Page 274 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

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to compromise with the Chinese, as already demonstrated by

their proposal (to offer a thousand chests) at the general

meeting. They nevertheless supported the English in their

refusal to surrender Lancelot Dent. At this point the Chinese

authorities did not discriminate among different nationalities

of foreign merchants. So the Americans were confined in their

Factories along with all the other residents.

Commissioner Lin's detention of the foreign residents

lasted forty-seven days. Throughout the period even though

the residents were to receive nothing from outside the

Factories, they suffered very little deprivation. The Ameri­

cans found the experience rather laughable at first. They

were most impressed by the lack of noise with the Chinese

missing. Bennet Forbes wrote that "Canton has never been so

quiet," while William C. Hunter remarked that the Factories

"resembled somewhat the places of the deadl" The worst part

of confinement for the residents "was that they were com­

pelled, in order to live, to try their own skill in cooking,

to make up their own rooms, sweep the floors, lay the table,

wash plates and dishesl" Hunter claimed that the Americans

"made light of it, and laughed rather than groaned over the

efforts to roast a capon, to boil an egg or a potato." At

Russell & Co. the house's methodical tai-pan John C. Green

organized clerks and partners alike into a work force, each

with specific duties. After various members tried their hand

at cooking (Green's rice "resembled a tough mass of glue;"

A.A. Low boiled eggs until "they acquired the consistency·of