Page 362 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

rnent. In turn, the government, believing the commercial pur-

suits of American merchants in China did not require its in­

terference, focused on diplomatic problems elsewhere.

II

Although the United States had no formal diplomatic

relations with China before 1844, the American government

acknowledged commercial relations with the Celestial Empire

by appointing an American consul at Canton. The first Amer­

ican consul arrived at Canton in 1736. Samuel Shaw, super­

cargo of the first American vessel at Canton and then first

American consul to China, took his appointment seriously.

Each season he assiduously despatched to the Secretary of

Foreign Affairs reports on trading conditions at Canton and

on the commercial activities of Europeans there. Four years

later, on February 10, 1790, President Washington duly re­

newed Shaw's appointment as American consul under the new

Constitution. In the fall of 1790 Shaw sought to expand

American trade in East India. The consul, looking at the

ports of the Dutch Indies as favorable markets, petitioned

the Shabandar of Batavia to relax Dutch prohibitions against

American trade at that port. Shaw received assurances from

the Shabandar that the colonial authorities in Java would

25
attempt to presuade the Dutch government to do so. Returning

25
Shaw's reports before 1789 are in Journal of Major
Samuel Shaw, pp. 337-60. There are no despatches of his on
record in the State Department after his reappointment by
Washington in February 1790.