Waiting for Bỉnh in Tonkin and Macao

This chapter shifts the angle of vision from the men in Lisbon back to those they left behind in Macao and Tonkin. It discusses the ways in which both sides exchanged letters to provide updates of their respective situations. In particular it describes the increasing desperation of the community in Tonkin, suffering both from political turmoil and growing ecclesiastical precariousness as their remaining clergy aged and died. It also discusses the plight of the two Vietnamese clerics in Macao, who struggled with poverty and the pressure from ecclesiastical authorities to give up their residence and return to Tonkin to accept the apostolic vicars. The chapter concludes with the arrival of Bishop Galdino in Macao, and his lengthy, but ultimately successful efforts to dislodge the Tonkinese in the Portuguese enclave, and then to put pressure on the remaining members of the Padroado community in Tonkin itself. It concludes by noting that this combination of pressures led the remaining holdouts to surrender to the apostolic vicars by about 1805, marking the end of the Vietnamese Padroado community.