A Journal of Recent Letters Petitioning for a Diocesan Bishop

Manuscript Borg.tonch.7, “Nhật trình kim thư khất chính Chúa giáo” (New letters concerning the petition for a diocesan bishop), is an account of the 1796 embassy from Đàng Ngoài during the Garasa schism, composed by Father Philiphê do Rosario Nguyễn Văn Bỉnh, CO, who led it. It is written throughout in Vietnamese in chữ Quốc ngữ and was completed in 1824 in Lisbon, Portugal. It falls into four parts and runs to 578 pages. The preface indicates that two further versions were made, in Portuguese and in Chinese characters, for comparison; neither is in the Borg.tonch collection. The book opens with a chronology running from 1793, when the Garasa schism began, to 1824. Each entry carries a long passage recounting everything that befell the delegation, or the political situation in Europe, in that year. Father Bỉnh then transcribes the first petition written in Chinese characters by the Jesuit faithful of Đàng Ngoài for presentation to the king of Portugal, given here in Sino-Vietnamese transcription in chữ Quốc ngữ. It is accompanied by some twelve indictments from the faithful of parishes in both the eastern and western vicariates, accusing the bishops in authority over them of wrongdoing. Alongside these are letters sent from Annam to Portugal by the Jesuit faithful, and a letter from the local bishop urging the delegation to repent and return home. The book closes with letters from Father Bỉnh and his companions reporting the progress of the embassy back to the faithful, together with letters from the Jesuit community in Đàng Ngoài reporting conditions at home to the delegation. An appendix contains more than twenty Vietnamese poems in seven-syllable regulated verse composed by members of the delegation between 1793 and about 1810. This manuscript offers scholars of Vietnamese studies further material on the Garasa schism through Father Bỉnh's letters and reports.