Page 356 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

34 2.

ican trade in silks to the United States. But, to evade the

prohibitive duties, the Americans smuggled cargoes into the
14
1
United States. During the 1830 s American exports in cot­
15
ton textiles outdistanced the import of silks, so that the
1
tariff decreased in importance. Throughout the 1830 s Amer­

ican merchants, especially those in the China trade, increas­

ingly ignored A..�erican commercial policy. This disregard

for official measures emanated from a lack of response on the

part of the government to the merchants' interests.

After the Federalists, with their strong commitment to

commercial interests, American merchants in the China trade

1
found no allies in the government until the 1840 s. Before
1825, nevertheless, various American officials had seriously

discussed China and relations between the United States and

the Celestial Empire. These men looked forward to American

expansion into the Pacific Ocean. China and its trade con­

stituted one of the motivations for this westward growth.

Thomas Jefferson was the first Ai�erican President to express

1
public concern for China. As Minister to Europe in the 1770 s,
Jefferson attempted to discover a passage between America

and Asia. Although his efforts to locate such a route through

Russia and Africa were futile, Jefferson retained an interest

14
Letter, T. Wigglesworth to A. Heard, Jun. 8, 1833,
Harvard Business School, Baker Library, Heard MSS.

15
statistics for both the trade in silks and in cotton
cloths are in The Merchants• Maqazine and Commercial Review,
III (1840), 477-79, XI (1844), 55.