Page 145 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

131.

Although domestics became the major American-manufactured

export to Canton, American exports did not balance imports from

Canton. After 1820-21 the China trade remained a deficit trade

for Americans (except for a few years when exports exceeded im­

ports). The reason was that the Chinese desired little of the

merchandise produced or manufactured in the West. Although a

great variety of spices, drugs, metals, cloths and woods passed

through Canton into China, the quantities were meager. Along

with cotton textiles, American vessels brought ginseng, some

raw cotton and lead from the United States but little else.

In fact domestic American exports constituted only about twenty

percent of the total exports American vessels carried to Canton.

For the remainder American vessels sailed to Europe for woolens,

to the Mediterranean for quicksilver and metals, to India

for raw cotton, to the East Indies for spices and drugs, to

Manila for rice. Notwithstanding this far-flung search for

articles to trade at Canton, the Americans could not balance

their demand for teas and silks with other merchandise. Other

China goods such as cassia (a substitute for cinnamon), China­
ware, rattans and fireworks were also in demand in the United

States. Consequently, t.he value of imports of Canton to the

United States exceeded American exports (domestic and foreign)
54
1
. 11.
.
b y as muc1 as six mi ion o .
d 11 ars in one year.
54
11Value of Exports from the United States into China
Direct; and Imports from China, 1821-1841 ,. " Merchants' Magazine
and Commercial Review, XI (1844), 55. For a description of articles
in the China trade, see U.S., Congress, House, Committee on
Foreign Affairs, China Trade, H. Doc. 248, 26th Cong., 1st Sess.,
1839-40, and Ljungstedt, Historical Sketch of Portugese Settle­
ments in China, pp. 292-323.