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5 A1hore- The Context SPIRITUAL ARRANGEMENTS MACAO WAS THE HAVEN not only for the British, but for all the other foreigners who had to make their exodus from Canton at the end of each trading season: the members of the Danish, Dutch, French, and Swedish East India Companies, and for the independent American, Baltic States, Indian, Parsee and Spanish merchants. This community of foreign merchants and their families - despite the privations of a life far from home, the irregularity and staleness of the news from abroad, martyr to disease, hopes too often dashed by the high mortality rate, daily activities hazed and confused by restriction and delay - was at least able to endow its small world with ampler consolation, the more it expanded to meet the increasing rewards and prospects of trade. Most of them were Protestants and had been left to cater for their own spiritual needs and the performance of religious rites. The Company chief usually conducted services for the marriages, births and deaths of Company personnel in Macao and in 37 Canton, and of some others closely connected with it, and until 1820, when its growth made the appointment of resident chaplains expedient, considered it to be among his duties. For example, George Urmston (115), one of the infants buried in the Old Cemetery, was baptized before his death by the chief. Dr Robert Morrison (141) several times asked a later chief, Sir William Fraser (62), for leave to preach in the British factory at Canton in his place but, in spite of their growing friendship, was always rebuffed. THE CHAPLAINS WHEN REV GEORGE H. VACHELL was appointed as resident chaplain to the Company to succeed the Rev Henry Harding, his service was to extend over some 10 years with only one short break in 1833, when the Rev Charles Wimberley officiated for him; and he would become the religious link between its last chiefand his successor, the Superintendent of British Trade. During the AN EAST INDIA COMPANY CEMETERY period 1829-38, he conducted the burial services of 19 of those who lie in the cemetery, having also baptized five of them. Macao 'is a dreadful place to get married in,' complained Harriet Low in 1836 as she cut out the wedding dress for her friend Caroline Shillaber, who was preparing to be married to Dr Thomas Colledge. 'No shops to go to.' Vachell seems to have been on duty at Canton for the ceremony, over which Wimberley presided, but he did perform both baptismal and burial services for each of her infant sons Lancelot, Thomas and William between 1837 and 1838 (94, 95 and 96). He was a popular choice for weddings, in 1835 even sailing to Manila to perform the marriage ceremony for Dr Colledge's sister Matilda.l After the Company had relinquished its China monopoly in 1834 and Vachell had finally left, the religious needs of Macao and Canton were met by missionaries who, in addition to preaching and conducting services for Anglican baptisms, weddings and funerals, had other duties to perform. Protestant missionaries appeared in Macao from time to time in quite large numbers. On one such occasion, as many as eight of them hired a lorcha there in which to sail on an exploration of the countryside of the new colony of Hong Kong, taking advantage of the cool weather of February 1841; one of that group was Rev W.H. Medhurst, whose wedding 13 years later took place in the house ofGideon Nye in Macao under the direction of the Rev M.C. Odell, and whose baby girl born of the union is buried at Macao (35). The young Rev Charles Barton was brought out from England in 1851 as the first full-time chaplain to serve the combined Anglican community ofMacao and Canton , but survived less than four months and himself lies in the Old Cemetery (11). 38 LEARNING CHINESE AMONG THE MORE RESOLUTELY applied of the regulations with which Chinese authority had early burdened foreigners was the prohibition against learning the Chinese language. Its effectiveness was reinforced by the stiff penalties imposed upon any Chinese found teaching it, and by the condition, rarely observed, that on the few days a foreigner might have permission to stroll the streets ofCanton, it must always be in the company of an approved interpreter. Anyone who wished to learn Chinese had to learn it in Macao and his tutor had to move from Canton to teach him. Whenever the Company contrived, after...

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