Page 174 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 4 Early Eighteenth-century EEIC Porcelain Trade in Canton 1729-c.1740

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confined these trading ‘factories’ to an area of about a thousand yards. The trading

post remained the primary centre for Western trade well into the mid-nineteenth

century, called the Thirteen Factories.

4.2.2. The EEIC’s Porcelain Trade

As mentioned above, the trade at Canton was conducted by Hong merchants.

Nonetheless, the trade of porcelain enjoyed much freedom. When the system of the

Hong guild was first established in 1721, thirteen articles were included in the code

for regulating the trade in Canton that Chinese merchants were not allowed to trade

with foreigners directly. Only guild member (Hong merchants) could deal with foreign

traders. In the code, there was one regulation on ‘China ware’: ‘Chinaware requiring

technical knowledge, dealing in it was left free to all, but dealers must pay 30% to the

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guild, without regard to profit or loss.’ In other words, during the period before the
1760s, the Europeans maintained the freedom to trade with whomever they wished in

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porcelain trade, whether he was a Hong merchant or not. Because of the relative
free market of Chinese porcelain, the number of porcelain dealers was high. Unlike

negotiating for tea and silk, the EEIC did not need to spend too much effort in

bargaining with porcelain dealers, and the supply of porcelain was not frustrated as

much as other commodities.

10 D.F.Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain Chine de Commande (London: Faber and
Faber Limited, 1974),p.63.
11 Morse, The chronicles, vol.I, p.163.
12 During the 1760s, another guild of Hong merchants was established Co-Hong, which affected
the trade of porcelain significantly.
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