighbours of the Republic attached their
seal on this act of piracy, while Grotius' manuscript was shelved and
conveniently forgotten.
The rediscovery of DeJure Praedae at an auction of Martinus Nijhoff
in 1864 was an event of the first order. Not only did this manuscript
throw new light on the early academic pursuits of the man who, from
his DeJure Belli ac Pacis had become recognized by jurists as the 'Father
of International Law', it also enabled law-historians to find out more
about the intellectual and historical roots of that magnum opus. De
Groot in riper age carefully abstained from allusions to contemporary
events, but while writing De Jure Belli ac Pacis as a determined young
lawyer, he was highly specific in his claims that the Dutch in Asia not
only had the right to beat off any attack but should even take the
initiative in armed action. In other words, Dejure Praedae was written to
justify the war in the Indies; as its title suggests, it was a legal defence of
booty.

2 This manuscript was discovered by W. Ph. Coolhaas in the Van Zuylen van
Nyevelt family archives, now kept in the Algemeen Rijksarchief at The Hague. The
contents have been published (Coolhaas I965).
3Fruin I868. For convenience sake I refer here for the English reader to the
translation of 1925; Fruin 925: 29.

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTER AT MACAO
649

The capture of the Catarina was seized upon b

incident marked a caesura in the maritime pol
towards Portugal. By attacking the Santa Catar
hopes of accommodation with the Portugue
the defensive posture they had maintained
historian of Sino-Dutch trade this feat of
watershed. It marks the end of the Dutch fixa
and their settlement on the Macao peninsu
through which to reach the China market in a
In this contribution I shall focus on the short visit of Admiral Van
Neck to Macao in 60 I. As I have pointed out, the brutal murder of 17
of his crewmembers at the hands of the Portuguese became the casus
belli for Van Heemskerck's seizure of the Santa Catarina. The vehement
Portuguese reaction to Van Neck's arrival has been described as an
isolated incident or an outrageous act committed on the spur of the
moment by some hot-headed officials in Macao.4 Ironically, Chinese
eyewitness reports concerning the incidents have so far not yet been
consulted by historians. Careful scrutiny of Chinese sources in com-
bination with De Groot's evidence (the book pertaining to the cruel
procedures), contemporary letters by Dutch sailors, logbooks, and
Portuguese correspondence seized by Van Heemskerck will help us
gain a better understanding of this incident. Moreover it will enable us
to distance ourselves from the standpoint of the lawyer, or the morally
oriented historian for that matter, and to observe the incident not
merely as a clash between Europeans but also as a paradigm of
contemporary Chinese aspirations for trade with the European nations
at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Slow Boats to China

On 28June I600 a fleet of East Indiamen under the command ofJac

Van Neck raised anchor at the Amsterdam roads. This so-called Vierde
Schipvaart (fourth voyage of the Dutch to the Indies) had been fitted o
by the Oude Compagnie, one of the companies that was to fuse one ye
later into the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), the Dutch Eas
India Company. For Van Neck, who was reputed to be a 'courageou
sensible man', it was his second voyage to the East. His first voya
4 See, for instance, Boxer 1948: 49. 'Seventeen of these hapless prisoners wer
barbarously executed as pirates by the Portuguese in November, after they had vain
tried to save their lives by becoming Roman Catholic converts at the eleventh hour

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650 LEONARD BLUSSE

(from April 1598 until July I599) had resulted in profits of more than
one hundred per cent. A very good harvest if one takes into account that
the trip out and home only took him 15 months, just one month more
than the first Dutch outward bound voyage by Cornelis de Houtman to
Bantam in I595!5
As successful as was Van Neck's first expedition, his second was
disappointing. Here I shall only focus on his failure to establish trade
relations with China.6 The instructions Van Neck received were
similar to but farther reaching than those hitherto issued. It was
stipulated that two ships should be sent to China with two silk
specialists on board. The commander of this task-force, Van
Groesbergen, never made it that far. After having reached the coast of
Annam he became entangled in lengthy negotiations with the local
authorities which prevented him from proceeding. As we shall see it
was left to Van Neck himself to sail on to China. Mentally he was not
completely unprepared, for we know that on earlier occasions he had
already enquired after 'the conditions of the mighty kingdom of
China'.7
It had been Van Neck's intention to sail on the tail of the western
monsoon for the island of Banda to buy nutmeg and mace. The sudden
transition of the monsoon upset his plans, and not without considerable
effort he succeeded in reaching the island of Ternate in the Moluccas.
When he arrived there it was rumored that a few months earlier on
nearby Tidore the crew of a Dutch ship had been massacred by the
soldiers of the Portuguese fortress on this island.
On inquiry, the ship which now flew the Portuguese ensign turned
out to be the Trouw, one of the vessels of a fleet commanded by the
AdmiralsJacques Mahu and Simon de Cordes who had left Rotterdam
on 27 June 1598, to discover a passage to the Indies via the straits of
Magellan. By the time the Rotterdam fleet had passed the Straits it had
already lost two hundred men due to scurvy and other diseases. One
ship turned back. Another one was sold in the port of Valparaiso to the
Spaniards. Two ships headed forJapan but only one, the Liefde, made it
that far and staggered in Spring I6oo into the Bay of Usuki on the
eastern coast of Kyushu.8 The adventures of the crew of this first Dutch

5 For details about these profits see Keuning I938-51 I: I, II: LXXX-LXXXIII,
24, 36, 231, 246, III: 23.
6 The archival materials relating to the second voyage of Van Neck have been
analysed, edited and annotated by Van Foreest and De Booy (1980).
7 Terpstra 1950: 52.
8 All archival data concerning the voyage of Mahu and De Cordes have been
published by Wieder (I925: 5).

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTER AT MACAO 65I

ship to reach Japan have been romantically

Clavell's novel 'Shogun' and do not have to be t
fifth ship, headed for the Indies and arrived w
in the Moluccas.
Van Neck was informed that the half-starved men of the Trouw, after
a cordial welcome by the Portuguese garrison of Tidore, had been
captured by surprise and finally dismembered and hacked into pieces
one by one in front of each other by their hosts. The Dutch admiral
decided to take revenge and attacked two Portuguese carracks, one ship
and two galleys which he found at the Tidore roadstead. The enemy,
however, proved more than a match for the two Dutch ships and beat
them off. Van Neck lost several fingers in the affray-it shows in his
diary: the steady, fine handwriting gives way to a coarse scribbling.9 As
there was no cargo to be had on Ternate under the present circum-
stances, the ship's council decided to leave on 31 July 60 I, and headed
for Patani on the Malay peninsula. Unfortunately, the traverse along
the north coast of Celebes and Borneo proved impossible as the
Southwest monsoon had regained its force. Waiting for the two months
that would elapse before the seasonal wind would change was out of the
question; the rice-provisions had shrunk to no more than a five-week
quota. As if at last finding an excuse to go to a country that he always
had looked forward to visiting, Van Neck then decided to change
course and head for the Portuguese settlement of Macao in China, there
to obtain victuals and gather information about the Chinese market
which might be of use for later expeditions.
Halfway, between the northern point of Luzon and Macao, the two
ships ran across one of the notorious typhoons that rage in this area
during the summer season, the admiralship rolling and pitching so
heavily that according to the logbook 'the topyard of the bowsprit was
totally immersed, something which has to be seen to be believed'.?1
Only superficial damage was suffered, however, and to the relief of the
crew, the South China coast was sighted on 20 September 6o I.
Assisted by a Tanka boatman-sea gipsies whose mat-sailed house-
boats dot the Chinese coastal waters-Van Neck safely found his way
through the maze of the myriad isles in the Pearl River Estuary and on
27 September anchored at a mile's distance from a high hill with several
houses on its slope which seemed to constitute a big village. The next
day the ships drew nearer and according to Van Neck's logbook the
silhouette of'a great town spread out before us, all built in the Spanish
9 Algemeen Rijksarchief, le afdeling, Voorcompagnieen, no. I 15, f. i6.
10 Van Foreest and De Booy I980 I: 205.

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652 LEONARD BLUSSE

style, on the hill a Portuguese church and on top o

. . According to Huygen's notebook this had to
Van Neck had Jan Huygen van Linschoten's Itine

Unwelcome Visitors

The day the Dutch arrived the population of Macao was in mourn
One of the three carracks coming from India had met with the s
gale as the Hollanders and was wrecked a few days earlier on th
Chinese coast with great loss of life, part of the cargo of spices
bullion, in all amounting to 400,000 pardaos. The other two carra
which had run for safety in bays nearby in the meantime had limpe
into Macao partly dismasted and severely damaged. The sorry sig
they offered made it clear to the townsmen that neither one could b
repaired in time for the Japan voyage. While this was being lamente
the two Dutch vessels hove in sight 'securely and with their sails so fu
that it seemed as if the last typhoon had not touched them'.12
Upon anchoring in an outer bay Van Neck tried to contact th
Portuguese: 'As soon as we arrived, thefiscaal, Martinus Apius, sa
to town in our ship's boat to ask whether we might be allowed to tr
there under terms of friendship. But no sooner had the boat reached
shore, than the complete crew of eleven sailors was captured'.13
Since the two ships were riding their anchors in a stiff wind close
the leeshore and were in danger of being run aground, it was decide
first to look for a better anchorage and thereupon inquire after
hostages. Van Neck dispatched his mate, Jan Dircksz of Enkhuiz
with the chaloupe to Taipa island before town to take soundings, as i
seemed to provide shelter from the windside. To the dismay of
admiral, this boat also was taken in a sudden sally by the Portug
who had approached it with a white flag. All attempts to estab
contact with the shore, not to speak of freeing the hostages, misfir
The Portuguese kept the Dutch ships isolated, nobody was allowed
approach them. Use of violence seemed useless to Van Neck: 'It wo
have amounted to imposing one's will upon the whole province
Holland with two ships'.'4
Even an attempt to send a letter to the local Chinese authorit
failed. A Chinese fisherman who had been asked to do so on promise
a reward, shrank from carrying out this task, protesting that it wo
11 Van Foreest and De Booy I980 I: 206. 12 Boxer 1963: 63.
13 Van Foreest and De Booy 1980 I: 205. 14 Ibid., I: 212.

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTER AT MACAO
653

cost him his life 'as the emperor of China h

permitted to act as a letter carrier from a fore
life and goods'. 'Consequently', Van Neck co
there was no hope of retrieving our people, so we
in want of water and victuals. We had to pursue ou
we could not obtain these necessities in Macao. Under these conditions we left
China on October third [I60I], leaving behind twenty helpless men ...
Thus the first Dutch visit to China amounted to a total failure. Van
Neck summarized it all as follows:

Concerning the fertility of the country, the customs and manners of the people
I cannot give any information, as none of us set foot on shore.Judging from the
way in which they have treated us, I think they [the Chinese] have barbarian
customs. If they only had notified us to clear off their country, they might have
been excused, but to detain our people in this manner without any warning-
we who have come from so far a country-without really knowing for what
purpose we have come, that was surely an inhumane deed. Moreover we did
not know whether they had killed them. Totally ignorant of this we had to
depart this country.15

As far as Van Neck was concerned, his expedition to China was a

failure, because the Chinese authorities had not shown themselves
willing to engage in negotiations.

The Balance Sheet

What does this narrative of sea-battles, missing fingers, storms an

anchoring manoeuvres, anticipation and frustration really add up to
Should it be classed with the 'descriptions of weary marches in heat or
cold, the tales about the thrills and chills of battle or the elegies on th
agony of wounded men', the kind of history that R. G. Collingwood
abhorred? What about the underlying strategy, the plans and counter-
plans? As I have shown, the Dutch had no clearly defined strategy.
They intended to investigate the possibilities of opening up a trade with
the Chinese at the Pearl River estuary, a river delta that since ancient
times had been reserved for 'barbarian' traders. Van Neck and his men
failed miserably in this objective, and if we read carefully between the
lines his greatest vexation is not so much that he was not able to engage
in any barter with the Chinese, but rather that he could not even gain
any information about this country. He had visited China withou

"5 Ibid., I: 2 3.

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654 LEONARD BLUSSE

meeting a single Chinese and ascribed this failure to

local inhabitants. However, he was incorrect in s
the notes a local mandarin jotted down concerning
In the ninth moon of the year I6oI, two ships of th
arrived in Macao. Even the interpreters did not know fr
originated. They were called the red-haired barbar
reddish, their eyes light blue and roundly shaped and th
tall. Their ships were truly gigantic with hulls wrapped
copper plates and drawing twenty feet. The barbarians
worried about competition [by the Dutch] in trade.
chased the ships to the great ocean, thereupon they
typhoon. I do not know where they eventually have dr

In other words, the Chinese had nothing to do wit

the Dutch crews. But what could have been an isolated incident turned
into a prelude of Dutch-Portuguese strife in the Indies.

Murder at Macao

Quite satisfied with themselves on account of the ease with which t

had got rid of Van Neck, the Portuguese overplayed their hand.
month later they executed seventeen of the Dutch captives as pirate
and sent three survivors including Apius, the fiscaal who had comm
ded the boat, to Goa. Martinus Apius not only survived the ordeal b
even managed to escape to Holland. Several years later he narrat
the office of notary Kick in Amsterdam how he and his comrades h
been manhandled. Shortly after his landing he had been apprehe
by the Captain-major of the Japan voyage, Dom Paulo de Portug
and locked up in a monastery:17
After I had sat for about one and a half hours in the monastery, two mand
as well as Dom Paulo de Portugal, in the company of many Portugue
appeared. They (the mandarins) desired to hear from me, by way of
attending Chinese interpreter (who spoke Portuguese well) from wh
country we had come, what kind of people we were and furthermore wha
had in mind to do in China. Thereupon I politely answered that we
Dutch merchants and had been sent as emissaries of merchants, as our shi
richly loaded with costly merchandise might prove. And (I told them) tha
had in addition a patent from our prince for the King of China, and theref
prayed them humbly to send one of their subordinates to the ships (to ch

16 Wang I60o: 141-2.

17 Until 1623 there was no regular governor of Macao. Before that date the Cap
major of the Japan voyage would serve as interim governor during his stay in
(Boxer 1963: 9).

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTER AT MACAO 655

And in case they would find this to be untrue, and contrary to what
was willing to pledge my life and put myself under the jurisdi
obedience of the King of China and his governors, so that they migh
me as I deserved.
Hardly had I spoken these words when the surrounding Portuguese made
great clamour and gesticulation. Some accused me impolitely of being a liar,
others interjected that my words should not be attached credence to, as I had
not brought along a patent, and more such things that could neither be clearly
understood due to their great clamour or be answered. Consequently the
interpreter was not given the opportunity to transmit my arguments to the
mandarins. The Portuguese sought in all ways to obstruct this, and in the
midst of their tumult and hubbub Dom Paulo politely took the mandarins by
the hand and escorted them to a hall nearby, saying that he profoundly and
amply would inform them about me.

Apius, of course, had little confidence in these words. The Portuguese

put him and his men, as well as the crew of the chaloupe captured the
next day, in irons and submitted them to torture in order to get a clearer
insight into the motives that were behind their sudden arrival. During
one of these interrogations the mate of the chaloupe confessed that
there had been a fight in Tidore, which of course did not predispose the
Portuguese to treat their prisoners in a more friendly way.
Meanwhile the governor of Canton had heard about the arrival of the
two ships in Macao and dispatched a Cappado or eunuch to Macao to
make enquiries. Apius continues his account as follows:
Upon his arrival the cappado immediately demanded from the Portuguese
that the foreigners, which were kept in prison by them, be transferred to him,
this being an order from the Governor of Canton. They didn't dare to refuse
this, as they feared that admittance to the [year] market at Canton about to
take place, might be denied to them.

Consequently the Portuguese authorities carefully picked out six of the

prisoners who could not speak a word of Portuguese, adding that the
other Dutch prisoners had died of dysentery.

All attempts by the mandarin to gain any information from these people of
course fell through and he was forced to return empty handed to Canton,
where he delivered a report to the governor.
When the Portuguese deputies of the Macao merchants in Canton heard
that the governor was not satisfied with this incomplete and deceitful informa-
tion, and demanded that without delay the prisoners be transported to the
prison in Canton, they in all haste immediately delegated somebody to Macao
to warn and inform the merchants that this cloud was hanging above their
heads and that they should look ahead and prevent at all costs the extradition
of the Dutch as this would be to the detriment of their trade. The people of
Macao upon hearing this, and totally at a loss what to do, could not think of

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656 LEONARD BLUSSE

any other expedient to prevent and to block thi

prisoners, the sooner the better. Therefore they un
the company of the Auditor to Dom Paulo. The A
insisted that the prisoners be executed within 24
auditor] wanted him [Dom Paulo] to co-sign the sen
did not want to consent, well aware that his power
institute legal proceedings against free persons w
from the Viceroy of Goa. He was afraid he migh
account of this matter.18

Finally he yielded and signed the sentence.

appeared before the Chinese magistrate were
night eleven crew members were disposed of b
stone around the neck into the sea. The
seventeen-year-old boys were spared and the
mentioned above, Martinus Apius there seized
and after many narrow escapes arrived
testimony recorded in the presence of notary
By skilfully integrating this horror story in h
built up an impressive indictment against th
tion, however, remains to be answered: why di
Dutch sailors more than a month after Van
account seems to provide the answer: the Portu
the Chinese at all costs from making contac
lopers, implying that they had special reasons

Motives for Murder

The Dutch historian Robert Fruin, who wrote an extensive study on t

Macao incident shortly after the rediscovery of the DeJure Praedae in t
i86os, takes a totally different view of the matter. He accuses De Gro
of wilful partiality in his presentation of the evidence. According to h
De Groot left out an important passage from Apius' narrative. Fru
says:

It became clear to me, on comparing the two narratives, [Apius' original

testimony and De Groot's account of it] that our author [De Groot] had not
permitted himself the slightest deviation from Apius' attestation, but that he
had suppressed one fact which throws a quite different light on the occurrence.
Jacob van Neck, namely, had, before he got to Macao, made a vain attempt on
the Portuguese fortress of Tidore; he had, therefore, not only disturbed the
monopoly of the Portuguese, like the others, but moreover attacked them

'" Van Foreest and De Booy II: 280-5.

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTER AT MACAO 657

without a declaration of war. This amounted to an

reason Apius had, when he fell into their hands at
his companions 'in case there should be any difficu
rack] that they should be most careful to be silent b
with the Portuguese at Tidore, as this might get th
less this fact was confessed under torture by one of
who was caught later and therefore had not been w
confession constituted the grounds on which the s
on all. This is certainly cruel and the manner in wh
of the Chinese authorities, was treacherous; th
acknowledged it and [a fact which De Groot supp
of the deed-but the matter looks quite diffe
circumstance which our author [De Groot] purpo

Did the Portuguese really hang the Dutch

account of piratical behaviour in Tidore? I do n
pleaded in excuse but the underlying condition
already have seen in Apius' account. The Por
the idea that the Chinese were willing to a
demands.
Apologetic letters written nearly two years later by the auditor, Joao
Rodrigues de Souto, himself, make clear that the Canton authorities
indeed had seriously considered opening up trade relations with the
Dutch. The Portuguese governor of Malacca had called De Souto to
account for the 'judicial murder' committed on the Dutch prisoners
and put him under arrest. In a letter to the auditor-general in Goa De
Souto prayed to be released from prison and referred to exonerating
evidence he had enclosed, 'by which you can see how the Capado and
all the mandarins, the great officers of Canton wanted to provide the
Dutch with a port. Thereto they had sent a secretary provided with
many refreshments'.20 Unfortunately this evidence is not at the dis-
posal of today's researcher. Anyway, De Souto goes on to tell how he
had convinced the Chinese that the Dutch were mere pirates deserving
the gallows and that he thus had saved Macao's commerce from Dutch
rivalry:
May the Lord dispose that those we have released here in India [Martinus
Apius and two boys] wil not cause the Dutch ships to return to this port, as I
have understood that the Chinese are willing to trade with them. If it had not
pleased the Lord to steer them in distress to this port, then they would have
headed for Sancham [the islands of Sao Joao]21 as they indeed had plotted
19 Fruin 1925: 50.
20 These letters were seized by Van Heemskerck. (Van Foreest and De Booy II: 296.)
21 According to Boxer 1953: XXXIII the island of Shang-ch'uan or SaintJohn's off
the coast of Kuantung province.

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658 LEONARD BLUSSE

their course, and would have joined forces with the

been.provided with a trading port and the Chine
ships of the Dutch to the tops of the masts! For the C
extremity of the earth if one more mace of silver is
dise. You have seen how the Chinese, after the Castilians were being denied
admittance [to this coast], transport their goods as far as Manila, to barter
them for silver because they see that they can make more profits with the
Castilians than with us.

Fruin, carried away by his desire to point out one weakness in De

Groot's presentation-on the whole he was very impressed by the
contents and the composition of De Jure Praedae-reached the wrong
conclusion. The Portuguese could not have cared much about the fight
at Tidore, and justly so. They would probably have reacted in the same
way as Van Neck did when he heard about the murder of the crew of the
Trouw.
The question, then, remains whether the Portuguese werejustified in
fearing that the Dutch might be granted another port in the Pearl River
delta where they could barter their goods with the Chinese. And what
does De Souto really mean when he refers to the Chinese refusal to
grant the Spanish trading facilities in China?

A Precedent

The Spaniards of Manila were granted a trading beach in the Pe

River three years before the arrival of the Dutch but failed to develop
As usual in stories of failure, historians have briefly noted this as
isolated event but passed by the opportunity to integrate it into a larg
structure. Almost in passing, Joseph Kammerer has noted that in 15
the governor-general of the Philippines dispatched Don Juan
Zamudio to negotiate an agreement for a concession analogous to
Portuguese one in Macao.22 The mandarins along the lines of a divide
impera policy allowed the Spanish to found an establishment in a por
called Pinal or Pinhal near Macao.23 Trade, however, did not devel
It amounted to little more than the sputtering of a badly lighted cand
If Kammerer does not tell us why and how this promising venture
came to an end, the catholic priest Matteo Ricci does not let us walk
darkness. In his diary he described in minute detail how the Philippi

22 Kammerer 1044: 23.

23 Boxer follows J. M. Braga's suggestion, who identified it with the anchorage
Tonkawan at Kumsing-mun on the east coast of the island ofChungshan. (Boxer 19
46).

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTER AT MACAO 659

viceroy sent Juan Batista Roman, the Royal Procurator of the

Spain together with the SpanishJesuit Alfonso Sanchez to Maca
letters for the Rector of the local College and the Fathers stati
Sciauquin,24 the headquarters of the provincial governor of
tung. These six priests were besought to mediate with the
authorities. The anointed church machinery moved into act
within a short time it was unofficially reported that the reques
displeased the Viceroy who had passed it on, as was the custom
Hai-tao or Grand Admiral, at the capital city of the district, wi
to make an inquiry into the request and to return the finding
further account rings a bell: when the merchants of Macao hea
this they put a spoke in the Spanish wheels.
'We have already mentioned,' Ricci wrote,
that all foreign affairs come under the jurisdiction of the Grand
When a petition advances to this point, it is a sign that it has met w
approval of the Viceroy, unless something untoward appears in the A
inquiry. If the request had been rejected by the Viceroy, it would ha
suppressed without ceremony and without answer, and never permit
beyond his court. The Fathers had already advanced the project
particular point, when new orders, quite contrary to those first
arrived from Macao. While the cause was being advanced in Sciau
civil authorities at Macao concluded that the prime reason for repres
Spanish embassy was to open trade with the Chinese in the same pro
which they themselves were already operating. This would mean the
ruin of their commerce and of their settlement. There was a great q
silver in the Philippine islands, sent thither yearly from New Spain
the Province of Peru; and the Portuguese calculated that if this m
spent purchasing Chinese goods in the province of Canton, it would
trading market. In the future, the Portuguese would have to purchas
goods at a higher price and be obliged to sell them abroad at a lower
The Fathers were therefore advised, in a public notice, to make no
advance of the project in question, because it would mean disaste
settlement, to which they themselves were obliged for numerous be
notice recalled that the people of Macao were certain that the Missio
not want to be the cause of their misfortune, and, as they said, it was
becoming that the Spaniards should be honoured by an embassy to th
China. That honour should go to the Portuguese, to whom China's tr
adjudicated long ago by Pope Alexander the Sixth, when the question
decision between the kings of Spain and Portugal. Although th
kingdoms were now under one crown, it was the will of the Catholic K
each nation should carry on its own affairs, and it was forbidden fo
interfere with the rights or the former privileges of the other. Suc
content of the public notice.25
24 Chau-ch'ing, west of Canton.
25 Gallagher 1953: 17 -2. Without doubt Ricci is referring to the Tordesillas
1494.

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66o LEONARD BLUSSE

As a result the Jesuits made a I80? turn and

the trade with the Spaniards. This was the
establishment at Pinal ended a failure. After
Spanish, the Portuguese were suddenly confron
once more succeeded in blocking the aims o
lobby' may not have been homogeneous in
certainly unanimous in fighting for its mea
such, it proved itself a redoubtable factor in C
is instructive to see that the role of the Jesuits was not decisive when it
came to executive matters in Macao. The clerics were of help as
mediators but the real policymakers were the merchants, the citizens of
the town.

The Chinese Viewpoint

The question remains whether there is any proof that the Chinese were
really planning to grant to the Dutch a port of trade somewhere in the
Pearl River estuary. The essence of the issue is reflected in the delightful
account the mandarin Wang Lin-hsiang has given of a discussion
concerning the arrival of the Dutch with the governor of Canton. This
document 'A record of the conversation on the night of the Igth of the
gth moon' is worth quoting in full.26
His excellency Tai invited me again for dinner at the yamen. Recently more
than two hundred western barbarians who are called the Red-haired devils
had suddenly arrived with two giant ships in Hsiang-shan-ao [Macao]. There
was a rumor on the road that his excellency Tai was planning to send soldiers
to arrest them.
Halfway through the dinner course I asked him: 'Recently I have heard that
there was an emergency at sea. Is that true?' 'Yes', he answered. I asked him
again: 'I have heard you have sent soldiers to chase them away, is that true?'
He answered: 'This is the idea of the ts'an tso [local commander]. I have sent
the navy to hide at 20 li distance to look how things develop.' I asked him:
'Have these people come to rob, or to trade or have they just arrived due to
wind conditions? They are like wild horses that have to adapt their course
quickly to the conditions of the field!' He said: 'I don't know. Perhaps they also
have come for trade. Now the Barbarians from Hsiang-shan-ao, occupy the
bay and trade with us. If those [the Dutch] and these [the Portuguese] are
together then they will certainly fight with each other. The strength of the
barbarians from Macao is sufficient to counter the red barbarians. This is
called fighting barbarians with barbarians. We do not have to spend one
arrow's expense, but our majesty already extends overseas. If they [the
Portuguese] cannot resist we shall allow the Redhairs to trade with us. Then
26 Wang 16oI: 175-79.

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTER AT MACAO 66I

we can make up with the Redhairs, what we will hav

I suppose this is the best strategy. Therefore I hav
distance to observe the developments. What do you
I said: 'your plan is beautiful. But I still have som
heard that several ten thousands of Hsiang-shan
To fight with several ten thousands of people again
be compared to floating a swan's feather in a very st
two hundred people, I think they have come to tra
that. Now you have given an order to send troops to
peace in your heart? If you will not kill them all an
then they will raise a body of soldiers and plan to
show up then the calamity will come down on us. T
dogs and sheep: How can they see the difference be
water or between good and bad? In other words
killed our people in the past, aren't they Chinese?'
Permit me to present my own silly plan. Accordi
not the only haven fit for trade among the many
should send interpreters to ask them [the Dutch] i
they really have come to trade. Dispatch one able o
where they can settle. Send a letter to the Port
Dutch] and you are all our guests. Each one trades h
These are things which bear no relation to each oth
each other. Those who will raise their weapons firs
by China'.
Furthermore, the emperor at the moment attaches great importance to the
lining of his treasury. One more trading bay, one more source of profit! That is
the best service you can give to our country. The two barbarians each lay off
their arms and avoid fighting. Here your all pervading humanity shows! You
cover these two barbarian people with the ways of heaven. Each one will obey
and will not dare to move. Thus your Great Authority will be enacted. What
do you prefer, my plan, or do you want to stir fighting and cause hatred and
make China suffer disaster brought on by others?' Then Mr. Tai said: 'You are
right'. Thereupon we enjoyed some drinking and let the matter stand.

Aftermath

As I have pointed out, the original evidence the ouvidor or judge sent
from Macao to Goa in support of his claims that the Chinese authorities
had decided to provide the Dutch with port facilities has been lost. Here
Wang Lin-hsiang's account is very apposite. The two lines of thought
that he portrays in his dialogue are theyang andyin of Chinese policy on
foreign affairs: to trade or not to trade.
For the average Chinese official the issue was to what extent day-to-
day affairs should and could be subordinate to the requirements of the
political institutions. The 'conservative' stand was expressed by an

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662 LEONARD BLUSSE

official wait-and-see attitude and a partiality

elements by proxy: 'let barbarians fight bar
pirates'. Adherents to the 'progressive' school o
ted by Wang Lin-hsiang, did not shrink fro
foreigners. The Dutch, Portuguese and Chin
implies that there was a strong lobby at wo
allocation of harbour facilities to the Red Barbarians.
At first sight this may seem an unusual move considering the
vehement Chinese resistance to Dutch presence on imperial soil in later
years. Was it just a freak incident, a proof of what wine and a
convincing voice can do to a hesitant official? Why this enthusiasm for
the expansion of foreign trade on the part of the Chinese emperor? The
first decade of the seventeenth century is known for the frantic efforts by
the central government to channel into the imperial treasury a higher
amount of taxes from the mines and foreign trade. Chang Hsieh, the
author of the Tung-Hsi-Yang-k'ao, even devoted an entire chapter to the
efforts of the notorious eunuch, Kao Ts'ai, to plunder the provincial
treasuries on behalf of the Wang-li emperor.27 Taking all this into
consideration, Wang Lin-hsiang's account is more than just a tale of
two civilians, it is a contemporary recapitulation of the important
issues on the Chinese Southeastern coast in a nutshell.
Striking also-and here the local magistrate's insight into human
character shows-in his analysis of the Dutch position. He was right:
the Dutch had not come with bellicose intentions but the hostile
treatment they received certainly provoked revenge. One glance at Van
Neck's account proves this point. The Dutch commander 'with a
character like dogs and sheep' initially indeed put the blame on the
Chinese while it really was the Portuguese who captured his men.
It took more than six months before rumours of the killing reached
the Dutch in Southeast Asia. Van Neck was still in Patani, purchasing
pepper, when Admiral Jacob van Heemskerck, the commander of the
first VOC fleet, arrived there. The latter had captured a Portuguese
vessel in the vicinity of the North coast ofJava and discovered from its
papers that Van Neck's men had been killed in Macao. In Patani the
events had also become known from the crew of a Chinese junk.
Thereupon Van Heemskerck decided to retaliate by hanging the seven
Portuguese he had captured from the bowsprit of his ship.
Jacques van de Coutere, a Flemish merchant in the service of the
Portuguese, also present in Patani, has left an account how he per-
sonally went to beseech Van Neck to intervene on behalf of the seven

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 BRIEF ENCOUNTER AT MACAO 663

Portuguese who had had nothing to do with

deceitfully told him that it was all the fault of
Macao, who never should have ordered the e
Coutere actually saved the lives of his comrades
Holland a few weeks later without taking
measures, but Van Heemskerck, who was in a
not leave it at that. Provided with an instructio
VOC to retaliate with force whenever nece
opportunity to take revenge. The capture of
months later was the result.

Conclusion

Van Neck's ill-fated visit to Macao and the capture of the Santa Cata
have been described by Hugo de Groot and in his wake Robert Fr
and Charles Boxer as incidents of Dutch-Portuguese rivalry. Stri
speaking, these incidents were nothing but conflicts betwe
Europeans-in reality there was more to it.
On the basis of hitherto unused Portuguese and Chinese eviden
have not only focused on the events but also on the mental attitudes
motives of the factions concerned, including the laughing third par
the Chinese. These data enable us to reconstruct what really happene
on the China coast and present an overall picture quite different fr
the accepted version. The Chinese were by no means as xenophob
their attitude as they are often portrayed, and were by I6o0 still wil
to welcome new European nations on their coasts. If the Portug
had not taken such a desperate measure, they might well have ended
facing Dutch competition in the Pearl River estuary. The seizure of
Santa Catarina in I603, however, brought about a dramatic chang
the Chinese official mind. The local mandarins realized that the
Portuguese who had steadfastly portrayed the Dutch as ordinar
pirates, were after all correct. When in I605 Admiral Wybrant v
Warwijk sailed to the Pescadores archipelago to start negotiations wit
the local authorities for free trade, he was treated as that imag
demanded: chased away by a superior task force of the Chinese navy.

27 Chang I98I. Sui Tang K'ao.

28 I should like to thank George Winius for pointing out to me this important deta
(Couttre, Bibliotheca Nacional).
29 For details see Blusse I979.

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664 LEONARD BLUSSE

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