Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume II.djvu/42

28 wife and the children she bore him. Such was the fate of the first European ambassador bold enough to attempt a negotiation with the Chinese.

Notwithstanding this misfortune, the two Andradas having conducted very profitable commercial transactions with China, the Portuguese were not disposed to lose sight of so wealthy a land. Another expedition was fitted out in 1522, consisting of four vessels under the command of Alphonse de Mello. They were not without fear that the Chinese would give them a bad reception; and these fears were realised, for, as soon as the arrival of the Frank vessels was made known, the magistrates of Canton gave orders to pursue them, to listen to no treaty, but to destroy all the vessels, and every man in them. A naval engagement took place, in which the Portuguese were not victorious. One of their vessels blew up, the powder magazine having caught fire; another was captured; and Mello was forced to retreat, leaving a great many prisoners in the hands of the Chinese. Many died of starvation in the prisons of Canton, escaping by that death the merciless sentence of the Emperor, which condemned them to be cut in pieces as spies and robbers. "And in this matter," says a Portuguese historian, "the Chinese did wrong them more in the first particular than in the second." Twenty-three underwent this cruel sentence; but even this fresh disaster did not discourage the Portuguese, and urged by the thirst for gain, and the love of adventure, some privateers from Goa ventured on a smuggling traffic along the Chinese coast. The mandarins, gained