Page 180 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

166.

ports in South America. This was a logical choice, as what

the trade required to improve was an influx of specie. For

years the specie used to buy teas and silks at Canton consis­
ted of Spanish dollars. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth

century Spanish galleons had supplied the Canton market with

dollars from silver mines in Spanish colonies in South America.

After the Americans entered the China trade, they too began to

stop in their global voyages at various ports in Spanish

America for dollars. The Chinese always preferred specie,
25
especially Spanish dollars, above any other legitimate import.

By 1820 Spanish galleons no longer visited Canton.

Their operations restricted by the Chinese to the port of Amoy,

the Spanish quit the China trade. Instead, they concentrated

their galleons in a trading route between San Blas (Mexico) and

Manila. Beginning in 1811, South American colonies began to

achieve independence from the Spanish Empire. As Spanish

energies became absorbed in internal dissension, their imperial

trading system declined. In 1821 the Spanish government laid

a heavy duty on the export of specie from Manila. Cushing,

aware of the growing dearth of specie and its value to the

trade, decided to send his own vessels to South America instead

of getting it indirectly from Manila or waiting indefinitely

for American vessels to arrive. In April 1820 he despatched

26
three vessels to ports on the West Coast of South America.

25
. h
d h
1
T h e Spanis f orme t e Roya Spanish Philippine Com-
pany to trade between South American colonies and the Far East,
the majority of such trade to go through Manila. W.E. Cheong,
"Trade and Finance in China, 1874-1834," Business History, VII,
1 (January 1965), 39.
26
Two vessels were owned by the "Boston Concern" and the
third by Edward Carrington and Samuel Wetmore of Providence.