Western law in Chinese translation emerged in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, when Chinese and Western legal traditions shared little in common in terms of jurisdiction and political philosophy. The present study attempts to reconstruct that historical experience by looking at both textual difficulties and political forces that put an end to this first intellectual engagement between China and the West. In particular, it examines the fragmentary translations of and introductions to Western law by the Jesuits and their Chinese converts, and the politics played out between the progressive and the conservative, and between Catholicism and the imperial power, with an aim to build a historical lesson in translation.