Page 99 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

85.

Except for the Spanish, all the Europeans in the Canton trade
58
came in national trading companies. Requiring a place to con­

duct their business and to reside during the trading season,

the European companies received the privilege of renting the

Factories from the Co-hong. Throughout the pre-treaty period

the Hong merchants retained ownership of the buildings and

rented space in them to the foreign merchants. Each Hong

merchant was responsible then not only for the vessels and

cargoes which he secured but also for the resident merchants
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connected with the vessels.

All of the Foreign Factories fronted on the Canton or

Pearl River. As described by Americans in Canton, the group

of buildings occupied an area just over sixteen acres. All of

them stood in a row facing the river with three streets running

through them. Although constructed of brick and roofed with

tile, the buildings over the years had been razed several times.

Their style invariably remained the same, three stories high

with verandas supported by pillars. All the windows and doors

and Venetian blinds which did little to keep out the heat or
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the noise. Actually each Factory building contained several

58
Th e Journa�s o MaJor Samue l h aw, t�e American Consu 1
"
f
.
.
1
S
at Canton, ed. by Josiah Quincy (Boston, 1847), pp. 168-72. Shaw
gives a history of all the foreigners and their trade at Canton.
59
Morse and Macnair, Far Eastern International Relations,
pp. 61-62.
60
w.s.w. Ruschenberger, A Voyage round the World:
including an Embassy to Muscat and Siam, in 1835, 1836, and
1837 (Philadelphia, 1838), pp. 393-94.