Page 161 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

CHAPTER IV

AJ:.RICAN TRADE AT CANTON, 1815-1834

In October 1818 a major commercial house in the China

trade, Bryant & Sturgis of Boston, remarked to its resident

agent at Canton that the consumption of China produce is
11
yearly increasing both in this country & in Europe, nearly

the whole of which except the British Dominions receive their
1
supply from us. 11 During 1818 alone, forty-four American
2
vessels anchored at Whampoa with cargo for the Canton market.

Totalling over fifteen thousand tons burthen, these vessels

surpassed any previous year's number of American vessels

engaged in the China trade. Such a surge was partially a

result of the general growth of American foreign commerce

after 1815. Merchants in the China trade at the end of the

war immediately had despatched vessels loaded with full cargoes

to Canton. For them the future seemed to hold a trade more

1
Letter, Bryant & Sturgis to J.P. Sturgis, Oct. 21,
1818, Harvard Business School, Baker Library, Bryant & Sturgis
MSS.

2
This number of vessels is from H.B. Morse, The Chronicles
of the East India Company Tradi�to China, 1635-1834 (5 vols.;
Cambridge, 1926), III, 331. Other numbers of American vessels
quoted in this chapter are also from the same source, unless
noted. Other sources give varying figures regarding American
shipping at Canton at various times. I have also composed a
compendium of American shipping for each year at Canton. My
totals for each year consistently show more American vessels at
Canton than claimed by Morse.

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