In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

7 Death THE 1813 REVIEW OF THE COMPANY'S CHARTER AMONG THE MANY REVIEWS of the Company 's charters between its founding in 1600 and its dissolution in 1874, the review of 1813 was of particular significance to events in Macao. Apart from renewing the charter, the review extended the sovereignty of the British crown to include the Company's East Indian territories, abolished the Company's monopoly of trade with India, but not yet, for another 20 years, of its trade with China, and redefined the status and range of the churches it had established. Under the provisions of the 1698 charter, the Company was required to found and maintain ecclesiastical establishments; chaplains had accordingly been appointed by its Court ofDirectors to the three Presidencies in India, as also to the Canton Factory in China. Until the 1813 review, however, English missions were prohibited from evangelizing in the Company's territories. The revised charter provided for the appointment of a 58 bishop and three archdeacons to superintend the activities and property of the church, for their direct subordination to the See of Canterbury, and for the revenues of India to be the source of their funds. These provisions effectively opened the door to the English missions. At the same time, Parliament considered the needs of members of the Scots Church, and approved the revisions only on being assured that 'every disposition would be shown by the East India Company to support the Scotch Church in India'. The letters-patent issued in May 1814 constituted the British territories and a Bishopric of Calcutta, and it was from these that the Company derived its authority to acquire and maintain from its Indian revenues, the church property in Macao with which this study is concerned. The Company's presence in Macao was already large by 1787. In addition to four houses on the Praya Grande, it had purchased a large house as its chiefs residence, pride ofthe Portuguese community with its garden that contained the outcrop of rocks known as the 'rocks of Camoens'. Services for Company marriages, births and deaths often fell to the Company chief in person to perform before 1820, when resident chaplains were appointed; and until a site was identified and purchased for the purpose, the garden was used as a place ofburial for the Company's dead and for some others. FOREIGN BURIAL IN CHINA GRAVES IN CHINA WERE mostly sited separately or in family groups, always on a hill, and either in family fields or in places chosen for the relicts by geomancers. Filial piety demanded that both choice of site and its upkeep should be a family responsibility. The European custom is to inter the dead in community ground particularly set aside, or in holy ground such as a church or a churchyard, and as its title of ownership is vested either in the community or in a church body, family responsibility is limited to the upkeep of the grave itself. The placing of individual memorials in public burial grounds not then being a Chinese practice, it became the duty offoreigners, or of foreign organizations, to ensure the conservation of their cemeteries and memorials in China: when they moved elsewhere, these were left without caretakers . Not that Chinese communities always ignored the funerals offoreigners far from home. A moving account of the burial ashore of a young sailor from the HMS Alceste in 1816 was given by the ship's surgeon. Seaman William Hares died on one of the Lew Chew Islands at night, 'whereupon a coffin was made by our own carpenters, whilst the natives dug a grave, in the English manner, in a small burial-ground under some trees near the landingplace . Next morning we were astonished to find a 59 DEATH number of the principal inhabitants clad in deep mourning (white robes with black or blue sashes), waiting to attend the funeral. The Captain came on shore with the division of the ship's company to which the man belonged, and proceeded to the garden where the body lay ... The natives, who had been watching attentively this arrangement, and observing the order of precedence to be inverted, without the least hint being given, but with the unassuming modesty and delicacy which characterize them, when the procession began to move placed themselves in front of the coffin, and in this order marched slowly to the grave. The utmost decorum and silence prevailed whilst the funeral service was performing by the chaplain, although there...

Share