Page 188 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

174.

sumption. This commerce would not replace American trade at

Canton. Instead, it would expand that trade by satisfying

the demands for foreign articles in China's eastern provinces

while simultaneously bypassing the high commercial duties

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impose d on t ose artic es at Canton.
. l
h
Those same Entrepot Regulations were of even greater

benefit to the American trade in that all restrictions on the

export of rice from the Philippines were removed. American

merchants did not immediately recognize the impact this factor

could have on their China trade. The commercial laws of the
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"Canton system laid heavy duties on all imported articles

with one exception. Rice could be imported without restriction.

Before long, the word spread and many of the vessels despatched

to China stopped at Manila for a cargo of rice to carry up the
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Pearl River to Whampoa. American vessels also procured rice

at other ports throughout Southeast Asia, Batavia and Singapore

being the two other major ports of supply. After 1826 the

commission houses at Canton developed their own trade in rice

between Manila and Canton, even sending empty vessels to

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Manila if necessary. They began in the 1830 s to store the
rice at one of the various Outer Anchorages in the mouth of

the Pearl River. Often when an American vessel reached the

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Instructions, Perkins & Co. to Capt. E.W. Commerford,
Feb. 25, 1823, and Letter, Perkins & Co. to W.F. Paine, Jul.
29, 1823, Perkins & Co. MSS. Paine, a cousin of Cushing, was
with him at Canton in 1806 and then managed Perkins & Co.
business at Isle de France. In 1822 he became chief of the
major commercial house at Batavia, A. L. Forestier & Co.

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Letter, T.H. Perkins to J.P. Cushing, Jan. 15, 1825,
Massachusetts Historical Society, Samuel Cabot MSS.