Towards The End Of September,
The Season And Their Inclinations Concurred To Deliver Them From This
Place; For By This Time, Even The Common Men Began To Be Weary Of The
People, Who Shewed Themselves Finished Cheats In Every Thing.
On the
25th September, their arms and ammunition were restored, and that same
day the Success weighed from the
Harbour, going out into the road or
gulf, in order to proceed for Macao, to have the ship surveyed, as the
men insisted she was not in a condition for the voyage home. Captain
Clipperton affirmed the contrary, well knowing that the men insisted on
this point merely to justify their own conduct, and to avoid being
punished in England for their misbehaviour in China.
They weighed anchor from the Bay of Amoy, in the province of
Tonkin,[246] on the 30th September, and anchored in the road of
Macao on the 4th October. This place had been an hundred and fifty
years in the hands of the Portuguese, and had formerly been one of the
most considerable places of trade in all China, but has now fallen much
into decay. The way in which the Portuguese became possessed of this
place gives a good specimen of Chinese generosity. In prosecuting their
trade with China from India and Malacca, being often overtaken by
storms, many of their ships had been cast away for want of a harbour,
among the islands about Macao, on which they requested to have some
place of safety allowed them in which to winter. The Chinese accordingly
gave them this rocky island, then inhabited by robbers, whom they
expelled. At first they were only allowed to build thatched cottages;
but, by bribing the mandarins, they were permitted in the sequel to
erect stone houses, and even to build forts. One of these, called the
Fort of the Bar, is at the mouth of the harbour, and terminates at a
rock called Appenka, where there is a hermitage of the order of St
Augustine. There is another fort on the top of a hill, called the Fort
of the Mountain; also another high fort, called Nuestra Senhora de
Guia. The city of Macao stands on a peninsula, having a strong wall
built across the isthmus, with a gate in the middle, through which the
Chinese pass out and in at pleasure, but it is death for a Portuguese to
pass that way.
[Footnote 246: This surely is an error for Fo-kien. Amoy has been before
stated in the text as N.E. from Macao, whereas the kingdom of Tonquin
is S.W. from that port. - E.]
Some travellers have reported that the Portuguese were sovereigns of
Macao, as of other places in India: But they never were, and the Chinese
are too wise a people to suffer any thing of the kind. Macao certainly
is as fine a city, and even finer, than could be expected, considering
its untoward situation: It is also regularly and strongly fortified,
having upwards of 200 pieces of brass cannon upon its walls.
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