«Robbe d’Europa»: Global Connections and the Mailing of Letters, Money, and Merchandise in the Eighteenth-Century China Mission

From Firenze University Press Book: East and West Entangled (17th-21st Centuries)

Eugenio Menegon, Boston University

In an irate letter dated 17 September 1768, the Discalced Augustinian Giovanni Damasceno della Concezione Salusti described in detail to his direct superior, the Procurator of the Propaganda Fide Catholic missions in Macao, Emiliano Palladini, a recent mishap in the receipt of the annual funds for the small contingent of Propaganda in Peking (one Discalced Augustinian and two Discalced Carmelites). As customary, a Christian courier and servant of the Peking missionaries called Agostino Pao had been sent on the long journey to Canton and Macao, which usually lasted two months. Once in Macao, Agostino received from the hands of the procurator the annual subsidy for the Peking mission. Agostino then travelled to Canton and, as was custom, left almost the entire sum to a Chinese merchant, Antonio Lieu, who issued him a lettera di cambio (bill of exchange) for the amount. Once in Peking, Agostino was going to track down yet another Christian merchant, a certain Ignatio Li, who would release the amount back to the mission upon presentation of the document. This mechanism, very common in China and Europe at the time, was obviously put in place for safety reasons, so that accidents or robberies would not endanger the precious silver coins, but also to allow these Chinese lay intermediaries to make some profit and reward them with some extra earnings. Christian couriers did receive funding to cover travel expenses from the mission’s superiors, but did not get much in terms of wages, and the opportunity to invest the annual subsidy until the time it was due in Peking was a nice way for them to supplement their income and be rewarded for an arduous and time-consuming journey. T his time, however, something went terribly wrong. Agostino did not turn in the entire amount to the Canton Chinese agent of the mission. He kept around 200 pezze (pesos), the portion of the subsidy meant for the Discalced Augustinian and clockmaker Sigismondo da San Nicola Meinardi, the most senior of the Peking missionaries, who had died in December 1767. Agostino invested the amount in merchandise which he loaded onto the tribute ships travelling to the capital on the Grand Canal. Then he journeyed separately and more rapidly by land, back to his home in Peking. However, as Damasceno put it, a big «pasticcio» (mess) occurred. A drought meant that rivers levels were low, and before he arrived in Peking, the custom officer in charge of the expedition decided to transfer the annual «tribute» gifts sent to the imperial palace from the south and all the merchandise of private individuals from the boats onto carts for the last stretch towards the capital, so as to avoid delays. Agostino was of course unaware of this change in plans. The imperial caravan eventually reached the «Ha Ta Muen» i.e. Hade men (哈德門, also called «Hata Gate»), the colloquial name for the Chongwen Gate (Chongwen men 崇文門 lit. «Gate of Respectful Civility»). This was the busiest gate in Peking, due to its proximity to the Tonghui 通惠 river, where entry and departure taxes were charged. Custom officers at the gate started calculating levies on the private merchandise, including Agostino’s, and curses soon began to fly between the guards and the merchants crowding the scene, who felt they were being overcharged. The Superintendent of Customs (sopraintendente de dazij, probably a title corresponding to guanshui jiandu 關稅監督), a certain «Grandee Hao» (= Hao Tajin, i.e. 大人 daren), in Damasceno’s words, as a good Chinese, i.e. an excellent thief, realized this was a good moment to earn something, and had all the merchandise seized. He then informed the Emperor that the Cantonese who had brought the tribute to His Majesty were also transporting, under that pretext, a lot of private merchandise, and that they wanted to defraud the customs.

An order was issued to confiscate all private merchandise and to beat the boatmen who were responsible. Agostino, too, was unable to get anything back and ran to Damasceno to explain the incident. While he did return the subsidy for the living missionaries, he had to finally admit that the amount he had invested, corresponding to the late Sigismondo’s subsidy, around 200 taels (116 patacche = same as pezze/pesos), had been lost together with an additional investment of 500 taels in personal funds. Damasceno and the Discalced Carmelite Arcangelo di S. Anna decided to pull some strings to recoup the loss to the mission and help Agostino as well. They first contacted an official called Huo, who promised to intercede with the Superintendent of Customs. When he ultimately did not deliver on his promise, the missionaries decided to write a memorial directly to the «Count Prime Minister» (Conte Primo Ministro), that is, the presiding senior member of the Imperial Grand Council Fuheng（傅恆 , 1722–1770), with whom they were familiar as his suppliers of Western luxury items (especially clocks). But since the property of Agostino and that of the missionaries was mixed up with that of others, «Count Fu», as he was also known to missionaries, declared that he could not help. Moreover, as Damasceno observed, «the Count himself had lost more than anybody else in this incident, and he could not insist on this matter with Superintendent Hao, as he feared that he would be denounced to the emperor for having secretly received presents [from Canton]».4 All was lost. When he learned this, desperate about this financial disaster, which apparently amounted to a total of 700 taels, Agostino started a violent argument with Damasceno. The latter, a fiery Roman prone to anger, admitted that «thankfully God tied my hands so that I would not do something excessive, even if I had the impulse to jump on him three or four times. To think of it, I believe it was the devil who was pushing me to kill him».5 He ended up f iring Agostino from his job at the mission, and chasing him from the church as a «dishonest Christian» (iniquo Cristiano). Soon afterwards, Damasceno dramatically relinquished his charge as Vice-Procurator of Propaganda in Peking, asking another senior missionary, the Discalced Carmelite Giuseppe Maria di S. Teresa Pruggmayr, to take over. Silver coins, bills of exchange, European and Chinese merchandise, investments, transportation by sea, river and land, postal connections, networking among Chinese Christians, missionaries, and Qing officials: these are the ingredients we see in Agostino Pao’s failed business scheme. Such a rich array of references makes this tragicomic episode a useful point of entry into the economic and structural mechanisms that supported the Catholic mission at the imperial court, and into the global networks that transferred information, funding, and robbe d’Europa (European things) from Europe to China and vice versa.

DOI: 10.36253/979–12–215–0242–8.03

Read Full Text: https://books.fupress.it/chapter/robbe-deuropa-global-connections-and-the-mailing-of-letters-money-and-merchandise-in-the-eighteenth-/14111