Page 299 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

285.

seamen in that Chinese port." Ralston had financially aided

American missions in India and corresponded frequently with
4
Morrison at Canton. At that time the Board lacked the resources

to act positively on Ralston's recommendation, but in 1824 the

society's officers formally voted to establish a mission in

China. The letters of David W.C. Olyphant, an American mer­

chant at Canton, and William Jenks, a prominent Boston minis­

ter, helped prompt the Board's decision. Action was slow to

follow this decision, however. Three years later several

American merchants, again led by Olyphant, petitioned the

American Board to send missionaries to Canton. The request

included the need for a chaplain to seamen at Whampoa as well

as a missionary for the heathen Chinese. This time Olyphant
solicited Robert Morrison's support for this endeavor. Upon

receiving the petitions, the officers of the Board began the

search for suitable candidates. While the Board conducted its

search, Olyphant himself returned to the United States to es­

tablish his own commission house out of the bankrupt enterprise

of his employer, Thomas H. Smith. Head of his own agency in

1829, Olyphant offered free passage and lodging at Canton for

an American missionary. Olyphant•s proposal catalyzed the

Board's efforts, and within a few months the officers desig­

I
nated Elijah Bridgman a�:; the Board s choice. The American

4
c. Jackson Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan
World: The First Half Century of the American Board of Cormnis­
sioners for Foreign Missions, 1810-1860 (cam:oridge, 1969), pp.
173-74. There was a Matthew C. Ralston, a merchant in Philadel­
1
phia, who was a major consignor to John R. Latimer in the 1820 s.
This Ralston dealt in opium and ginseng. It would seem likely
that Robert Ralston was a relation, perhaps Matthew's brother.