Americans Engage in the China Trade: Editorial Note
Americans Engage in the China Trade
Matters of commerce and economic development were as much a part of the portfolio of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs as were the unfinished business of war and peace, boundaries, and diplomatic recognition and status. Delegates to the First Continental Congress had been keenly aware that declaring independence from Great Britain would place them outside the protective trading orbits that provided outlets for their produce and supplied their citizens with a range of commonly consumed goods from Europe and East Asia. During the war years, as their army struggled to secure independence, politicians, merchants, and diplomats struggled to establish reciprocal trade arrangements with various nations that would allow the new nation to trade on terms that would insure national prosperity and commercial as well as political liberty.1
Unlike Bengal and other regions of India, where, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the British East India Company exercised political jurisdiction and controlled commerce, China set the terms on which its foreign trade was conducted, and those who wished to engage in it were compelled to accept them. Once Americans had been freed by independence, they could trade directly with China if they were able to organize and finance the voyages and find goods and silver to exchange for tea, which was consumed at every level of society, and for spices, silks, porcelains, and other luxury goods for the upper classes.2
Americans entered the trade when postwar treaties were reshuffling some Asian possessions among European powers and their East India monopoly companies were maneuvering to adjust to the changes.3 The Empress of China, the first American-owned vessel to undertake a China venture, left New York City on 22 February 1784, reached Canton on 23 August, and sailed for home on 7 December 1784, two weeks before Jay took the oath of office as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Since the voyage was an event of national significance, it was to Jay that Samuel Shaw, its supercargo or business agent, addressed his report of the venture after the Empress returned to her home port on 11 May 1785.4
Several months before the Empress returned, in the first letter he addressed to Jay as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Barbé-Marbois announced that France had opened the islands of Mauritius and Réunion as way stations and entrepôts for American vessels engaged in trade with China and India. Set against the refusal of Britain, France, and Spain to open their New World empires to American trade, this concession and news of the Empress’s “fortunate voyage” led Jay to declare that American participation in the China trade “would produce great Effects” if “properly directed by a vigorous & wise fœderal Government.”5
Americans were extremely interested in knowing how the Empress was received at Canton and whether the crew had been recognized there as citizens of an independent nation. Congressional delegates were delighted to learn, and the press was eager to report, that China-bound French ships had guided the Empress through Asian waters, that their officers had instructed her officers on the manner in which the trade was conducted, and had had warm social relations with them.6 Jay advised that this exceptionally supportive conduct warranted official congressional recognition and Congress adopted his recommendation that it instruct Jefferson to express its gratitude to the French government.7
When attempting to raise loans in 1780, John Adams had encouraged the Dutch to believe that, lacking a direct trade with the East Indies of their own, Americans would buy East Indian goods not only from the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, but directly from the United Provinces, thereby providing Dutch merchants with products readily marketable in the United States. The rapid development of direct trade from the United States to East India, however, not only had an adverse impact on Dutch trade in the West Indies but also lessened the prospects for a profitable trade between the United States and the United Provinces, which produced few goods suitable for American markets. It also lessened the profits of the Dutch East India Company, and of a commercial association in which the Willinks and van Staphorsts were partners.8
Later, from his post in London, Adams did his part to encourage and facilitate the China trade in which Massachusetts ships and sailors came to play a prominent part. He advised Jay that he had approached the Chevalier de Pinto, a Portuguese diplomat assigned to the British Court, to insure that American vessels would be received at Macao, the Portuguese colony to which foreign traders retreated when Canton was closed to them. He wrote again to urge Jay to advise American merchants to “push their Commerce to the East Indies as fast and as far as it will go,” and to suggest that Americans at Canton should take advantage of opportunities to purchase Chinese goods from British merchants unable to make shipments or profitable remittances because of East India Company restrictions. Adams also advised Jay that, since successful development of the China trade would require reaching an understanding with players in Europe, Asia, and Africa, the new nation should work expeditiously to “form those Connections into a judicious System,” and seize the moment to “take Measures which may save us many Miseries and a vast Expence of Blood.”9
Before the Empress sailed, Robert Morris, one of her owners, had informed Jay that he hoped her voyage would “encourage others in the adventurous pursuits of Commerce” and lay a foundation for an American Navy. On her return, Morris remarked that it had “opened new objects to all America.” He later worried, however, that too many Americans would engage in the trade, a concern shared by then President of Congress Richard Henry Lee, who remarked that there was now everywhere a “Rage for East India Voyages” that might lead Americans to “overdo this business” and “defeat the Attainment of the concurrent end—A regulated & useful commerce with that part of the World.” Others, like William Grayson, delegate from Virginia, and John O’Donnell, a British merchant in China who transferred to Baltimore, were optimistic that Americans could not only supply their own needs, but could smuggle a “very considerable quantity to the West Indies,” something they both hoped would occur.10
Jay was well aware, as he would later mention in The Federalist 4, that Americans in the China and India trades interfered with the commercial interests of several nations. He opposed O’Donnell’s suggestion that Congress should cover attempts by British merchants to evade British East India Company restrictions on remittances by issuing American passports to them and recommended instead “fixed Regulations” and a posture that would be “consistent with the Dignity of the United States.”
To put the China trade on an official footing, Jay recommended appointing Shaw as its first consul at Canton. Congress approved, and Jay delivered Shaw’s commission to him on 30 January. He also countersigned a sea letter or passport for the Hope, Captain James Magee, which, with Shaw aboard, sailed on 4 February and reached Batavia in April 1786, where it was well received and allowed to trade.11 Jay spoke with enthusiasm and pride about American engagement in the trade in his letter to Jefferson of 24 April 1787, below.
1. For JJ’s role as negotiator of a commercial treaty with Great Britain at the end of the war, see 3: 373–86.
2. See 23: 115. Plans for China voyages began during the war.
3. The Empress arrived at Canton when the French were attempting to reconstitute their East India Company and when Britain’s China trade, at low ebb during the war years, was just beginning to recover. See Shaw to JJ, 31 Dec. 1786, below.
4. On the voyage of the Empress of China, see 8: 857–62. For his annual reports to JJ on the manner in which the trade was conducted, see Shaw to JJ, 19 May 1785; 31 Dec. 1786, and 21 Dec. 1787, below.
5. See Barbé-Marbois to JJ, 27 Jan. 1785, above; and JJ to William Bingham, 31 May 1785, below; 9: 336–43, 351–52; and Stephen Higginson to JA, 17 Jan. 1789, 14: 599–602. By 1803, American vessels engaged in legitimate trade at Canton averaged 20 percent of all ships trading there and outnumbered those of all other nations, including the British. There were also many trading illicitly in the vicinity. For a comprehensive and annotated list of American vessels engaged in the China trade during that period, see Rhys Richards, “United States Trade with China 1784–1814,” American Neptune, Special Supplement to Volume 54 (1994), 6.
6. News that European traders, including the British, had received the Americans cordially was widely reported and favorably commented on. Press announcements of the Empress’s return recommended celebrating the voyage by the ringing of bells and a public thanksgiving and predicted that other Americans would be inspired to promote the welfare of the United States by engaging in the trade. See 206, 224–25; Independent Journal (New York), 14 May; New-Jersey Gazette (Trenton), Pennsylvania Packet, American Mercury (Hartford), and Connecticut Courant, 16 May; Connecticut Journal, Political Intelligencer and New-Jersey Advertiser, Freeman’s Journal, and Pennsylvania Evening Herald, 18 May; New-Haven Gazette, Massachusetts Spy (Worcester) and Newport Mercury, 19 May; Providence Gazette, 21 May; New Hampshire Mercury (Portsmouth), 24 May; Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), 26 May, and Vermont Gazette, 30 May. On 23 May, the New-Jersey Gazette, published an excerpt from Shaw’s journal describing his reception. The same piece appeared in the Maryland Journal and the Salem Gazette on 24 May; the Connecticut Journal and the South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser on 25 May; the New Hampshire Gazette on 27 May; the Providence Gazette on 28 May; the New Hampshire Mercury on May 31; and the Falmouth (Maine) Gazette and Weekly Advertiser on 4 June 1785. See also 22: 390, 393, 397, 406–7, 410, 418.
The good will did not last. A year later, Captain James Magee of the Hope reported that Americans were politely treated by all European traders in China, except the British. “National prejudices,” Shaw said, made it almost impossible for Englishmen and Americans to treat one another with civility. He also noted that other European powers were becoming alarmed by the increased American presence in the China trade. JJ reported to JA that the British had begun to be jealous of American commerce in East Asia. See Shaw to JJ, 31 Dec. 1786, and 21 Dec. 1787, both below; Salem Mercury, 14 Aug. 1787; and JJ to JA, 3 Feb. 1786, Dft, NNC (EJ: 5795); LbkC, , 170–73 (EJ: 2451).
7. See JJ to the President of Congress, 1 Sept. 1785, LS, DNA: PCC, item 80, 1: 361–64 (EJ: 132); LbkC, , 1: 429–31 (EJ: 1750); Dft, NNC (EJ: 5760); and JJ to TJ, 14 Sept. 1785, and TJ to JJ, 2 Jan. 1786, 8: 518–20, 656–57; and 9: 136–39. JJ’s experience as a peace negotiator had made him aware that the French expected a display of gratitude. He also knew that most French officials considered him anti-French. To offset this, whenever appropriate, he explicitly acknowledged French favors.
Several of the French officers who met up with the Empress at the straits of Sunda had served with de Grasse during the war and related to the Americans as comrades at arms. Their attention to the Empress’s officers can, thus, be accounted for on a personal as well as on a policy level.
8. Dutch Minister Van Berckel refused to give Shaw and Randall a letter to Dutch officials in Batavia, although he had provided one to Captain Green of the Empress. See JJ to JA, 3 Feb. 1786, cited above, JJ to TJ, 14 July 1786, below, and 169–76.
9. See JA to JJ, 5 and 11 Nov. and 6 Dec. 1785, below. On problems with remittances, see JJ’s report to Congress, 5 Aug. 1786, below.
10. See Morris to JJ, 27 Nov. 1783, 3: 524; and 19 May 1785, above; JJ’s report to Congress, 5 Aug. 1786, below, and 22, 406–7, 418.
11. See JJ to Shaw, and Shaw to JJ, 30 Jan. 1786, below; and Henry Lee, “The Magee Family and the Origins of the China Trade,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd Ser., 81 (1969): 105–6. The Hope arrived at Canton on 14 Aug. 1786. Before his departure, Shaw took the trouble to take leave of Diego de Gardoqui. See Gardoqui’s notes of a conference with JJ of 4 Feb. 1786, below.
Also initiated at this time were the first American voyages to the Pacific coast to obtain furs for sale in China. JJ forwarded to Congress the request for sea letters for the Columbia, Captain Robert Gray and the Lady Washington, Captain John Hendrick. See John Marsden Pintard to JJ, 18 Aug. 1787, LbkC, , 3: 270–71 (EJ: 2165). Since the ships were American-owned and manned, Congress complied. 33: 514, 515.