The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and the Situation Thereof, Volume 1 (of 2). González de Mendoza Juan

which was Fernando Peres d'Andrade, selected on account of the ability he had shown previously in India, especially at Malacca, departed, after various unsuccessful cruises, from Malacca on the 17th June 1517, and arrived on the 15th August at the Island of Tamang (called by the Portuguese Beniaga), lying three miles from the mainland, where all foreign ships that trade to Canton must lie at anchor and transact their business.3 In the harbour Andrade found Edward Coelho, who, in a previous expedition, had been separated from him by a storm, had wintered at Siam, and had already been there a month. Andrade caused it to be notified to the commander of the Chinese fleet, which was stationed off the coast there for the protection of merchant ships against pirates, that he was come on a peaceful embassy from the King of Portugal to the Emperor of China. The commander bade him welcome, but referred him to the Pio (great admiral) at Nanto upon the subject of his business. After various delays and difficulties, occasioned by the numerous gradations of rank amongst the Chinese authorities, their ceremoniousness, and the mistrust, imperfectly veiled by civility, of the Chinese towards strangers, Andrade reached Canton at the close of September, and ran into the harbour with all the usual nautical ceremonies. When surprise was expressed at this, he justified himself by referring to the practice of the Chinese in this particular when their ships came to Portuguese Malacca. He then begged that he might forward to the emperor the ambassador and the presents which he had brought with him, and that the Portuguese fleet might be dismissed as soon as possible. He was answered civilly, that they would receive the ambassador, and as soon as permission was obtained from the emperor, would escort him to court. Meanwhile the commander had permission to carry on trade in the town, after the ambassador had landed. Andrade now caused the ambassador, Thomas Pires, with seven Portuguese, richly dressed, to be put on shore with sound of trumpets and discharge of cannon. This Tomas Pires, erroneously called by Mendoza, Bartholomew, though a man of no rank, had been selected for this mission on account of his scientific qualifications, his tact, and experience. He was an apothecary by profession, and a practised and competent judge of the merchandize and productions of India. They not only granted him one of the best houses in the town, wherein he and his companions received visits from the most distinguished inhabitants, but also offered them maintenance, according to the custom observed with ambassadors. This, however, the commander declined, nor did he accept the invitation to come on shore, but, excusing himself, sent the factor with some assistants in his stead, and when a warehouse was granted them near the fleet, allowed the merchandize to be landed by degrees, and an interchange of traffic commenced.

      Matters were in this prosperous condition, when circumstances rendered it necessary for the commander to leave Canton. Many of his people had become sick from malaria, and nine, including the factor, were dead. These and other disasters compelled Andrade to take leave of the Chinese commanders, and he went back to the island of Tamang, where he was plentifully supplied with all that he required for the repair of his ships. Before his departure Andrade caused proclamation to be made in Canton, Nanto, and the harbour of Tamang, that those who had demands on the Portuguese, should apply to him in order that they might be fully satisfied. This proceeding gave the Chinese a high opinion of the integrity of the Portuguese. At the end of September 1518, Fernando Peres d'Andrade again set saile with his whole fleet, and entered the harbour of Malacca loaded with renown and riches.4

      At his departure from Canton, he left the affairs of the Portuguese so arranged that their trade with the Chinese might be carried on securely and peacefully, and with profit to both parties. His brother, Simon d'Andrade, received from the king a commission to make another voyage to China, and departed in April 1518 from Malacca. Upon his arrival in August in the harbour of Tamu, he found that the Portuguese ambassador, Thomas Pires, had not yet left Canton, as, in spite of three applications, no order had yet been received from the court to escort him thither. At length the order came, and Pires went in the beginning of January 1520 by water as far as the mountain range Malenschwang, thence to Nankin, where the emperor was, who ordered him to Pekin, where he himself usually resided on account of the nearness of the Tartars, with whom he was continually at war. In January 1521, the emperor came there, and immediately dismissed the embassy. He had received unfavourable accounts of the Portuguese from the authorities at Canton and Nankin, whom the King of Bintang had influenced by an emissary; they told the emperor that, under the pretext of trading, the Portuguese explored the country with the view of taking it by force of arms, and that in this way they had made themselves masters of India and Malacca. Pires therefore was admitted no more into the palace. Meanwhile the emperor fell ill and died, and the counsellors of his successor were of opinion that Pires and all his companions should be put to death as spies. The emperor however ordered the ambassador, real or pretended, to be sent back to Canton with the presents, and to be kept in custody there until answer should be received from the Portuguese authorities at Malacca. Until then no Portuguese or Portuguese merchandise was to be admitted into the empire. The emperor further commanded that the king of Malacca, who was an ally of the emperor, and who had been driven out by the Portuguese, should be restored.

      The severe conditions imposed upon the Portuguese by the emperor are not to be wondered at, for all the accounts which he had received from his authorities respecting them were prejudicial, and Simon d'Andrade himself gave frequent occasion for complaint by inconsiderate or unjust regulations, contrary both to the laws and to the received opinions of the country, and provoked the Chinese against the Portuguese; and even his personal behaviour seems to have been calculated to provoke animosity.5 At last a hot encounter took place between the Portuguese and Chinese ships, during which, fortunately for the Portuguese, a storm arose, which scattered the Chinese fleet and favoured the flight of the Portuguese, so that they happily reached Malacca at the end of October.

      Thomas Pires meanwhile was, upon his arrival in Canton, thrown into prison with all his companions, and died in chains; the presents which he had brought with him were stolen. The letters, which two or three years afterwards arrived from the prisoners, contained lamentable descriptions of the oppressions they had to endure, and of the robberies which were committed in foreign ships, upon the pretence that they had Portuguese on board. The great stores of valuable merchandize, gold and silver from India, were entirely lost. Mendoza does not complete the tale of Pires's adventures, but some interesting details are given by Remusat in his Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques, page 205, tom. ii.

      The next Portuguese adventurer who comes within the range of our special notice, is Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, who from the apparent extravagance of his accounts became proverbial as an accomplished romancer. Congreve, in his Love for Love, makes Foresight thus address Sir Sampson Legend: "Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude." Like most of his predecessors, however, in early travel, he has by this time recovered much of his forfeited reputation, and, as in their case, some of his most remarkable statements have been confirmed by more recent explorations. Being compelled to leave his country from some accident, which he describes as casting "him into manifest peril of his life", he took to the sea. The chances of his life led him to Abyssinia, and subsequently along the coast of Arabia to India. With his adventures in these countries we have here nothing to do, but pass at once to the circumstances under which he was thrown upon the coast of China. At Goa, Pinto hired himself as a soldier to Pedro de Faria, who was proceeding as governor to Malacca. In this employ he was selected as Portuguese agent in the company of the ambassador of the Battas, on the return of the latter to Sumatra from his complimentary visit to Faria, at Malacca, the seat of government. Here he fell in with one Antonio de Faria, with whom he joined in a great commercial expedition to be sent up the Gulf of Siam.

      We pass over various romantic adventures with pirates, described in his narrative, especially those with one Coja Acem, a native of Guzerat, and an implacable enemy of the Portuguese, whom Faria at length overcame in a desperate encounter. The adventurers then sailed to Liampoo (Ning-po), where Faria gained intelligence of an island called Calempluy, in which were the tombs of seventeen kings of China, all of gold, and containing great treasure of various descriptions. This place they sought and reached, and having plundered, loaded their ships with the treasure. About a month after they had put to sea, they were wrecked in a furious gale in the Gulf of Nanking, and fourteen of the Portuguese alone escaped with their lives. The Chinese gave the shipwrecked pirates but a harsh reception; they were first