Page 373 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

3 59.
. 4-0
for consuls and universal fees for services. While the

State Department lagged in making any changes among consuls,

at Canton the editors of the Chinese Repository began promoting

better organization of American consuls in Asia. The Reposi­

tory advocated more consuls in the area with a consul-general

at Macao to oversee all of them. It suggested, furthermore,

that any future consul be "acquainted with the region in

which he is to reside, no stranger to commercial affairs, a

. · · . . ' 11 41
1 over o f f ree om, civi iza tion an d Ch . t. 1an1ty-- As long
d
1
ris
as the consul's income was insufficient, he could not afford
to be strictly professional nor to end his dependence on

other American merchants. But the most crucial factor that

demeaned the consul's position was his lack of power. Consul

P.W. Snow realized this during the Opium War in the same way

that Wilcocks had in 1821.

Snow, already fifty-one years old when appointed con­

sul in 1835, had attempted to improve the performance of his

duties in 1836 by delegating James P. Sturgis as American con­

sular-agent at Macao. Hopefully Sturgis would oversee the

increasing amount of American shipping and trade at the Outer

40
The State Department conducted an investigation of
1
the consular system in the early 1830 s under the initiative
of Martin Van Buren but nothing resulted from it. As late as
1839 Consul Snow complained that he had no definite rules to
follow in collecting fees. Consular Despatches: Canton, P.W.
Snow, Jul. 13, 1839.
41
chinese Repository, VI, 2 (June 1837), 69, 79. Charles
W. King, a partner in Olyphant & Co. and former consular-agent
at Canton, wrote these articles for the Repository. See also
Fitch W. Taylor, A Voyage Round the World (New Haven, 1855), p.
107.