Page 144 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

130.

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this company.
These silk manufacturers hoped to accomplish the same

about-face in the China trade that the New England cotton tex­

tile companies had. Before 1830 the other major import from

Canton had been nankins (nankeens). Cotton cloths offered in

white, blue, or unbleached (brown), these were much cheaper
1
than silk piece goods. But by the 1830 s textile factories in

the northeastern United States were producing cotton cloths

in a quality superior to Chinese nankins. American merchants

at Canton introduced these textiles known as "American domestics, 11

believing that they would do well. At the time the most success­

ful American resident merchant wrote to Boston that American

domestics 11will eventually supercede the British as well as

those manufactured in this Country. II By 1834 these

cotton textiles had taken over the Canton marketu and all
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markets west of Cape Horn.

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canton Register, IX, 9 (Dec. 6, 1836). The President
of the Northhampton Silk Co. was a former American consular-
agent at Canton in the late l820's. Many of the directors and
stockholders had recently retired from active partnerships at
Canton. Their goal was to develop their manufacture of silk to
the point of exporting it to China. See various letters in
Heard MSS. Four years earlier, in 1832 3 Russell & Co. had tried
to import a machine to weave silk stockings for export to England.
Each season large quantities of silk went to England for that
purpose. The partners, especially J.M. Forbes, speculated that,
by employing Chinese at Canton to weave the silk, the house could
export the stockings and sell them much cheaper. Apparently the
scheme never became effective. Letter, A. Heard to G. Heard,
Jan. 30, 1832, Heard MSS.
53
Letter, J.P. Cushing to S. Cabot, Nov. 30, 1830, Samuel
Cabot MSS. See also Letter, J. P. Cushing to W. Sturgis, Sep. 25,
1830, Bryant & Sturgis MSS; Letter, J.M. Forbes to Russell &
Sturgis, Aug. 13, 1834, Forbes MSS. American merchants had tried
to export American cotton goods into the Canton market in the early
1820's, but at that time the textiles did not sell. Their price
was too high. Letter, T.T. Forbes to J.M. Robbins, Dec. 20, 1823,
Forbes Family MSS.