Page 221 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 6 A New Context of Porcelain Trade 1760-1770

partners with shopkeepers. The shopkeepers channelled goods through their Hongs

and paid a certain amount of fees to them so as to evade custom duties. If shopkeepers

were prohibited from trading directly with Europeans and their trade had to be

channelled through Hongs with proper transactions, this meant that the income

mentioned above would be gone.

For European companies, these shopkeepers and outside merchants were the only

channel if foreign trade wanted to deal with the country merchant who annually

brought down goods here for sale. Shopkeepers were the ordinary channel for dealing

with commodities in the private trade of supercargoes and officers. As for

supercargoes, the trade on behalf of the Company provided a means of getting into

touch with country merchants when Hong merchants offered too few goods. These

shopkeepers’ goods were always the backup for the Companies if the Hong merchant

could not meet their requirements. They also wanted to maintain competition between

outside merchants and Hong merchants, because if the trade was totally left to Hong

merchants, they could easily control the market by setting up prices. 20 The

Supercargoes of the EEIC, VOC and French East India Company together wrote a

letter to Tsontuck stating that first the new regulation of the trade would in a short

time decrease the Emperor’s customs, and secondly, that they requested the liberty to

21
trade with either Hong merchants, shop men or others.

Together with the petition from the Hong merchants and the European Companies,

this order was revised later in July. The Viceroy and Hoppo realised and noted, ‘To

prohibit all of them [shopkeepers] from dealing with the Europeans would neither be

20 IOR/R/10/3,17 July 1755.
21 Ibid.
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