Page 212 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

198.

Company, the Governor-general and the Hong merchants.
While the British and Chinese quarrelled, William H.

Low, the tai-pan or chief partner of Russell & Co., decided

to bring his wife and niece up to Canton. Apparently the Hong

merchants led him to believe that the officials could be

pressured into allowing the women to remain. According to

Mouqua, the other Hong merchants would "shutty eye and shutty
82
ear." So Abigail Low and her niece Harriet Low became the

first American women to visit Canton. According to Harriet,

they caused quite a sensation among the American residents

there. To avoid being accused of ill-manners, every gentle-

man had to call upon the ladies. But Harriet found the Chinese

more amusing. She described a walk they took one evening around

the Factories. When the Chinese discovered foreign ladies

were in the streets, "lights were called for, that the China

men might look at us. They kindled up fires in an instant to

behold our fair faces, and we had quite a rabble around us.

I though they were all perfectly civil, and made no noise,
•
but only showed a little curiosity.

Just as in the case of the Englishwoman, the authori­

ties discovered the presence of the Lows and did not countenance

82
rn Helen Auger, Tall Ships to Cathay (Garden City, 1951),
p. 51. J-ust why Low chose to bring his family to Canton at this
time cannot be determined. Auger concludes the action was a "show
of solidarity" from the most powerful rival of the Company. But
the action could also be seen as part of that rivalry, in that if
the Company could bring women to Canton, Low would show that Russell
& Co. could too. Low does not mention the matter in the house's
papers.
83
Diary of H. Low, Nov. 27, 1830, Library of Congress,
Low Family MSS.