Portuguese in China: Contribution to an historical sketch of the Roman Catholic church at Macao and the domestic and foreign relations of Macao

"Portuguese in China: Contribution to an historical sketch of the Roman Catholic church at Macao and the domestic and foreign relations of Macao" foi publicado pela primeira vez em 1832 por A. L. Knt. em Macau.

O autor, sueco, não era historiador mas circunstâncias várias permitiram-lhe acesso a fontes importantíssimas. Esta foi a génese do que viria a ser poucos anos depois, em 1836, uma obra pioneira sobre a História de Macau - é considerada a primeira - e onde o autor apresenta a tese de que a dinastia Ming não cedera a soberania de Macau a Portugal.

Foi sendo revisto e reeditado nos anos seguintes. Uma edição de 1834, impressa em Cantão, tem 53 páginas.
Índice:
Introduction, The Hierarchy, External Rites, Objections to Chinese recreations at Macao, The actual state of the Roman Catholic Mission in the Bishopric of Macao, The Senate domestic relations, politically, To its members, To the subaltern officers, To the Christian population, To the Military department, To the Civil department, To the Chinese population; Economically, Receipts, Expenditures; Foreign Rrelations...

Excertos:

The Roman Catholic Cross and bloody sword came from India, by way of Malacca to China, where military threats and missionary insinuations proved less efficient than soothing language and liberal offerings on the bottomless altar of self-interest. They opened to Europeans the port of Canton; to the Portuguese a mart on a desert island — Macao, and an asylum for Roman apostles. The first, mentioned in a private manuscript, were Francis Peres and another jesuit; they had in 1565 an habitation on the skirt of a hill, now called Monte. Their number increased gradually: some of them went in Portuguese ships to Canton, as chaplains.(...) Relying on information collected from old, trustworthy authorities, the Portuguese had traded at Macao at least ten or eleven years, when a Jesuit Melchior Carneiro was placed (1568) at the head of the ecclesiastical establishment. (...)