Page 21 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

7.

could easily result in shipwreck on a coral reef or against

rocky shores. There always existed the possibility of attack

by native pirates. That usually meant death for the entire

crew. A vessel even faced the risk of attack in ports, for

often Americans were unknown or unwanted. Nevertheless, few

American vessels failed to complete their East India voyages
and almost all were profitable.

II

American merchants entered the China trade in 1784.

Immediately after the Treaty of Paris the first American ship

sailed from the United States to Canton to procure the teas and

silks which previous to the Revolution the English East India

1
Company had supplied. By the 1780 s the port of Canton, in the
southern Chinese province of Kwangtung, was the only port of

China open to foreign trade. In 1685 an Imperial edict had

opened all Chinese ports to foreign trade, but within the next
seventy-five years European trading companies in China had

centered their business at the southern port of Canton. Trade
there between the Europeans and the Chinese became regularized

under Chinese law. Part of this system of trade was the restric­

tion of foreign trade to Canton. In the 1750's the British

tried to trade at other ports but the Chinese rejected their

overtures at each place. After 1760 the British and other

Europeans ventured only to Canton for their teas and silks.

American merchants, having received all their teas and silks

before 1776 through the British East India Company, followed

the English pattern after the Revolution and despatched a