D. JOÃO V'S DIPLOMATIC MISSION TO COCHIN-CHINA

INTRODUCTION

I have never been able to bring myself round to Oliveira Martins' criticism of the 1870s, aimed primarily against the final dynasty of the Portuguese monarchy. On the contrary, my own thoughts would tend to fall more in line with those of some of Portugal's most prominent historians(1) in the belief that although Portugal had lost important territories in the East (such as Ormuz, Malacca, the Moluccas and Ceylon) when the motherland was under Spanish rule, nevertheless, we later managed to reconquer, expand and strengthen the best part of our foreign empire in Brazil, Africa and even in the East.

Indeed, we extended our territory in Mozambique substantially and also succeeded in gaining ground in Madagascar. The Mongol emperor handed Ponda over to us and sent a diplomatic mission to Portugal. The Marquis of Castelo Novo (1741-1746) tripled the size of the Portuguese territories in Goa with the New Conquests thus allowing greater diplomatic proximity to Persia. During the same period, lavish missions from K'ang-hsi, Emperor of China, and Nguyen Phuoc Chu or Ming Vuong, King of Cochin-China, visited Dom João V (reign 1706 to 1750).

Macau was Portugal's most remote and isolated possession. Of prime concern was the need to maintain and increase its commercial and cultural influence in Southeast Asia, a region of strategic importance largely due to its wealth. Also important was the fact that Macau served as the bridge between the Indian subcontinent and those two colossal powers, China and Japan.

Prince Pedro** had already sent an ambassador extraordinary to the Peking Court in 1667 just before Afonso VI was deposed. This was Portugal's first official mission to China given that previous attempts, namely those by Tomé Pires in 1521, Gil Gís in 1564 and others had failed. (2)

Dom João V continued this particular policy and sent two missions to the Celestial Empire and one to Cochin-China. The two delegations sent to mainland China, the first one led by Father António de Magalhães, SJ (1721-1722) and the second by Alexandre Metelo de Sousa e Meneses (1726-1727) have been researched in depth and the results published. Magalhães was discussed by João de Deus Ramos in a speech which he gave to the Portuguese Academy of History in April 1988(3) while Júdice Biker studied Metelo de Sousa e Meneses in his Collecção de Tratados e Concertos de Pazes & C, vol. VI, and in his Memória sobre o Estabelecimento de Macau, Lisbon, 1876.

Because of the more extensive knowledge which exists with. regard to the diplomatic missions to China, I intend to limit myself, in this article, to analysing the mission to Cochin-China, It is also relevant in that it refers to a number of points which still have some relevance to the recent North American involvement in Vietnam.

Let us first examine what Cochin-China was like, its political and commercial situation, its relations with Macau and the two individuals involved in the embassy: the Annamese king and the ambassador himself, a Jesuit Father from Aragon, Juán António Arnedo.

THE AMBASSADOR

Father Juán António Arnedo was born on the 21st of March, 1660, in Tarazona in the kingdom of Aragon which had by that point been unified with Castile. He entered the Society of Jesus in Zaragoza on the 13th of June, 1674.

He embarked for the East travelling from Lisbon on the 1st of April, 1684, arriving in Macau three years later. He immediately proceeded to the China mission, starting work in Canton on the 1st of October, 1687 and then working in Kiang-Si province until at least 1691.

On his return to Macau, he taught Theology for one year at the University of the Mother of God (St. Paul's) until around 1693(4) when he was sent to Cochin-China to alleviate, to some extent, the persecution that Nguyen Phuoc Tan (who died in 1691) had instigated.

In fact, Minh Vuong or Nguyen Phuoc Chu (1691-1725) who succeeded Nguyen Phuoc Tan was always very appreciative of Father Arnedo and made things easy for him. In 1695, Arnedo accurately predicted an eclipse of the sun and as a result, he was immediately appointed Court Mathematician, King's Commissioner for goods bought from China and Batavia and Third Editor of the Official Calendar.

Father Arnedo settled in Tu Due in a property near the Church of Our Lady of Conception owned by Clemente da Cruz, son of the Master of the Royal Foundry, João da Cruz, who had taken over from his father in the same trade. Arnedo also served as the Superior of the Society of Jesus in Cochin-China in 1701, 1708, 1712 and 1714.

There is a letter written by Arnedo in Hue, "capital of Cochin-China", dated the 31st of July 1700, in which he provides many details of the previous persecutions as well as other documents pertaining to his missions to Macau, Goa and Portugal. The section of historic documents in the library of the Leal Senado in Macau holds much of the material I mention in this article.

Father Arnedo died of a fever, after having rounded the Cape of Good Hope on the 22nd of March 1715. He entrusted his assistant, Father Manuel Botelho, with the letter from Minh Vuong and other documents which he was taking to Dom João V. As they would say in the East: "Arnedo planted the tree and others enjoyed its shade".

THE FORMATION OF INDO-CHINA

Since prehistoric times, the Indo-Chinese Peninsula has been a meeting place for different ethnic and cultural groups. As an example of this, we can observe the movement southwards to the lush plains along the big rivers where the bulk of the raw materials are concentrated, spear-headed by the Chinese unified under Ch'ih-shih Huang Ti in 221 B. C. and followed up by the Han (202 B. C.- A. D. 220). As far as race and language are concerned, these people are akin to the Chinese, who occupied the land for ten centuries.

Vietnam gained its identity with the Ly dynasty (1009-1225) but later on, in the reign of Le Chieu-tong (1516-1526), royal power weakened due to the rivalry which existed amongst the three most powerful families of the country: the Mac, the Trinh and the Nguyen.

In 1591, Trinh Tung defeated the Mac in the Red River Delta and reinstated the Le dynasty in its capital, Hanoi, in the following year. From 1660 onwards, Tonkin (Bac Phan) submitted to the authority of the Trinh while the south of Cochin-China was dominated by the Nguyen. At first, the frontier was the Song Gianh River although in 1630-1631 the Dong Hoi Wall was used. The two parts of Vietnam fought from 1620 to 1673. The Portuguese and the Dutch helped the Nguyen. A truce starting in 1674 and lasting one century followed this war. During this time, the Trinh managed to strip the Le of their power and the Nguyen extended their territory into Champa in the south of the country.

During the period with which we are concerned (17th century and the first three decades of the 18th), the Nguyen lords maintained Hue as their capital sometimes also using Cacham (now Quang Nam), some seven or eight leagues from Tourane (Da Nang). The Provinces of the kingdom, from north to south were as follows: three quarters of Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Thua Thien, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai and the provinces of former Champa, on the Mekong Delta, conquered by Hien Vuong or Nguyen Phuoc Tan (1648-1687), as I shall establish.

The most important international centre of Cochin-China (and thus of the whole of Vietnam of that time) was Faifó, on the coast, where there was a wealthy Japanese colony and which lay only four or six leagues away from Tourane.

In the middle of 1524, Duarte Coelho reached the Vietnamese coast and left an engraved stone monument there. By 1540, commercial relations had already been established with the sultana of Patani, Cambodia and Cochin-China, according to Fernão Mendes Pinto, who returned to this place in 1555 and saw Coelho's monument.

Trade with Cochin-China was more open and free than with Japan. It was not, however, so profitable because the raw materials such as pewter and rubber, which are produced nowadays, were not available at that point. Among the best products of Cochin-China was the aromatic agalloch wood (of which calambac was regarded as the best quality) a royal monopoly in the period. Also of great importance was gum benjamin, ebony, sugar, a variety of musks, cinnamon, Sumatran pepper and swallow's nests from Paracel Island and the caves on the coast of Thailand.

At Faifó, a free port, a wide variety of goods were imported such as rubies, pearls (eagerly sought by the Chinese emperor's eunuchs), cloths, gold, boxes, raw and spun silk, cannons from Macau, dried foodstuffs, mercury, cinnabar, t'ungwood, carpets, bales of cotton, flax, chinaware and porcelain, lead, sulphur, saltpetre, tea, paper, copper and silver from Japan.

When trade between Macau and Japan was suppressed by the Tokugawa shoguns in 1639, the Macanese and Chinese searched and found other trading alternatives. The most important were Faifó and Hanoi, Manilla (although this route was suspended for two years due to the restoration of the throne in Portugal which was proclaimed in Macau in 1642) and Makasar, at the western extremity of Sulawesi (the Celebes).

As well as receiving traders from China and Macau, Faifó was also used by merchants from Cochin-China. The Japanese flooded the same market with copper and silver. The city swarmed with people of all races including large numbers of Annamese. However, the majority of the population consisted of Chinese and Javanese who each lived in separate districts according to their national laws and customs. (5)

In spite of the fabulous business opportunities, which for many years compensated Macau for the loss of the Nagasaki emporium, a number of factors led to a reduction in traffic and goods during the 18th century: the greed of princes and mandarins who pared the profits of the merchants to a minimum (as would happen in the Canton hongs later on); the paltry share that the masses pocketed; the opening of new trading posts; competition from the ingenious Cantonese (against whom it was nearly impossible to compete); and the truce between North and South Indo-China lasting from 1674 to 1774. As early as 1635, António Bocarro had commented that the decrease in trade was so extensive that it constituted by then "a trifling matter" and if it still continued it was mainly to support the Catholic missions. (6)

Following the increasing persecution of missionaries in Japan in 1614, the Jesuits entered Cochin-China on January the 18th, 1615. Commander Fernando da Costa led a delegation from the Macau Senate (the political and administrative government of the city-republic until 1835) to visit King Nguyen Hoang (1600-1615). Nguyen Hoang had risen against Emperor Le Kinh Tong of the North (1600-1619). Once again, Vietnam was left without strong leadership and this was the main reason for its political and social discord and disintegration, a situation which has persisted up to the present.

Sai Vuong or Nguyen Phuoc Nguyen (1613-1635) who built the Dong Hoi Wall in 1630-31, was a tolerant prince and Christianity was allowed to advance to the extent that, during the first ten years of evangelization, the number of followers rose to twenty thousand. The sister of the king, Bá Maria Madalena, was baptized and promoted the Catholic cause until 1664. In the ensuing persecution of 1664, she renounced her faith under torture. (7)

RELATIONS BETWEEN COCHIN-CHINA AND MACAU

Tourane, where the Portuguese settled in 1617, Faifó, Cacham and the coastal island of Pullo Camby were the main centres of Christianity in the region. Some Portuguese merchants also came from Malacca. Nevertheless, the Portuguese were unable to establish a trading post, still less a fortress. In spite of this, however, Rafael Carneiro de Siqueira's(8) new delegation of 1621, which included the mission's Visiting Father Manuel Fernandes SJ, was welcomed with great pomp and was extremely successful. Father Fernandes describes the trip and the embassy at length in a long letter written in Cochin-China to his provincial superior, dated the 6th of July 1622. (9)

The delegation left Macau on the 29th of December 1621 and within four days they had reached the coast of Cochin-China. On the fifth day they arrived in a large bay at the mouth of a river. They dropped anchor but it caught on the seabed and strong waves pushed the ship onto the rocky coast where she managed to moor. There they were forced to stay for two days because the winds were so strong. This meant that they arrived at the entrance to Tourane's harbour on the 5th of January 1622, the eve of the Epiphany. Father Francisco Pina(10) and Brother Paulo met them there and took them to Faifó, six or seven leagues away.

The Macau provincial father had recommended that there should be consultation as to whether the priests should accompany the ambassador to the royal palace. The response was affirmative and Fathers Fernandes and Pina as well as Brother Paulo went there. The priests from Pullo Camby could not be consulted in time but they agreed in principle with the decision taken.

Consequently, the ambassador, accompanied by two of his peers and the three Jesuits, went to the city of Cacham to visit the king, the governor and the royal administrator who lived there. They told them they had come from Macau and had gifts for the king, of which the administrator drew up a list. They were welcomed and given food and drinks on "trays piled high with meat, fish, fruits and different types of desserts... all in dishes from China, in the greatest cleanliness".

They returned to Faifó, one league away from Cacham. The king sent for them eight to ten days later, sending a vessel with five soldiers to accompany them. They left Tourane and travelled for three days by sea and three days by river, arriving in Hue on the 31st of January at nightfall. On the king's orders, a mandarin came for them at the beach and took them to his home where they were received as his guests. The king sent his ceremonial brig to take them to the palace and they disembarked at the main door, accompanied by the mandarin.

We entered through a well-kept courtyard, writes Father Fernandes, from whence we went on to a balcony or a partially open room in the middle of which the king was awaiting us, flanked by many mandarins and soldiers lining the walls. Then, each and every one of us made a low bow.

The king immediately motioned to us to sit to his right, slightly further down, where folded mats were laid over some thicker ones. I was placed nearest to him, next was Father Pina (the interpreter), Brother Paulo, then the Ambassador and finally a colleague he had taken along. Then, because the Ambassador, in this and the remaining visits, entrusted me with the conversation, I divided my speech into two parts. Firstly, I told him that the city of Macau and Your Reverence [the provincial to whom he was writing], having been told by the priests who live in this Kingdom of the love that His Highness had for the Portuguese and the favours he did to the same priests, had sent me and the Ambassador to visit His Highness, to enquire about his health, to express their gratitude for the favours he bestowed upon the priests and thank him for his desire that the Portuguese call at (his) ports.

The king expressed his heartfelt thanks for the visit and asked immediately why the Portuguese had not come to his Kingdom for some years now and other similar questions.

Firstly, I said that the Dutch had stated in Japan that they had permission from His Highness to come to this land with their ships in order to establish a trading post. The City [of Macau] and all the Portuguese believed this to be false, as they were well aware of the good intentions of His Highness who would certainly not shelter and favour thieves such as the Dutch, but they still wished to hear the truth from His Highness. For, if the Dutch came to his ports, our ships could not come, nor could the Portuguese give His Highness that pleasure since the Dutch were our arch enemies.

Sai Vuong replied that he had not given such permission for as long as the Portuguese came to his ports because he knew the character of both sides and he had always considered the Portuguese to be very truthful and righteous. As for the Dutch, he knew they were thieves, adding new information about this and asking other questions. Finally, he motioned for us to be served refreshments. Although it was the eve of Our Lady of Lights and therefore a fasting day, we decided that we should accept and eat something, though not much, because not doing so would be considered discourteous.

The king went out pleased and dignified. Afterwards he took his leave of us, saying that he would read the letter from the City of Macau. Upon our arrival at the place where we were staying, a message came, together with two wagons loaded with rice, two casks of wine and ten thousand pieces of cash.

On the third day, the king came to visit us dressed in our manner in garments we had taken as gifts. We visited the orchard and the armoury, which is not very heavy but is well equipped. He told us about a house in the middle of a field where cannons are used for target practice. He ordered the practice to start and many hit the target afterwards with a gun manufactured in Lisbon.

Furthering our mission, the Ambassador pledged, on behalf of the City of Macau, that if His Excellency would not admit the Dutch then a Portuguese ship would come every year. His Majesty responded saying that in order to strengthen this friendship and let the Portuguese understand the affection he felt for them, he hoped that some would come and live in this kingdom, where he would give them land, and where they could build a large church wherever they pleased for which he would bear part of the expenses, showing us in every way all the love and joy one could possibly expect. He bade us farewell saying that the letter and the gift to the City of Macau would be sent to Faifó while he sent ten taels as a contribution to the expenses of the voyage to the house we were staying in.

Through a third party we requested that Father Francisco de Pina be received by him, and in the afternoon he summoned him. The said priest informed the king of the whole business and he promised to comply with our every wish. It was very important for us to discover that we had access to His Majesty both in public and in private.

Upon our arrival, we returned to Cacham, having presented the gift to the Prince and visited other mandarins who could help us obtain a favourable decision and they all promised to put in a good word for us.

Then Sai Vuong granted the Jesuit missionaries and merchants from Macau a letter of abode with the following curious wording:

Some years ago, the Dutch sent a ship with a request for residence in this Kingdom. As they are not like other men, we did not grant it. Now I am forwarding this short letter to let this be known by the Macau Senate Councillors and the Great Priest [the Jesuit Visitor], along with two pieces of silk as a token of our appreciation and friendship towards your land.

I am extremely pleased that, from now on, Portuguese ships will come and go in order to trade and that the two kingdoms shall have amicable dealings with each other. (11)

It was, however, still in the reign of Sai Vuong that Buddhist priests (Buddhism being the state religion) were able to instigate the first religious persecutions against Christianity, thereby indirectly affecting trade relations with Macau (1616, 1625,1629,1633).

Ships from the City of the Name of God sailed to Cochin-China every year, at times in large numbers. In 1646, another embassy was sent, this time led by Francisco Cotrim de Magalhães who went armed with a decree dated the 3rd August of that year, written by D. Filipe de Mascarenhas, Viceroy of India. The decree was aimed at opposing the machinations of the Dutch who had established themselves in Galle in the south of Ceylon and were trying to expand into Siam, Cambodia and CochinChina itself.

During the monsoon of July/August, 1651, Macau was the destination of "three pinnaces and one sampan which had gone to Cochin-China loaded with boxes, out of which good profits were made although not so many as last year because of the number of ships involved". At the time, João de Sousa Pereira, Captain-General of Macau (1650-1654), wrote to Nguyen Phuoc Tan (1640-1687) requesting permission for the priests to reside in his kingdom and sending him a cannon as a gift. Father Metello Sacanno and Father Pero Marques, a Portuguese-Japanese from Nagasaki and apostle of the Japanese in Faifó, went with the cannon on its journey. The king sent a gift to the Captain-General and promised to accept the priests in Cochin-China. At the same time, he wrote a letter to the Jesuit Visitor (the "Great Priest" as he was called in Annamese), Sebastião da Maia (1650-1651), in which he thanked him for his letter and gifts and offered him gifts in kind. He requested the Captain-General to have the cannons forged and to send the priests back with the cast cannons. Only then would he give them a place to dwell. The greedy royal document reads as follows(12):

I, King of the Kingdom of Cochin-China, am writing this letter to the Captain-General of the City of Macau. I have always heard that in the world, precedence is given to reason and justice. In dealings between neighbouring lands, the foundations are laid on honesty. Therefore, the City of Macau and this Kingdom of Cochin-China will be united through love and mutual benefit and we shall deal with one another with justice. Since I became king, I have not shown my affection and esteem for you. However, you sent me a cannon as a gift, which I prize highly. If you need anything from my Kingdom I will not be ungenerous. As regards what you wrote to me some months ago concerning the priests of the Society dwelling in my country, I have the following to say. The Kings, my ancestors, always forbade dwelling in this kingdom; therefore, if I do not take them, I will not introduce anything new. However, since we have now gained each other's acquaintance and friendship, I will accept them for the esteem that you show for me in your letter for I could not refute such an obligation.

Allow me to repeat that if I can serve you in any way in this Kingdom of mine, do me the honour of telling me and you will be served. You ask me to admit these priests in my Kingdom; the truth is, the space is so small and the priests so many that it may be uncomfortable for them. Therefore, I beg of you not to be excessive in your requests because I wish to be benevolent in what I concede.

I am sending five thousand catties of copper. Trusting in your esteem, I ask you to have it cast into cannons. I will consider this a great favour which I will never forget because, although they could be cast in my land, I wish to have them cast in Macau due to the trust I place in you. Meanwhile, I am sending these priests(13) who will help with this matter and they will tell you themselves of the esteem and affection I feel for you. When the monsoon arrives, send these Priests back again to live in my Kingdom. At the same time request whatever you need with true friendship; I ask you to treat me in the same way.

You may have the guns I need cast to your liking, either large or small, provided that you use up all the copper. This favour will be as great as the mountains and shall remain in my heart like the waters that descend from the same slopes.

I am sending you a small gift which, however insignificant it is, nevertheless reveals my heart. Although many leagues separate us, as I write this it seems that I am speaking in your presence.

The gift includes the following items: Twenty pieces of fine silk. Three pieces of agilloch wood weighing one catty. Two horns of the female rhinoceros. Six ivory tusks weighing one hundred catties.

Written in the third year of my Reign on the twenty sixth day of the third Moon of the year sixteen hundred and fifty one.

There was another letter from the same monarch written in similar terms, though shorter, addressed to the Visiting Father (the "Great Priest"). (14)

More requests for artillery from the Macau workshop in Chunambeiro, on the small bay of Bom Parto, followed. The delay in shipping them enraged the mean and irascible King Nguyen Phuoc Tan. In a moment of anger, he had the chapel in his great aunt Bá Maria's house dismantled. Following this, Father Pero Marques managed to get a letter to Macau very quickly and the requests were immediately met. In 1659, a ship belonging to João Vieira carried the heavy artillery to Cochin-China and the house and garden which had been confiscated in Faifó were returned to the Missionaries with the right to build a church there.

In 1664, however, this king began a wave of persecution which caused many people to renounce their religion - female believers were thrown to the elephants. The movement also produced thirty seven outstanding martyrs. On the 29th of May, 1665, Father Marques wrote a splendid thirty-five page report in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and a summary in Latin which is held in the "Cortes da Academia Real de la Historia" collection in Calle León, Madrid, and in the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus. (15)

The man behind the unleashing of this dreadful turmoil was Guico, a blind Chinese married to a Japanese woman. He used the same sacrilegious procedure of fumie (stamping on sacred images) as was common in Japan. At the end of the persecution, he fell out of favour and fled to Cambodia where he was baptized before dying. The city where the judgements and torture took place was Cacham, the capital, seven leagues from Faifó.

In 1761, Father Marques had to depart once again for Macau with the sum of ten thousand escudos to be used to purchase further weaponry for the belligerent King Nguyen Phuoc Tan.

The inhabitants of Macau explored CochinChina's resources and found them so rich and important, according to Ljungstedt, that, in a general council in 1685, that it was resolved that the ship Nª Srª de Monserrate should bring Frutuoso Gomes Leite, the envoy appointed by the Viceroy of India, D. Francisco de Távora, Count of Alvor. (16)

On the 19th of February the Leal Senado decided to send Nguyen Phuoc Tan two more small bronze cannons on board the Stº António, on a petition from councillor João Garcia de Luares, owner of the said vessel. The master of the vessel was Felipe Fróis de Quadros and the factor Manuel de Faria. (17)

King Nguyen Phuoc Tan died in 1691. His son and successor Nguyen Phuoc Chu (1691-1725) did not honour his father's promises. Instead he instigated violent persecutions against the Church in 1698 and 1700, interrupting trade relations with Macau.

One of the strongest pillars of the Catholic Church and the Portuguese in Cochin-China was the Macanese João da Cruz. First, he served under the King of Cambodia who promoted him to the honourable position of Ocunhá, governor of a province, in recognition of his distinguished service. When King Nguyen Phuoc Tan launched an attack against Udong in 1658, victorious Cochin-Chinese troops brought him to Hue. He settled down in Tu Due where he built the Church of Our Lady and lived with Fathers Bartolomeu da Costa, Domingos Fuciti, José Candone and Juán António Arnedo. He retained the title of Ocnhá while also working as the Royal Founder of cannons, cauldrons and other objects, some of which can still be found in Cambodia and Vietnam.

With the help of this artillery, more finely tempered than the weapons he had ordered from Europe, Hien Vuong proceeded from Phu Yen Province in Champa, annexed by Nguyen Hoang in 1611, to the Phan Rang river in 1653, founding the province of the same name.

In 1658, he attacked Cambodia, seizing Saigon. That is why João da Cruz describes Nguyen Phuoc Tan as "Lord of Cochin-China, Champa and Cambodia". In fact, thanks to the Macau artillery and the other weapons he had manufactured himself, Champa was temporarily extinguished as a nation of Indianised culture.

In the conflict over ecclesiastic jurisdiction involving Bishop Lambert de Lamotte who had been seconded to the Portuguese missions under the unilateral policy of the "Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith" (which was dominated by Portugal's enemies and supporters of Louis XIV), Hien Vuong - who had always backed João da Cruz, tenacious defender of the Portuguese Jesuits - came out in favour of the French. They had started political and religious infiltration across the whole of Indo-China, resorting to the killing of Portuguese including dozens of laymen and one priest.

The "tortures and convictions" of these Portuguese opponents were such that the influence of João da Cruz and his son Clemente, who had briefly inherited his father's fame and power, began to decrease and João himself died in 1682.

The sorrow of seeing his priests condemned by the papal edict on the Chinese Rites dated the 28th of January 1680 issued by Pope Innocent XI, and the banishment of the most influential missionaries must have played a part in his decline. Only the Court Mathematician Arnedo, the scientist João Loureiro and the physician Johann Koffler were spared banishment and condemnation by the Church.

Never in the history of the Catholic Missions had such a lack of understanding and injustice occurred and only during the pontificate of Pope Pious XII (on December the 8th, 1939) would reparation be made. However, irreparable harm had been done throughout the East. (18)

Under these circumstances of decreasing Portuguese influence in Southeast Asia, the imperialistic ambitions of France and the dissension in the Church, Father Arnedo set off on a visit to the King of Portugal, D. João V.

THE TRIPLE EMBASSY OF FATHER ARNEDO

We will see how Cochin-China, after having reached its peak of territorial expansion made possible mainly thanks to the king, Hien Vuong, using Portuguese guns and supported by Macau, sank into decline until it finally disintegrated as a nation when it fell into the hands of the French.

Hien Vuong died in 1691. His son Nguyen Phuoc-Chu (1691-1725) succeeded him, but he did not honour his father's promises which had been so favourable to the Macanese and their thriving Catholic Missions. He unleashed a wave of persecution against the Church. In 1698, the chapel of Clemente Cruz was destroyed and the tombs of his father and family desecrated. In 1700, he went so far as to sever commercial relations with Macau.

On the 16th of July 1710, the Senate's procurator, Gaspar Francisco da Silva arrived in Macau on board the frigate Nossa Senhora da Visitação bringing with him confirmation of all the privileges of the City awarded by D. João V.

There was a final solution for Cochin-China and Portuguese relations with the region: the Court Mathematician, Father Arnedo, had been spared in all the crises. The Jesuit Visitor, Miguel Amaral, sent him to Macau. Ming Vuong, the new monarch, took advantage of the opportunity to appoint Father Juán António Arnedo as his envoy in reestablishing normal relations with Macau.

Father Amaral informed the Leal Senado of the arrival of the Ambassador and on the 25th of August 1712 the Senate convened under the councillor of the month, Gaspar Martins, in order to discuss the protocol for the occasion.

By general agreement, they decided to summon all the military forces [twenty one soldiers and three officers] so that they would wait for him, drawing up in a line in Rua Direita [now Rua Central] up to the entrance of the Senate. Two men in sedan chairs would go to the College of the Mother of God [St. Paul's] in order to show him the City. The assembly asked José da Cunha d'Eça and Luís Sanches de Cáceres to be so kind as to accompany Father Arnedo. It was determined that in the Senate, a chair should be placed on a carpet with a footstool in front and a padded bench to the right of the sideboard. It was also decided that a volley of nine shots should be fired from the Monte Fortress.

In the afternoon of the same day, Father Juán António Arnedo arrived at the Leal Senado as an envoy of the King of Cochin-China and performed his mission by handing over a letters patent he had brought from the Mandarin and Marquis of Cochin China and also a private letter for the Senate from the Admiral Prince of the said Kingdom, which were kept in the City's Archives.

The Collection of Various Facts, compiled by an anonymous author, gives us more details of the ceremonies: The Ambassador made his entrance on a sedan chair with four residents also on sedan chairs according to the Cochin-China custom; at the head and the tail of the group, two sedan chairs, one carrying Luís Sanches de Cáceres and José da Cunha d'Eça and another carrying a Cochin-Chinese who was the bearer of a letter, with four pages riding colts; and they came to the City in this fashion where the Senate ministers received them at the entrance(19), while the Monte Fortress fired a volley of nine gunshots.

As Arnedo had brought with him some natives from Cochin-China, the Senate councillors decided, "after a few days", to visit the Ambassador at the College where he was staying.

On the 5th of October, the Senate informed him in writing of the decision it had reached, namely allocating the small frigate Nª Srª da Penha de França, owned by Manuel Favacho(20), to take him back to Cochin-China. To this Father Arnedo sent a courteous reply on the 8th of October. In the end, however, the sloop Nª Srª da Boa Viagem, belonging to Luís Sanches de Cáceres was chosen for the voyage. The Ambassador took back with him a gift worth about sixty taels for Minh Vuong Macau was short of money and the King did not deserve more.

On the 15th of April 1714, the Senate, through its ensign and scribe, Manuel Pires de Moura, addressed a letter to the said monarch, requesting permission from Ming Vuong to establish a trading post "wherever you think most appropriate". The captain of the vessel carrying the letter was Manuel Vidigal Giam.

The Senate informed the Viceroy of Goa of all these procedures. He approved the reestablishment of trade with Cochin-China and ordered Arnedo's embassy, which had arrived in Goa in the Spring of 1714, to "continue in the same way to the court of Lisbon", as was Minh Vuong's intention. "Within five or six days [12th or 13th of May of that year] he will make his public appearance". Viceroy Vasco Fernandes César de Meneses praised Luis Sanches de Cáceres for having suffered great personal losses in the service of the King and for having exposed himself to so many dangers, because it is not certain whether he would have been able to escape from being taken by the Savages(21), had it not been for the South Fleet, which rescued him from this commotion.

On the 31st of August 1715, a letter from the King of Cochin-China was read at the Senate. With it he sent a gift consisting of a congratulatory scroll, two spears decorated with gilded copper, a few catties of pepper, and five or six catties of bird's nests and some thirty or forty catties of shark's fins, both of which items were rotten when they arrived; and everything was divided amongst the ministers and officials of the Senate, except the spears. (22)

Because of the losses borne by Cáceres and the renewed persecution of the Church, no merchant of Macau would travel to Cochin-China in compliance with the Viceroy's request. The only accounts of what happened to the envoy on his way to and in Goa, other than descriptions of the fright he got from the 'savages', possibly from the Andeman archipelago or pirates from Malabar, are contained in two letters from the Viceroy to D. João V, both dated the 5th of January, 1715. The first letter says:

My Lord,

In April last year [1714] Father Juán António Arnedo of the Society of Jesus arrived in Goa from Cochin-China in a sloop belonging to Luís Sanches de Cáceres. He came as the envoy of King Ming Vuong. He made his entrance in Goa and disclosed the reason for his visit which he will also do to Your Highness when he goes to your court for the same purpose. If we presume that his mission is based on two points, it doesn't appear to me that we should accept more than one of them.

The king is hoping that we shall do business with him by sending him vessels from Macau, Goa and Portugal, but since his own kingdom has so few goods of any value, I doubt whether Macau would wish to take on this voyage even though it would be easy for them and it is in their locality.

Ming Vuong promises to free the Christian community, which is settled and widespread, from the persecutions to which until now he has subjected it. There remains no doubt that the Missionaries are already working without any of the past hindrances in the mission where they publicly preach the Gospel and the word of God; and as this is the more useful business and that which Your Highness places above all others, we should limit ourselves to dealing with only this so that Your Highness may propagate the faith and put an end to idolatry.

And if, to settle this matter and make it consistent, secure and lasting, it is necessary that a ship sail to that Kingdom, we will have to convince the people of Macau to make that trip, for although they will not profit a great deal from it, this Government [of the Indian State, where the Macau trading voyages were arranged] will allow any vessel trading with that kingdom to proceed to Timor [where sandalwood was sought every year].

This way, the inhabitants will accept this practice so that the wishes of the Cochin-China King will be partly carried out in a timely way.

God bless Your Most Powerful Highness for many happy years.

[Date and signature of the Viceroy](23)

The contents of the second letter are as follows:

My Lord,

On behalf of the Overseas Council, I am reporting to Your Highness on the purpose of Father Juán António Arnedo's journey to Goa and he will proceed to your presence after this monsoon. Having had many and repeated discussions I found out that he was not completely devoid of affection for the Propaganda [Missionaries] and extremely partial to those who followed the French opinions; and as he is supposed to travel on to Rome, it appears to me that Your Highness should consider - in case I am correct in the judgment I am making of this subject - whether it is convenient to allow him to go to that court.

God bless Your Most Powerful Highness for many happy years.

[Date and signature of the Viceroy](24)

The report on Father Juán António Arnedo's visit to D. João V, together with the difficulties confronted in trade relations between Macau and Cochin-China, are described in a letter from the Senate sent in 1717, to King Minh Vuong, as follows:

Most honourable and powerful King.

The remarkable goodwill that Your Majesty has shown towards our City of Macau, compels us to write to you in order to express our gratitude. At the same time we are bringing word on the results of the Embassy which Your Majesty sent to the our Lord, the King of Portugal, in the person of Father António Arnedo.

The death of the said Ambassador Father António Arnedo, who left for Portugal on the 20th of January 1715(25) in a sailing ship given to him by the Viceroy of India, was regretted by us all.

After one month and a half of travelling he fell ill with the fever, dying fifteen days later on the 22nd March of the said year aboard the same vessel which was carrying from Goa another priest, his companion, named Father Manuel Botelho whom Father António Arnedo, before dying, appointed as his substitute in Your Majesty's Embassy, handing him the letter and the gift [a gold scimitar] so that he would present the Embassy and deliver everything to our Lord the King, upon his arrival at the great court of Lisbon.

The said substitute arrived in Lisbon on the 25th of September 1715 and forthwith presented the Embassy and delivered the letter from Your Majesty to our Lord the King, who received it all, with much affection and esteem and the usual courtesies. He sent his reply and gift to Your Majesty by another ship, which sailed from Lisbon on the 14th of March 1716, under the custody of a priest named Father Varella, who arrived in this City of Macau on the 30th of August, 1716. Soon afterwards he fell sick and died here on the 27th of September of the same year.

Another priest arrived on the same vessel. He was António Freire, a very wise and virtuous man, worthy of our respect(26) who is a brother of the medical brother João Baptista Sanna(27) and who came because he wished to see him and be with him in your Kingdom. This is why we elected him to take the place of Father Varella in the Embassy of our Lord the King to Your Majesty and we handed over to him the letter and the gift which he will deliver to Your Majesty.

We deeply regret that the horses sent by the Viceroy of India for Your Majesty died before arriving in this City of Macau. It would not be possible for such lively horses to survive for so long without the fresh pastures to which they are accustomed, crossing so many seas and such diverse climates as those which exist from here to Goa.

The same Viceroy and the King our Lord [D. João V] have often encouraged trade between this City and the Kingdom of Cochin-China, which we also hope is the will of Your Majesty.

We cannot force the inhabitants of Macau to go with their vessels to your Kingdom because they are all certain that they will have losses and not profits from this trading due to some customs of your land which do not exist in other kingdoms of the many where our vessels call in order to trade. If, however, you could exempt these vessels from these customs in order to let them make necessary and reasonable profits, then they will willingly sail there to trade. This would be advantageous to the Treasury of Your Majesty and would bring no harm to us.

The first custom is that the appraisers who assess the value of the goods taken by our boats place goods which are not highly sought after in your Kingdom at very high prices and at very low prices the goods which are sought after and which they find convenient, and these they take and distribute at extremely low values. The Factors of the vessels have to keep the other goods in which there is no interest.

Because of this custom, a great loss is always incurred and this makes trade between Macau and the Kingdom of Cochin-China impossible. In order for trade to be established, it is therefore necessary that Your Majesty exempts the Macau ships from this custom, commanding your subjects not to make the said evaluation of any goods whatsoever, be they those in which your kingdom is interested or not. Instead, taxes, usually at no more than eight percent, should be levied as is the custom in the kingdoms and ports where our ships call to trade.

Thus, if Your Majesty or any of your mandarins wish to buy, the prices will be discussed between the seller and the buyer, and there may be no discussions without the presence of the Captain and Factor of the vessel so that, if they are not happy with the low prices, these can be raised until they are satisfied. As a result, Your Majesty's Treasury will benefit from this measure, as it will create more taxes from goods which have been sold at higher prices.

In the same way, the appraisers, or the persons who take the least sought after goods which have been set at a high price, should pay for them at the set high prices or be compelled to re-establish a fair evaluation in accordance with the command of Your Majesty.

The second custom is that the Customs Officials in that Kingdom have their emoluments and food at the expense of the Masters and Factors of the ships. It is therefore necessary that Your Majesty effectively order that the said emoluments and food be withdrawn from the tariffs that the Macau ships pay to Your Majesty's Customs ordering at the same time that the tariffs to be paid by the Macau ships on all the goods carried by each vessel be set at eight per cent only, as according to the said evaluation. From these taxes the emoluments and food of the Customs Officials will be deducted and the remainder shall belong to Your Majesty or to whomsoever Your Majesty appoints.

The third custom is that the ships that call at that Kingdom should sail in time to make a safe journey for if they leave too late, out of the monsoon season or at its end, they are plying against the wind and they either end up completely lost or return to the ports which they have just left or go to others where they remain for almost one year with very heavy expenses and losses.

It is thus necessary that the Macau vessels leave Cochin-China before the 15th of July. To this effect would Your Majesty command that everything that has been bought be paid to the Ship's Master, Factor and the others aboard before that day and that on no account may any ship from Macau be delayed any longer in any port of your Kingdom.

To be more secure in our requests, we ask of Your Majesty that each and every one of these royal commands be written in a Charter with the necessary force so that they are unfailingly fulfilled. We would also beg of Your Majesty to please send this Charter to us so that the Macau vessels which sail to your ports may feel secure that all Your Majesty's orders are followed. This way, the vessels of this City will proceed to that Kingdom in order to trade and only the contingencies of the sea, which we cannot guarantee, may be a cause for them to fail to arrive and this we will deeply regret.

We are at the entire disposal of Your Majesty for anything which is to your liking and service; and finally we beg of Your Majesty to accept our affection in this letter and wish that God may bless you with many years of happiness.

We also have an important letter from the King Minh Vuong of Cochin-China to his "Serene Highness the King of Portugal, D. João V". It reads as follows:

The King of Cochin-China wishes that the heavens show the way to the good man who will deliver this letter to Your Majesty's Palace. In this world the same sun may shine on all boundaries and corners of the globe but the large sea that lies in between prevents the voices from communicating. As in the past years a man-of-war from Macau has been calling at this Kingdom of mine. I have learned in all clarity that Your Majesty's illustrious Kingdom is fruitful and abundant and produces very precious things. Its laws uphold the qualities of loyalty, mutual charity and justice. That is why I sent the President of my Mathematics Tribunal, Father Juán António Arnedo, to respectfully deliver a letter and a gold scimitar and other things to Your Majesty. My good intents of having these items delivered at such a great distance were almost left unfulfilled due to Father Juán António Arnedo dying of illness on his way, although the things as listed on the second roll were presented at Your Majesty's feet. Nevertheless, in Cochin-China the loss of our extraordinary Ambassador was inexplicably felt. Now I am again preparing some things from my Kingdom to go with this letter as a sign of my goodwill. They will all be handed over to the City of Macau so that in due time they may be presented to Your Majesty and I rest assured that they will be received with pleasure. My wish is that merchants come here often and if they take precious drugs from my Kingdom then there will be mutual reciprocity to those who come and return with the same harmony as exists between day and night, and this mutual communication will always flourish, like a beautiful flower which opens out again. So that this may come true, I have written this respectful letter, on the 12th of August 1717. (28)

The documents in the Senado's Archives concerning relations with Cochin-China go on for several years more, but with no palpable results for all too familiar reasons: extortion of the merchants by the local authorities leaving the merchants without profits; religious persecutions; civil war among the Tai-sons of royal descent; French interference and conflicts of jurisdiction with the Apostolic Vicars of the Missions.

Due to the imprudence of the French merchant Pedro Poivre, the persecution of 1750 erupted, during the reign of Nguyen Phuoc Khoat (1738-1765), who allowed the French to establish a trading post in Faifó and trade freely.

On the 6th of May, Ong Cai An-tin had all the missionaries arrested and their possessions confiscated. At two in the morning, on the 26th of August, twenty seven missionaries - eight Jesuits, eight Franciscans, two Italians of the Missions and nine French - boarded the ship S. Luís under the command of Captain Manuel Mateus. The only one who was not harassed was the king's physician Johann Koffler, born in Prague.

On the 27th of February 1751, Luís Coelho requested permission from the Senate to go to Cochin-China aboard his ship the S. António, in order to rectify the king's misunderstanding concerning the missionaries. The Senate consented on the 17th of April. There were, at the time, eighty thousand Christians in Cochin-China.

On the 3rd of November 1751, Luís Coelho informed the Senate that he had lost, in Faifó, his warehouse with all the goods and leather kept therein, as well as his ship the S. Miguel off the coast of India. The King had indicated to the Portuguese captain his wish for having a physician and a mathematician, and so two Jesuits (Loureiro, the great botanist, and Monteiro) left on board the sloop the S. Paulo, belonging to Luís Coelho and Vicente Ferreira, with gifts for the monarch. The persecution did not, however, decrease with the death of Nguyen Phuoc Khoat in 1765. His successor Nguyen Phuoc Thuan decided to suppress Catholicism throughout the country. The rest of the story can be put in a nutshell.

In the nineteenth century, one hundred thousand martyrs were killed over a span of fifty years. In the period of 1874 to 1886 alone, fifty thousand Christians were killed.

The French used this as an excuse to take hold of Cochin-China and Tonkin and later Laos and Cambodia.

CONCLUSION

Although King D. João V the "Magnanimous" did his utmost to help ameliorate the socioreligious situation in Cochin-China, his efforts were doomed to fail even before they had begun, given the circumstances.

In 1762 the Jesuits were expelled from their flourishing Far East and Southeast Asian Missions and even foreigners like Koffler suffered in the dungeons of Pombal. After Malacca was lost, and given the distance from Lisbon and Goa, it was very difficult for Macau to assert any Portuguese presence in an area so coveted by the great European imperialistic powers, England and France. Let us recall that at the beginning of the twentieth century, France had a base in Qiongzhou (Fort Bayard), opposite Hainan Island, which was occupied by French missionaries relegating the Portuguese (Fathers Pita and Paulo Ho) to the banks of the River Xi near Zhaoqing. The whole province of Canton, except for Hong Kong, was situated within France's sphere of influence (they had helped the English to take Canton during the first Opium War).

This was the charge the Western powers made against the China of the Manchus. The Portuguese had to let this soaring wave pass, followed by the nationalist undertow in China and Japan. From 1942 to 1945, two million Vietnamese died of hunger and of typhoid fever in Tonkin alone, at the time occupied by the Japanese. In 1954 the Communists of Ho Chi-Minh took old Tonkin by force from France. Despite its formidable power, Vietnam fell under the yolk of Communism in 1975.

Despite all these major disruptions, however, we have still managed to preserve Macau, the City of the Name of God, intact... so far.

** Prince Pedro replaced his brother King Afonso VI, taking power as regent in 1668 and then serving as King Pedro II of Portugal from 1683, until 1706. T. N.

NOTES

1 See A. G. Matoso in Enciclopédia Verbo, vol. 11, col. 606-611, under the entry on D. João: Justice should be done in recognising him as one of the monarchs who worked hardest for the exaltation of his country and best understood how to impose this in an atmosphere of peace, gaining the respect and admiration of all the States of his time.; and Joaquim Veríssimo Serrão: Hist6ria de Portugal, Verbo, vol. 5, pp.270-6.

2 Breve Relação da jornada que fez á Corte de Pekim o Senhor Manuel de Saldanha, Embaixador Extraordinário del Rey de Portugal ao Emperador da China e Tartaria (1667-1670) written by Father Francisco Pimentel, and other contemporary documents compiled and annotated by C. R. Boxer and J. M. Braga, Imprensa Nacional, 1942.

3 In addition to this short speech which was kindly given to me in manuscript form by the author, I am still eagerly waiting for the publication of the complete biography of Father António de Magalhães, SJ which is being prepared by Dr. Ramos.

4 Pfister, Louis, SJ: Variétés Sinologiques Nº59 -Notices Biographiques et Bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l'ancienne Mission de China (1552-1773), vol.1, Nº166, p.412, Shanghai. I do not have the final edition of this work which has been corrected and expanded on several occasions.

Dehergne, Joseph: Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800, Institutum Historicum SJ, Rome, 1973, p.16.

Teixeira, Manuel: "As Missões Portuguesas no Vietname", Macau e a Sua Diocese, XIV, pp.345-8. The documentation collected by the second two authors is scanty and sometimes contradictory. There should be more discussion, a more synthetic and organised approach to the facts and, most importantly more research.

5 Pires, Benjamim Videira, SJ: A Embaixada Mártir, 2nd ed., 1988, Macau, ICM, pp.36 on.

--A Viagem de Comércio Macau-Manila nos Séculos XVI e XIX, 2nd ed., 1987, Centro de Estudos Marítimos de Macau, pp.33 on.

6 Buch, W. J. M.: "La Compagnie des Indes Néerlandaises et l'Indochine", in Bulletin de l'École Française de l'Extrè me Orient, vol. xxvi, 1936, pp.125-6.

7 Ajuda Library in Lisbon, "Jesuits in Asia" collection, file 49-IV-66, folios 81-82.

8 Sequeira was born into a noble family and held several important posts in Macau. Near the Church of S. António, coming down from the Rua de S. Paulo to Rua da Senhora do Amparo there is a street called Calçada do Embaixador where Sequeira's house must have been during that period.

9 Ajuda Library in Lisbon, "Jesuits in Asia" collection, file 49-IV-7, folios 347-350.

10 The Jesuit father responsible for producing a romanised version of Vietnamese. His Quoc Yue is still the official, literary language of Vietnam.

11 Teixeira, Manuel: "As Missóes Portuguesas no Vietname", Macau e a Sua Diocese, XIV, pp.345-8, Macau 1977, pp.771-74 which carries a transcription of the document referred to in note'9 above.

12 Ajuda Library in Lisbon, "Jesuits in Asia" collection, file 49-IV-61, folios 29-30. The translation from Annamite was almost certainly done by the Jesuits in Macau.

13 Father Metello e Saccano and Father Pero Marques.

14 Ajuda Library in Lisbon, "Jesuits in Asia" collection, file 49-IV-61, folios 30-31v.

15 A. R. S. J.: Jap-Sin. 70, fls 151-213.

16 Ljungstedt, A.: An Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China, Boston, 1836, pp.127 on.

17 Teixeira, Manuel: Macau e a Sua Diocese, XV, 1977, pp.1723.

18 The best source for information on this is Malcolm Hay's book Failure in the Far East, Neville Spearman, London,1956.

19 There is a great deal of material on this visit kept in the library of the Leal Senado and Father Manuel Teixeira has transcribed almost all of it in Macau e a Sua Diocese, XV, 1977, pp. 169-206.

20 A benefactor of the Jesuits, Favacho was buried in the nave of St. Paul's.

21 Teixeira, Manuel: Macau e a Sua Diocese, XV.

22 As in the morning session, the councillor of the month, Gaspar Martins, chaired the meeting. Arquivos de Macau, June 1974, pp.304 on.

23 Indian Archives, Livro das Monções, Nº80, folio 68. Other than the voyages to Goa and Surate (the Gulf of Cambay), the voyages to Timor and Batavia were. the most profitable to Macau during the XVIIIth century. See Pires, Benjamim Videira: A Vida Marítima de Macau no Século XVIII.

24 Indian Archives, Livro das Monções, Nº80, folio 233. Although he was working under the Parisian organisation for Foreign Missions, Arnedo's trip to Rome was required to pass on information to the Vatican about the Jesuits and the French persecution of the Jesuits from parties such as Monsignor Lamotte. However much regard Arnedo may have shown to the French, he could not approve of their scheming and ambitions. No doubt his mission was not an easy one. Providence provided a solution with the premature death of the Ambassador who, according to the Viceroy, was not the most appropriate person for this delicate mission. Father João Lourenço appeared to be an improvement and with less diplomatic ties. However, Ming Vuong had selected Arnedo, possibly because of his humble manner, the product of having had to "swallow many live toads" such as taking care of the monarch's dogs.

25 Arnedo left from Goa. From this account we can deduce that on the return voyage from Lisbon, his appointed substitute did not pass through Goa.

26 Father Freire was the Superior of the Cochin-China Mission in 1736.

27 From Sardinia. He arrived in Cochin-China in 1714 and died in Hue in 1726. He is buried, however, in Faifó.

28 Transcribed from Arquivos de Macau in Father Manuel Teixeira, ob. cit.

* Graduate in Philosophy and Portuguese Literature (Uni. of Lisbon) and a sinologist and researcher on Portuguese history in the East and the Jesuit Missions in Asia. The author of several publications, Father Pires is also the Governor of the International Association of Historians of Asia and a Member of the Portuguese Academy of History.