Page 47 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

33.

trade was different though, as it excluded the seacaptains and

merchants of Salem. The port's commerce suffered through the

Embargo and War, and Salem's wealth gradually began to disappear.

Salem never recovered its earlier position in American foreign
39
commerce. Although the port continued to be a major inlet

of trade from East Indian markets such as Manila, Batavia and

Singapore, only one Salem merchant, Joseph Peabody, continued

to gross large profits from Canton ventures. Ports to the

south with larger and better harbors grew in importance after
1
1815. During the 1820 s Boston, Philadelphia and especially

New York completely overshadowed the older seaport of Salem in

the China trade.

As American trade to Canton resurged after the War,

American vessels reappeared in great numbers on the Northwest

Coast. Astor returned to the fur trade in 1815, but on a

smaller scale than his prewar endeavors. The War had hurt

the China speculations of many American merchants including

Astor. When he decided to withdraw from the China trade, his

interest in Astoria diminished. In 1818, after years of tre-

mendous losses on his investment, Astor sold the fort to the

Northwest Company and dissolved his Pacific Fur Company. Des­

pite the failure of Astoria, America's interest in the North­

west did not decline. By that point many Americans had be­
come interested in establishing a permanent settlement in the

Pacific Northwest. They argued that Astoria constituted the

39
James Duncan Phillips, Salem and the East Indies:
The Story of the Great Commercial Era of the City (Boston,
1947), pp. 226-27.