Page 10 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

of Chinese authorities and the friendship of Chinese merchants.

The latter, sharing the Americans• desire for commercial pro­

fit, co-operated with them to insure mutual benefits. Ties

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between Americans and Chinese increased in the late 1830 s as
the English, the largest and most-powerful group of foreign

merchants at Canton, attempted to disrupt commercial regula­

tions. Originally the English trade had been the monopoly of

the East India Company, but in 1834 private English merchants

gained ascendancy with thR cancellation of the Company's

monopolistic charter by Parliament. Along with the Company,

the private English traders had been part of a triangular trade

which included England, India and China. By the 1830 s the
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lynchpin of this trade had become opium, grown in India under

Company auspices and sold in China by private traders. Unlike

the Company, the latter merchants held the values of free trade

and national honor to be more important than stable commercial

conditions at Canton. They resented their inferior and regu­

lated status under the "Canton system" and decided to defeat

it. Gaining the support of the British government, these
English merchants destroyed the "Canton system" with the Opium

War.

American merchants reaped enormous profits during the

period 1839-42. By continuing to operate within the "Canton

system, " they garnered all the foreign trade at Canton. Chinese

merchants gladly transacted business with them instead of the

truculent English. In the eyes of the Imperial government,

Americans reinforced their position as "respectful barbarians, "

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