Page 150 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

136.

1827 to December 1831. The new agreement allowed Ammidon to

return to the United States for a two-year period. In 1828 he

would relieve Russell, who recently had spent a year at home

and married. Once in the United States, Ammidon discovered a

multitude of excuses that prevented his return to Canton in

1828. He finally contracted with a Salem merchant to replace

him. William Henry Low, who had been at Canton for two years

in 1815-17 as agent for Minturn & Champlain of New York, would

receive one-fifth of the profits until he would enter the house

as a partner in 1832. Two years later Ammidon contracted with

another former participant in the India and China trades, Capt.

Augustine Heard of Ipswich, Massachusetts, to be his replacement

in the Brown & Ives consignments. During all this time Samuel

Russell, still at Canton, anxiously awaited the arrival of his

partner to relieve him. When Low finally appeared in Ammidon's

place, Russell accepted him but retaliated against Ammidon with

a new contract of partnership including only himself, Low and
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Heard.

Although he notified Ammidon of the new concern to begin

in January 1831, Russell neglected to tell him of the windfall

of business that had just come to Russell & Co. by misfortune.

In August 1829 Thomas T. Forbes, resident manager of Perkins &
Co., along with his purser Samuel Monson perished in a monsoon

storm near Macao. John Perkins Cushing, who had been the chief

of Perkins & Co. for fifteen years, had left Canton in the

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AgrePment of Partnership for Russell & Co., Jan. 1,
1831, Russell & Co. MSS.