Page 189 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

175.

China coast, it would stop at the storage island to transship

it cargo for a load of rice. While the vessel continued up

to Whampoa thus freed from any duties, the vessel's inward

cargo was smuggled up to Canton. The rice was also loaded

into vessels arriving in ballast to be sold upriver.

As a result of the trade in rice, American commerce
1
to Manila greatly expanded in the 1820 s. When Cushing

first sent vessels to Manila, he dealt with Spanish commission

agents already established there. Other .Americans who followed

C-ushing's lead also traded at Manila through the Spanish. But

in 1824 Cushing sent his clerk and cousin Thomas T. Forbes over

to Manila to organize the affairs of Perkins & Co.'s trade.

Forbes remained there over a year overseeing trade in foreign
4 3
h'
.
artic 1 es an d rice to C 1na. The business was so profitable
that the decision was made to establish a permanent and inde­

pendent house at Manila to replace the Spanish as agents of

Perkins & Co. In 1826 the Boston partners of the "Boston

Concern" despatched Henry Parkman Sturgis, cousin of Cushing

and Forbes and nephew of James Perkins Sturgis at Canton, to

form the house. Joined by George R. Russell, Sturgis founded

Russell & Sturgis, which became the pre-eminent American com-
44
mercial establishment at Manila during the nineteenth century.

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Forbes sent almost daily despatches to Cushing from
Manila. Letterbooks of T.T. Forbes, Forbes Y0S and Forbes
Family MSS in the Museum of the American China Trade, Boston.
44
George R. Russell, no relation of Samuel Russell, never­
theless was a nephew of Samuel Russell's partner Philip Ammidon.
Russell & Sturgis was so successful at Manila, that the partners
in 18 4 established a branch at Canton. New partners John W.
3
Perit and Russell Sturgis, brother to Henry P. Sturgis, managed
the Canton house called Russell, Sturgis & Co. The latter did
not do well and in 1840 merged with Russell & Co. The Manila