Page 224 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780
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CHAPTER 6 A New Context of Porcelain Trade 1760-1770
6.3. Trade confined to Canton in 1757
As discussed above, the situation regarding Security Merchants and the regulation of
shopkeepers resulted in an unquestionably beneficial trading environment for
porcelain dealers. In the year 1757, another important factor stimulated the porcelain
trade. The confinement of Canton as the single port for European trade resulted in
more predictable trade for the local merchants.
Although local government tried to maintain and regulate trade in the 1750s, East
India Companies were not satisfied, especially when there were not sufficient Security
Merchants who could take over their imported goods. As mentioned above, the EEIC
complained that several Hong merchants turned them down. Other companies had a
similar experience: for example, in the year 1754, two Hong merchants refused to
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allow the Swedish East India Company to be their Security Merchants. It was at this
30
time that the EEIC sent supercargoes to Ningpo and traded there in 1755. The
attempt to set up a new port at Ningpo eventually failed. In the course of the
negotiations and discussions, the Qing Government confined Canton as the single port
for European traders and later the Americans too, until four more ports were opened
by the treaty settlement in the conclusion of the Opium War.
From 1757 onwards, trade with European companies was confined by the Qing
Government to a single port. Such arrangements have been discussed in many studies.
It has been analysed as an example of the extreme nature of the Qing Government’s
29 Lisa Hellman, Navigating the Foreign Quarters: Everyday life of the Swedish East India
Company employees in Canton and Macao 1730-1830 (Department of History, Stockholm
University, 2015), p.44.
30 Earl H.Pritchard has discussed this issues in details, see, E.H.Pritchard, The Crucial Years of
Early Anglo-Chinese Relations 1750-1800 (Washington: Pullman, 1936), pp.124-132.
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