When Austin Coates’A Macao Narrativewas first published in 1978, Western historians of his generation had to contend with a literature not yet fully developed, in which parts of the city’s history had been fictionalized. Brave attempts at writing a history of Macao had been made previously. There was Sir Andrew Ljungstedt’sAn Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China,written in English and published in Boston in 1836 by James Munroe & Co., but partly written in Macao in 1832. In spite of its misleading title—the book is really a history of the city, with an...

Portugals stupendous epoch of exploration and discovery began around 1419, when the first Portuguese reached the island of Porto Santo in the Madeira group following this in 1420 with the discovery of Madeira itself. The initiator of the Discoveries, a person in some ways so strikingly modern and different from his age that he seems to belong more to the twentieth century than to the fifteenth, was the Infante Dam Henrique—Prince Henry the Navigator—the austere, unemotional third son of João I of Portugal and his English queen Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt. On the heights of Sagres...

After the failure of Tomé Pires’ mission to China, no further official attempts were made to open trade with that country. But with the withdrawal of the royal monopoly of trade to the East, privateers operating from Malacca became free to try their luck in China, which quite a few of them, dissatisfied with the various restrictive conditions their government still placed on trade through Malacca, now proceeded to do. This brought them in touch with the overseas Chinese communities in SouthEast Asia, most of whom were engaged in the same trade, all of it forbidden by the laws of...

The acquisitions of Macao meant more to the Portuguese than gaining a rocky ledge on which to build themselves homes, warehouses, and churches. Without any of the bargaining or discussion that usually precedes the award of such privileges, they had acquired the monopoly of the entire maritime trade of China. Chinese were forbidden to leave the coast; Japanese were forbidden to enter Chinese ports; Arabs, who had once had a resident population in Canton, had been ejected from the trade routes in the course of Portugal’s curbing of Islam; Siamese and other nearby peoples could still come to China if...

Portuguese Asia had proved itself strong enough to hold the Spaniards in check in Eastern waters. It was not to prove strong enough against the Dutch. Just as the Spanish penetration into Asia stems from the predilections of one man—the dissatisfied Magellan—so does the disaster to which Portugal and her empire were now to be submitted stem from the dreams and predilections of another individual—in this case a king.

In 1578 this young king, Sebastiao, imbued with a fantastic and fatal desire for glory, which the heroic tone of Camões’ epic is said partly to have inspired...

Among the crews of Portuguese ships sailing to the East were men from the British Isles, opportunists, miscreants, persecuted Catholics, and plain adventurers, all drawn to the wealth and prospects which for a short time were centred in Lisbon. The Portuguese adventure in Asia had an unusually cosmopolitan side to it. We have already observed an Italian, Raffaelo Perestrello, commanding a Portuguese voyage to China. It was the same throughout. Provided a man spoke Portuguese and was a Catholic—or pretended to be—it was not too difficult to find a place for himself in Portuguese Asia.

These early Britishers...

The years following the ending of the Japan trade were the darkest Macao has ever lived through, and they lasted a long time, during which the city became dreadfully impoverished and was in danger of extinction.

They were also years which marked an equally dreadful deterioration in morale. Victims of mob murders included a governor and a head of the Senate. The famous Dominican friar Domingo Navarrete, who was there in 1670, wrote, ‘It would take up much time and paper to write but a small Epitome of the Broils, Uproars, Quarrels and Extravagancies there have been at Macao.’ Some...

On 24 August 1841, Captain Elliot, the founder of Hongkong, boarded his ship of departure in Macao. He was accompanied by Commodore Bremer, who had been his commander-in-chief. Elliot’s acquisition of Hongkong had been ridiculed by the British, and he himself dismissed by Lord Palmerston. Time was to vindicate Elliot’s wisdom and judgment in accepting Hongkong when it was offered to him, though this seemed far from likely on that depressing day. Neither his successor, Sir Henry Pottinger, nor any of the more consequential Britons in China were present to see him off. His departure was ignored by all save...