Page 347 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

3 33.

primarily a private trade, although the American government

initiated efforts to aid American merchants involved in that

branch of foreign corrunerce. The group of men who organized

the first American voyage to Canton included Robert Morris and

Samuel Shaw, both of whom had held important official positions

during the Revolutionary War. Morris' participation in the

venture of the "Empress of China" was especially notable

because of his firm conviction that government and business

shared similar interests� His views later received support

from Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists. But in 1784 the

United States was a weak infant in the family of nations.

Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, lacked the

requisite power to effect any measure which did not have the

unanimous support of the delegates of all the states. Although

Congress managed a degree of agreement in foreign affairs, the

Confederation lacked the financial resources to create a

foreign service. Congress' interests in foreign affairs at

this point, moreover, centered on Europe.

Samuel Shaw, nevertheless, on his return from the first

2
Robert Morris, who had formed Willing & Morris with
his former employer at age twenty-three, was a leading Phila­
delphia merchant. An early supporter of American independence,
he was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a signer of
the Declaration of Independence. In 1781 the Confederation
Congress appointed 11.im Superintendent of Finance, in which
position he systematized government revenues and expenditures.
Morris resigned in 1784 to recoup his finances. His interest
in the China venture was to be the beginning of another fortune.
Claims arose that Morris had used his official position for per­
sonal gain. Margaret S. Meyers, A Financial History of the United
States (New York, 1970), pp. 33-34.