Page 408 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

394.

The reasons for renewed American participation in the opium

trade were conunercial. By 1842 Americans realized that the

Chinese were unable to prevent the drug trade. Chinese attempts

to thwart the English militarily had been inadequate. The opium

trade still grossed more profit than any other branch of trade
at Canton. Events had outrun the circumstances which Kearny

expected to find in China.

Kearny arrived at Macao on March 22, 1842. His passage

of over a year had included stops on the east coast of Africa,

the East Indies, and Manila to investigate conunercial conditions
9
at various ports. While the squadron was en route to China,

the English had virtually won the Opium War. By March 1842 the

English fleet had captured the Chinese ports of Amoy, Ningpo,

Tinghai, and Chin-hai and had forced the Chinese authorities at

Canton to ransom their city. After receiving the ransom, the

English sailed north to Shanghai to reconunence operations. At

Canton the authorities opened the trade again to American vessels.

For Americans, conunerce resumed under pre-war conditions, which

required no interference by a naval conunander. Nevertheless,

Kearny, who at age fifty-two had been in the Navy for almost

forty years, regarded his orders as binding. The first matter

9
Kearny reported that the Dutch were expanding their
control in the East Indies and that the French were gaining
control over Madagascar. At Sumatra the Commodore complained
of American merchants' cheating the natives in the pepper trade.
U.S., Department of the Navy, Letters Received by the Secretary
from Conunanding Officers of Squadrons, 1841-46 ("Squadron Letters"),
East India Squadron, Jan. 25, 1842.