Page 377 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

363.

With the rapid growth of American trade in the East

Indies and China after 1815, the Navy Department commissioned

a voyage in 1818 to "protect our merchantmen from the pirates

that frequented the East Indies and to afford our navy an

opportunity to exercise and improve its officers and sailors

in navigation and seamanship." The "Congress," a frigate of

1268 tons burthen with thirty-six guns and a crew of three­

hundred-and-fifty men, had orders to stop at East Indian ports

important to American foreign trade. John Dandridge Henley,

nephew of Martha Washington, was appointed captain of the

frigate. After delivering the first American minister to

Brazil at Rio de Janeiro, the "Congress" sailed across the
Atlantic Ocean, into the Indian Ocean, then through the Strait

of Sunda to Java Head. From Anjer Capt. Henley escorted

several American merchantmen through the Strait of Banca to

China. The vessels arrived in November 1819. Henley anchored

the "Congress" at the island of Lintin, since the Chinese

government prohibited foreign warships within the Celestial
46
Empire's territorial waters.

Immediately after hearing of the arrival of the "Congress"

at Lintin, the Tso-tang (Governor) of Macao reported the war­

1
ship s presence to the Governor-general. Governor Chou stated
that a Chinese official had "examined" Capt. Henley, who

"affirmed that a great many of the ships of his country came to

China to trade; that of late in foreign seas there were crowds

of foreign pirates at every port and every pass, waiting to rob

merchant ships. .; and therefore he had been ordered by his

46
.
. 1
P au in, �omatic Negotiations of American Naval
11'
Officers, pp. 167-70.