(From a print in De Goyer and De Keyser's account of the Dutch Embassy to China in 1655.)
order inherent in the vastness of the empire. It is a moot point whether it was not the influence of this national myth which dictated the policy of exclusion so stubbornly enforced against Europeans for three and a half centuries. Old writers, like the authors of the authors of the Dutch Embassy to China in 1655, are inclined to adopt this view, and it is one which is in complete harmony with the altitude consistently assumed from the moment that European ships were seen in Chinese waters. The first reception of the Portoguese when they appeared off the Canton River in 1516 was, however, not entirely unfriendly. The fleet was one despatched from Malacca by Albuquerque and commanded by a bold and adventurous sailor named Perestrello. The ships returned to Malacca without entering the Canton River, but Perestrello had seen enough to enable him to report very favourably on the prospects of trade. Stimulated by the prospect of obtaining entrance to a new and productive market the Portuguese Viceroy the next year sent a squadron of eight vessels under the command of Perez de Andrade. In due course the ships reached the Chinese coast, and without hesitation de Andrade directed a course past the islands and up the river. Great was the alarm of the Chinese at the appearance of these strange ships, so strikingly different in form from those with which they were familiar. Fearing an invasion the authorities promptly surrounded the intruding ships by war junks. De Andrade protested his peaceful intentions, and eventually, after considerable argument, persuaded the authorities to allow him to take two of his ships up the river to Canton. At Canton de Andrade had an audience with the Viceroy, and was successful in extracting from him permission to trade. His satisfaction at this excellent stroke of business was somewhat modified when news reached him, as it did at about the time that the negotiations were completed, that the vessels he had left at the mouth of the river had been heavily attacked by pirates. The damage, however, does not appear to have been fatal to the objects of de Andrade's mission. Several of his vessels returned to Malacca with cargoes, and the remainder sailed with some junks belonging to the Loo Choo Islands for Ningpo, on the east coast of China, and there established a colony. The pied à terre thus secured was turned to good advantage in succeeding years, and a most profitable trade was built up. But the greed and cruelty of the Portuguese here as elsewhere raised up a violent prejudice against them. So it happened that when an embassy was despatched by the Portuguese Government to Peking in 1520, the Ambassador, one Perez, was treated very contumeliously. He was sent back practically a prisoner to Canton, and was there robbed of his property, thrust into prison, and finally, it is supposed, put to death, for his real fate was never actually known. Meanwhile the Portuguese had been expelled by imperial decree from Ningpo, and they were prohibited from all trade. Their star seemed to have set as rapidly as it had risen. The early Portuguese explorers were, however, not men to be easily rebuffed. In the succeeding years they maintained resolutely their efforts to secure a lodgment in China. At length fortune once more smiled upon them. A service rendered to the Chinese Government by the extirpation of a formidable pirate fleet secured for them as a reward rights of occupation at Macao, one of the group of islands lying off the mouth of the Canton River. Their earliest settlement there dates back to 1537. It was a mere collection of huts for drying goods which were introduced under the name of tribute, but by the middle of the sixteenth century out of these small beginnings a town of considerable size had developed. The trade of the port flourished apace under the interested patronage of the Mandarins, who found in the commerce of the adventurers a new and lucrative source of income. Imperishably associated with the history of Macao at this period is the name of Camoens, the great national writer of the Portuguese. It was here that the poet composed the greater part of "The Lusiad" the famous Portuguese epic which has stirred the hearts and fired the imaginations of so many generations of Portuguese. Camoens' period of residence at Macao extended from 1553 to 1569. On his returning to Europe from China he was wrecked off the coast of Cambodia, and escaped to shore on a plank, tradition says, with the MS. of his precious poem carried in his hand. Macao, though long since sunk into a condition of commercial decrepitude and moral decay, will ever enjoy the reflected lustre of Camoens' great name.
The Spaniards, following in the track of the Portuguese, established themselves in the Manilas and at various other points in the Chinese seas. For the best part of a century the two races had a monopoly of the trade of the Far East. The defeat of the Spanish Armada gave Europe its first great lesson in the value of sea power, for with the destruction of many of the great Spanish galleons in the English Channel and the wrecking of others off the Scotch and Irish coasts, the way was opened to the Far East for other nations. The Dutch were the first to take advantage of the opportunity presented. Towards the close
