Page 201 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

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trade, as the Chinese government now sanctioned a business that

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formerly had been carried on undercover and illegally.
American merchants at Canton were extremely pleased with

the results of the whole affair. They also gloated over the

East India Company, which they had blamed from the beginning

of the crisis as the instigators of the Hong merchants' actions.

The Americans firmly believed that the Company had persuaded

the Co-hong to suppress the Outside men in retalitation against

the profitable American trade in English manufactures. At the

same time they petitioned the Governor-general complaining of

the Co-hong's actions, one of the Americans David W.C. Olyphant

wrote to the Company's Committee of Superintendents blaming

the Company for a "misconceived apprehension of its power"

and asking for an explanation. None was forthcoming, since

the Company had not begun the affair, although the Committee

wholeheartedly supported the efforts of the Co-hong against
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the Outside men. The Americans never wavered from the belief

that the Company was responsible for the crisis, but they

concluded that "fortunately for us their efforts were success­

fully opposed." Moreover, the final settlement was actually

beneficial to American trade, in that the governor-general's

edict of July would "probably prevent them ithe Company from

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Liang Chia-pin, Kwang-tung-shih-san-hang-kao (An
Examination of the Thirteen Bongs at Canton) (Taipei, Taiwan,
1961), pp. 108-09.

65
Morseu Chronicles of the East India Companvu IV,
168-73.