26o  THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
by  the  Portuguese  in  1557,  after  their  traders  and  trading
ships  had  been  driven  away  from  Ningpo  and  Foochow.
Here  for  three  centuries  they  held  under  conditions  which
were  never  clearly  defined,  one  side  contending  that  it  was
by  right  of  conquest  and  occupation,  the  other  disputing
this  and  maintaining  Chinese  taxing  stations  within  the
colony  itself  :  the  one  indisputable  fact  being  that  the
Portuguese  Government  paid  to  the  Viceroy  at  Canton  a
rent  of  Tls.500  in  every  year  up  to  1848.  In  that  year  the
Portuguese  authorities  refused  to  continue  to  pay  the  rent,
and  expelled  from  the  colony  the  Chinese  taxing  stations
and  all  other  signs  of  Chinese  authority.  The  sovereignty
of  Portugal  was  recognised  finally  by  China  in  the  treaty
of  1887.  The  Portuguese  and  Dutch  trading  ships  fr e '
quented  the  port  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  English
came  there  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  English
and  American  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century»
making  usually  their  final  departure  from  Macao  ;  an
when,  in  1839  and  again  in  1856,  the  merchants  were
driven  from  their  factories  at  Canton,  it  was  in  Macao  that
they  found  refuge.  The  cession  of  Hongkong  to  the  British
in  1842  and  its  development  from  1856  gave  a  final  blo^
to  the  decadent  legitimate  trade  of  Macao,  and  from  that
time  its  prosperity  depended  mainly  upon  the  coolie  traffic
until  the  Portuguese  Government  suppressed  it  in  i8y4-1
  he  Chinese  Customs  Station  of  Lappa  [vide  antea)  was  estab
lished  in  1887  to  control  the  trade  by  junk  between  Maca 0
and  Chinese  ports.  Macao  occupies  a  small  peninsula
connected  by  a  narrow  isthmus  with  Chinese  territory»
and  the  cession  includes  two  islands,  Taipa  and  KolowaU»
dominating  the  harbor.  The  population  on  December  3*'
1899,  was  63,991,  composed  of  3,780  Portuguese,  154
foreigners,  and  60,057  Chinese.
Hongkong  (22 o  i8'  N.,  114 0  10'  E.),  “  Fair  Haven,
was  formally  occupied  by  the  British  authorities  by  ^
notification  published  on  May  1,  1841,  and  its  cession  ^
recognised  by  China  in  the  treaty  of  Nanking,  the  ratifica'
tions  of  which  were  exchanged  at  Hongkong  on  June  %&amp;»