CO129-008 - Foreign Office - 1844 — Page 258

of the town. The Portuguese had in vain endeavoured, when I left then, to meet the charges of their miserable establishment by duties on their still more miserable trade of four or five Portuguese ships occasionally a Spanish one.

Note.

English trade is permitted to enter the harbour by a short-sighted policy (a charge of 40 dollars per chest) been driven away in 1522 to flourish at Lintin in floating warehouses, independent alike of the cognizance of the Country, or lavation.

The revolutions in the mother Country, and the deficiency of both funds and credit led the Government of Portugal to make a ravenous attack on the ecclesiastical endowments, as well as the private property of its subjects, both at home and abroad; and the richest Archbishop of Macao (almost the only one that deserved the name) took refuge in London, where he now lives. The remaining prosperity of the place dependent on the English residents, who rented the best houses, and spent their money there; where the expulsion of the British Trade from Lintin in 1839, and the necessity for warehousing our Merchants' goods, gave a short-lived prosperity to Macao, which, like a grafted tree, was surprised by the "novos fructus et non sua poma".

But at the very moment when it greatly benefited by the connection, and when the opportunity of asserting their independence of the Chinese would have been promptly met by British cooperation, the Portuguese silently acquiesced in the hostile preparation of Commissioner Lin against the persons of the English; and, when Captain Smith made his well-timed attack on the Chinese forces at the Barrier wall, a portion of the garrison's troops marched from the town of Macao, at the same time that a principal part of the garrison...

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...by which our brooks...

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of the town. The Portuguese had in vain endeavoured, when I left then, to meet the charges of their miserable establishment by duties on their still more miserable trade of four or five Portuguese ships occasionally a Spanish one.

Note.

English trade is permitted to enter the harbour by a short-sighted policy (a charge of 40 dollars per chest) been driven away in 1522 to flourish at Lintin in floating warehouses, independent alike of the cognizance of the Country, or lavation.

The revolutions in the mother Country, and the deficiency of both funds and credit led the Government of Portugal to make a ravenous attack on the ecclesiastical endowments, as well as the private property of its subjects, both at home and abroad; and the richest Archbishop of Macao (almost the only one that deserved the name) took refuge in London, where he now lives. The remaining prosperity of the place dependent on the English residents, who rented the best houses, and spent their money there; where the expulsion of the British Trade from Lintin in 1839, and the necessity for warehousing our Merchants' goods, gave a short-lived prosperity to Macao, which, like a grafted tree, was surprised by the "novos fructus et non sua poma".

But at the very moment when it greatly benefited by the connection, and when the opportunity of asserting their independence of the Chinese would have been promptly met by British cooperation, the Portuguese silently acquiesced in the hostile preparation of Commissioner Lin against the persons of the English; and, when Captain Smith made his well-timed attack on the Chinese forces at the Barrier wall, a portion of the garrison's troops marched from the town of Macao, at the same time that a principal part of the garrison...
by which our brooks

Page 414

255

Page 255