In April 1689 a Portuguese priest came to Macao, called Father Nicolas … [incipit]

[Middle Hill, U.K.] : [Middle Hill Press, 1863]. Bifolium, 68 x 105 mm (folded), text printed recto and verso of the first leaf, the second leaf blank; a fine copy, complete as printed.

An extremely rare, ephemeral and obscure anti-Catholic pamphlet describing a Jesuit missionary to Macao whose powers in the confessional chamber convinced the local prostitutes to ‘break off all connection with the Gentiles (i.e. the Chinese), giving them as a reason, that “they ought to be contented with giving up their bodies to the use of the Christians”‘.

Sir Thomas Phillips’ Middle Hill Press printed a small number of copies of rare manuscripts in his extensive collection. The original source for this text has not been identified but may indeed have been a manuscript in the Phillips collection which is now lost.

Phillipps was virulently anti-Catholic: in his will he even stipulated that after his death no Roman Catholic, especially his son-in-law James Halliwell, should be permitted to view the books and manuscripts in his collection.

Rare; only two examples recorded in OCLC – at the University of Macau and the Grolier Club in New York, the latter holding two copies, including one annotated with the publication date of 1863.