Macedo (Father Dr João Crisóstomo Espínola de)

We have scant information for the biography of this Madeiran. He was a bachelor (bacharel, university graduate) in theology and served as acting chaplain of the church of São Tiago Menor (St James the Less), and later as vicar in the town (vila) of Santa Cruz (‘Holy Cross’). In 1811 he was imprisoned on the orders of the cathedral chapter of Funchal Cathedral (Sé), following a complaint brought against him by the ordinary judge (juiz ordinário, locally elected lay judge) of the same town. He edited the second newspaper to be published here in Madeira, the Pregador Imparcial da Verdade, da Justiça e da Lei, which first appeared in February 1823. Although his political ideas differed from those of José Agostinho de Macedo, he was nonetheless a distinguished disciple of his in the violence of his language and the unruliness of his phrasing, methods he knew how to imitate in the writings he left us. Prominent among these is a pamphlet printed in London in 1825, which is extremely rare and bears the following extravagant title: O Tramista Descoberto! Converça do cónego Francisco B-r-o, da cidade do Funchal, com o seu moço Simão Caraça, que foi estudante e servio de economo, por alguns anos, em hum beneficio da Igreja da Ponta do Sol da ilha da Madeira, ouvida pelo padre João Vicente do O-v-a no pateo do mesmo cónego. It is a booklet of 98 pages, riddled with typographical errors, which deals mainly with the governor of Madeira, Sebastião Xavier Botelho. It also contains unflattering references to the author himself, who hides behind anonymity and in this way placed himself further beyond the suspicions that might fall upon him.

He embraced the ideas proclaimed by the Porto revolution and was elected substitute deputy for this island in 1822. When absolutism was restored, however, he sent his deputy’s credentials to the juiz de fora (crown-appointed judge from outside the district), ‘as he did not wish to keep in his possession any longer a document that he considered unseemly’.

Because of the intemperate language of his writings, and for other reasons unknown to us, he drew upon himself the hostility of powerful figures in Funchal. This culminated in a sensational incident on 9 February 1822, which caused the greatest scandal here in Madeira and even had wide repercussions in the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal). Some officers, cadets and sergeants of the island’s artillery battalion went to the residence of Dr Espínola de Macedo, in the old Rua da Conceição (‘Conception’), dragged him violently from it and took him to the pillory (pelourinho, stone column symbolising municipal jurisdiction). There, in broad daylight and in view of many people, says a contemporary account, ‘they flogged him, and he was beaten and mocked’. The perpetrators of the assault were arrested and tried, and were sentenced to severe terms of imprisonment and penal exile (degredo). They were saved, however, by the advent of absolutist government, which restored them to liberty.

The minutes of the session of the Municipal Council of Funchal of 8 February 1822 record that Dr Macedo, vicar of Santa Cruz, was ‘a public insulter in his manuscripts and printed works, in which he was wont to attack honourable citizens, lawful and useful corporations and all the constituted authorities’. Nevertheless, as a lawyer in the island’s courts he left a reputation as a notable orator and polemicist, and as a journalist he was among the best of his time.

In 1823 Dr Macedo was convicted of political crimes and deported from the Kingdom, leaving Funchal for Gibraltar in May of that year aboard the English brig Fanny. He died in 1828, at an advanced age.