Page 76 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

62.

Besides a Security merchant, the foreign trader required

the services of a Comprador and a Linguist. He hired both of

these persons through the Security merchant who guaranteed the

vessel. The Comprador obtained all supplies necessary to feed

the crew and refit the vessel while anchored at Whampoa. He

received a share of profit made on selling the supplies to the
25 1
foreign vessels rather than a salary. By the 1820 s

American vessels at Whampoa generally used the services of the

1
same Comprador, who went by the name "Boston Jack. 1 His fees
usually amounted to two or three hundred dollars for each

ship he serviced. The Linguist was a vital link in the Canton
11
system" of trade. As he was the interpreter, he was involved

in virtually every part of the trade. This individual's im-

portance derived from the dearth of foreigners at Canton able

to understand or speak Chinese. Imperial law prohibited

teaching the Chinese language to foreigners. The punishment
26
for doing so was death. Few foreigners, furthermore, cared

to learn Chinese until the missionaries arrived. Before 1844

only one American merchant had studied the language. Instead

American merchants willingly relied upon the Linguist to

25 1 11
This form of payment was known as squeeze or yang­
1
lien-fei (fee to nourish incorruption). 1 1 Squeeze 11 was an insti­
tution in traditional China of unofficial fees that were a part
of most monetary transactions and services. These fees replaced
or supplemented salaries and revenue to make corrupt practices
unnecessary. Everyone recognized its existence and it worked very
efficiently as part of the economic system. 1 1Squeeze 1 1 was not the
same transaction as defined by Western concepts of extortion or
bribery. "Squeeze 1 only became corrupt when those participating
1
in the system transgressed limits of traditional sense of pro­
portion.
26 ·
w 11 iams, "Recollections of China before 1840,"pp. 6-7.
i