Page 75 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

61.

a flourishing smuggling trade with the Chinese at the Outer

Anchorage of Lintin, an island in the mouth of the Pearl River.

But most trade still went through the Whampoa Anchorage. To

sail up the Pearl River to Whampoa, a captain had to stop for

a Chinese pilot at Macao. Besides the pilot the master also

had to obtain an official permit or chop. Such permits were

issued only to vessels bearing cargo in kind. (Specie did

not constitute cargo under Chinese law.) After the captain

received his c�op and the Chinese pilot, his vessel proceeded

upriver through the Outer Passage to Whampoa. After he

anchored his vessel there, he went up to Canton in a smaller

boat to announce his vessel's arrival and deliver letters to

American residents.

Actual business transactions occurred at Canton.

Before the sale of a vessel's cargo could be completed, there

were numerous requirements the captain or supercargo and later

the consignee had to fulfill. First of all, as part of the

strict supervision of foreigners required by the Imperial

government, a Chinese had to assume responsibility for foreign

vessels. The government designated a group of Chinese mer­

chants whose sole business was China's foreign commerce at

Canton. These "Security merchants" or Hang-shang guaranteed

a vessel's payment of tonnage and port duties and its crew's good

behavior. In return for holding the Security merchants individ-

ually accountable for the foreign vessels they secured, the

.
t d h
d
governmen t gran e t em a monopo y 1 fo f oreign tra e. 2 4
2 4 Liang Chia-pin, Kwang-tung-shih-san-hang-kao (An Exami­

nation of the Thirteen Hongs of Canton) (Taipei, Taiwan, 1961),
p. 105.