Page 38 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

24.

1776 had sailed in the coasting trade, an enterprise that re­

quired small craft. To utilize their privateers the merchants

decided to send them abroad to seek new profits at foreign
26
ports. The man whose ingenuity and energy spurred this

growth of Salem's commerce in East India was Elias Haskett
Derby. Known in Salem as "King Darby," this merchant by 1790

had become the first American millionaire in the trade to

China. Derby, who later was called the "father of the India

trade," annually despatched a fleet of vessels to the Indies

and to China.

Other Salem merchants followed "King Darby's" lead in

reaping fortunes from the East India trade. Although Derby was

a notable exception, most of these men had been former sea­

captains in the trade. Some of them had even sailed for Derby.

As these captains retired from the sea, they established com­

mercial enterprises and sent their vessels to East India with

sons and nephews as captains. Derby's greatest mercantile

rival rose through this process. George Crowninshield left

the sea in 1790 at age fifty-five to become a merchant-ship­

owner. Supported by four skilled and adventurous sons, Crown-
27
inshield built a fortune· second only to Derby's. As Derby

and Crowninshield concentrated on trade to Canton and major

East Indian ports, another Salem merchant Jon�than Peele

garnered rich profits as the first American importer of pepper

from Sumatra. For years he monopolized this trade, as his

26
Osgood and Batchelder, Historical Sketch of Salem, p. 137.
27
· t · 1me His ory o Massac use s, p. 85.
·
Morison, Mari · t f h tt