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“Memo. for Mr. Forbes Respecting Canton Affairs …”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

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Extract

When John P. Cushing retired as head of Perkins and Co. in Canton in 1828, the American trade with China was flourishing. In the early years, the business was conducted largely by supercargoes who traveled in each individual vessel, such as the Empress of China, which arrived in Macao in 1784 and became the first American ship to trade with the Chinese. But in later years, as trade with China became increasingly important, American firms were established in China with connections in the United States, factories and agents in Canton, and fleets of several vessels at their disposal. Perkins and Co. was such a firm.

Type
Lagniappe
Information
Business History Review , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , Spring 1966 , pp. 98 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1966

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References

1 John P. Cushing's memo of the China Trade, is in the possession of the Captain R. B. Forbes House, Inc., a museum of the China Trade which has recently been organized in Milton, Massachusetts. The manuscript is one of a collection of documents relating to the trade which Dr. H. A. Crosby Forbes has discovered in assembling the Forbes family papers as part of the museum project. Preparation of the document for publication was done by Mr. William Youngs, Dr. Forbes' assistant.

2 The Co-Hong monopoly on trade in China began in 1720. From then on, there were usually 12–13 Hong merchants in Canton. These men were given the sole right to trade extensively with foreigners and were responsible for collecting imperial duties. The “outside men” were other Chinese merchants who were permitted to trade in small quantities with foreigners.

3 Samuel Russell of Middletown, Conn., was the founder of Russell and Co. Shortly after our period Perkins and Co. was consolidated into this firm, which then became the largest American trading house in China.

4 The opium trade had been prohibited by the Chinese since 1793, but the trade continued unmolested for many years and was carried on by an association of opium brokers in Canton who paid large sums annually to the local authorities for their immunity.

5 Being a Hong merchant was frequently as much of a liability as a distinction. Bankruptcies were frequent and Hong merchants who failed were sent into exile. The Co-Hong, however, maintained a “Consoo” fund to make good the debts of merchants who failed. Manhops' debts were paid off by 1834.

6 During a famine in 1825, Cushing had persuaded Chinese authorities to allow ships with cargoes of rice to land at Whampoa, the anchorage for Canton, free of port dues.

7 In the early days of the China Trade, single American trading expeditions had fared well amid the operations of the large, well organized East India Company through the mobility of their smallness and independence, which enabled them to go quickly to the ports and to deal in the commodities which promised the greatest profits. It is interesting to note that this same flexibility remained a characteristic of the firms which replaced the individual traders.