It could have been proved by Ricci that he had no evil intent, but in fact his intention to convert the Chinese to Christianity in itself constituted a threat to the settled traditional way of Chinese life as it was lived in Chao-ch’ing and all over the country. We cannot credit the illiterate populace of Chao-ch’ing with the understanding of these exact terms, but in their intuitive way they knew very well that the presence of foreigners, whose actions round the coasts were blatant piracy, was a poor augury for present and future contacts between themselves and the foreign bonzes from Macao.