Page 196 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

182.

Although Perkins & Co. and its successor Russell & Co. trans­

acted the largest share of imports from England and exports

to Northern Europe, American merchants at Canton refused to be

threatened by the East India Company. Thus began an intense

rivalry between the Company and American merchants that ended

only with the dissolution of the Company's charter in 1834.

Americans' successful competition with the Company was parti­

ally responsible for the failure of Company Directors to renew

its charter in Parliament.

Actually the East India Company had complained about

American merchants and their trade before 1820. Immediately

after the war, when Americans began shipping teas to Continen-

tal European ports, the Company took note. Its Court of Direc-

tors justly feared that such teas would be smuggled into England
57
and sold at a lower price than Company teas. The introduc-

tion of British woolens and cottons in 1820 at Canton through

American merchants precipitated a major threat to the Company's

trade. Willing and able to sell English manufactures at

lower prices than those imported by the East India Company,

the Americans returned profits on all their cargoes. Through­

out the 1820's American trade at Canton consistently outranked

that of the Company. In fact, during the decade Company trade

decreased while American trade increased. By 1827 Company

Directors reported that American trade annually averaged almost

four-hundred-thousand pounds sterling more than their own.

57
Niles' Weekly Register, XII, 13 (May 24, 1817), 208.
The Company also complained of Americans carrying nankins to
southern Europe and the West Indies (illegally). Morse, Chron­
icles of the East India Company, III, 181-82.