Page 363 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

349.

to the United States, he reported his actions in a letter to

the President and prepared for another voyage to Canton via

India. At Bombay Shaw became ill; he died shortly after

reaching Canton.

Following Shaw's death, the consular position remained

vacant until President Adams appointed Samuel Snow of Provi-
26
dence to the post in May 1798. Snow continued Shaw's cus-

tom of sending semi-annual reports concerning American vessels

at Canton. After January 1801 Snow was absent from Canton,

although he retained the position of consul. Other American

merchants sporadically despatched letters to the Secretary of

State or to the consul himself with notices of American trade.

ln the winter of 1804-05 these despatches noted that American

vessels were experiencing difficulties with the English over

impressment. Edward C. Carrington, as acting-consul from

1804-06 and then as consul from 1806-09, repeatedly protested
to various English captains the illegality of their actions.

His demands for the return of impressed American seamen com­
pletely ineffective, Carrington asked the Secretary of State

for assistance from the American government. The only answer

Carrington received from the State Department was a notice of

26
For the first decades of the nineteenth century
despatches from American consuls at Canton are very sketchy.
Many consuls did not bother to report. Of the despatches
that claimed to contain statistics on cormnerce and shipping,
only a very few still have these statistics. There was no
regularity to correspondents from the consuls until the com­
mission of P.W. Snow in 1835. U.S., State Department, Consu­
lar Despatches: Canton.