CHAPTER X 

 THE CHINESE PUG 



THE origin of the European as well as that of the 

 Chinese pug-dog is wrapped in obscurity. Modern 

 European trade with China by sea dates from about 

 1516, when the Portuguese started trading at Canton. The 

 Spanish traded in 1575 from Manila, and the Dutch in 1604 

 at Amoy and Formosa. 



Jesse * suggests that pugs first came to England in the 

 early part of William Ill's reign (1688-1702), and were then 

 called Dutch pugs.f " At that time they were generally 

 decorated with orange ribbons, and were in great request 

 among the courtiers, from the King (a grandson of Charles I) 

 being very partial to them." During this period pug-dogs 

 may have been imported direct to Holland, and even to 

 England, from China and Japan, for in 1662 the Governor of 

 Formosa, after capture of Fort Zeelandia by the pirate 

 Coxinga, was released from imprisonment through measures 

 taken personally by the Prince of Orange, who subsequently 

 became William III of England. The King's partiality appears 

 to have been due to the fact that the King's grandfather, 

 William I of Orange, owed his life to the warning given, during 

 his campaign against the Spaniards, by one of these dogs. 



Up to the introduction of the inquisition into the Nether- 

 lands William of Orange held high rank as governor of 



* " Anecdotes of Dogs," Jesse, 1858. 



f The first recorded use of the name in connexion with dogs occurs in 1 73 1 . " Pug. 

 A nickname for a monkey or dog," Bailey, " Skeat's Dictionary." 



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