Page 302 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

283.

Chinese had ventured elsewhere. These emigrants usually set­

tled at a major port as part of a business enterprise, although
they retained the intent to return to China. English mission­

aries, followed by the Americans, looked to these Chinese as a

major source for proselytism. The Westerners believed that

converts from these overseas communities would carry the

gospel back to China and create a foundation of Christianity

there. When missionaries could enter the Celestial Empire,

this base would already exist.

Before 1820 English missionaries, especially Robert

Morrison and his colleagues William Milne and Walter H.

Medhurst, had established missions in most of the ports of

Southeast Asia. The most famous of these was the Anglo-Chinese

College at Malacca, the purpose of which was to teach Chinese
8
to Westerners and Christianity to Chinese. In the 1830 s
1
American missionaries concentrated their work at Batavia,

Singapore, and Bangkok. Abeel founded the American missions

at Batavia (1831) and Bangkok (1833), and the American Board

despatched missionaries in 1834 to open a mission at Singa­

pore. Following Abeel, there was a continuous stream of

missionaries to these ports. Curiously though, these missions

8
Morrison had established the Anglo-Chinese College at Ma­
lacca (on the Malay Peninsula) in 1818. The College was relatively
successful, considering the lack of progress in missionary work
elsewhere in the E�st Indies and China. William C. Hunter, the
only American merch3nt at Canton able to speak Chinese, studied
at the College in the period 1825-27. At that time he was employed
by D.W.C. Olyphant. Hunter later left Olyphant & Co. to become
bookkeeper at Russell & Co., in which house he was a partner for
the term 1837-42.
9
Latourette, History of Christian Missions in China, p. 224.
Latourette, in "Early Relations between tne United States and China,"
Pp. 103-08, names the various American missionaries who worked in