To Begin the World Over Again

by Matthew Lockwood

  With the British fleet still recuperating at Zouzhan, the embassy could not merely retrace their steps to Tianjin and the Bohai Sea. Instead, they would travel south along the Grand Canal, the inland system of interlinked canals and rivers which formed one of the great trade, travel, and communication routes of China—before heading east to rendezvous with Gower and the fleet. This was a rare experience. Few outsiders had been granted permission to travel across inland China, but the novelty of the trip could not entirely displace the sense that their trip south was an inglorious retreat.

  The trip south along the White River would be made in a flotilla of thirty broad, flat-bottomed boats, and in the company of their Chinese champions Wang and Chou. At first, the scenery that flitted past as they floated away from Tianjin held little that captured British imaginations. Broad plains stretched on indefinitely, only broken by the occasional clump of trees, immiserated village, or sandy tumuli. From the city of Tianjin, where the flotilla entered the Grand Canal beneath a resplendent octagonal pagoda, the countryside became more densely populated, more prosperous. From the entrance of the canal they traveled 200 miles south and east through island-studded lakes and seemingly endless swamps before entering into a well-cultivated area of rolling hills “crowded with temples and villages and towns and cities.” The Grand Canal seemed to swell to match the population, reaching its greatest width of nearly 1,000 foot and lined with stone. As they approached Hangzhou, the canal’s path cut through a veritable forest of mulberry trees, a visual reminder of China’s silk production, before reaching the city itself. The terrain now became almost sublime, with a vast crystal-watered lake surrounded by tree-clothed, temple topped mountains, stretching out to the horizon. On the lake, a countless multitude of gaily colored and gilded barges crisscrossed its cerulean surface.13

  In Hangzhou the newly appointed Viceroy of Canton joined the party, having been directed to escort the British to their point of departure. The Viceroy was a friendly, gracious man, full of encouragement, but impossible to nail down on matters of British–Chinese trade relations, about which he was distressingly well-informed. With the Viceroy in tow, the embassy left the canal and turned east to Zhoushan. At Zhoushan the party learned that Erasmus Gower, unsure of their arrival and informed that war had been declared with France, had taken the fleet south to Canton where he hoped to be of more use to the British war effort. The only option left to the embassy was to continue their inland journey south to Canton, where they hoped to catch the fleet. The journey up the Yangtze to Poyang Lake then south and west on series of ever narrowing rivers was more difficult than the earlier legs. Their path now cut through mountains, with the fast-moving rivers squeezed into narrow canyons and plagued with strong currents, boulders and cataracts. They were forced to portage around these obstacles and between rivers until they reached the “steep and lofty” mountain pass at Meiling that marked the entrance to the Beijang River that would take them to Canton.14

  On December 18, about 30 miles from Canton, the embassy was greeted by the East India Company’s Canton commissioners Harry Browne, Eyles Irwin, and William Jackson, who had been given special and unusual permission to leave the confines of the European settlement in Canton. From the commissioners they learned that Britain and France were now at war, and that Gower and the Lion thankfully remained at anchor at Canton. With the commissioners came the Hong merchants, whose monopoly on British trade Macartney and his embassy had done their best to disrupt. The next day they set out on state barges for Canton itself, where they made an official entrance and were received by the Viceroy, Treasurer and the administration of Canton.

  From their quarters on an island across the river from the English factory, the members of the embassy could see the signs of commerce everywhere. In the harbor there were fourteen British ships, representing the full reach of Britain’s Asia trade. There were five Indiamen, fully loaded and about to sail for England, five ships newly arrived from Manila, three ships from the Coromandel Coast, and another from Bombay. One of the Indiamen, the Bellona, had recently arrived from the prison colony at Botany Bay, where it had delivered a cargo of supplies and seventeen female convicts. It was now purchasing a cargo of tea at Canton, a means of offsetting the cost of shipping convicts from England to Australia. But if the view of the harbor, with its physical manifestation of Britain’s global reach, warmed the cockles of the hearts of those with mercantile inclinations, it was not without its sour notes. For alongside the British Indiamen were four smaller ships, each flying the stars and stripes, colors that until recently had been the flags of rebellion.15

  For Americans, tea, and the free trade it represented, was at very the core of their violent split from the British Empire. Taxing tea without colonial input was bad enough, but it was being shut out of the expanding world of international commerce that really rankled. Trade had always been the lifeblood of American prosperity, and it was feared that British control of America’s trade would drain away the essence of her vitality, stunting her growth artificially in an attempt to ensure the continued prosperity of the British East India Company. In this sense, for many Americans free trade was not merely about money, but about freedom, about the future ability of the colonies to develop and prosper independently. The Tea Act of 1773 was thus, as one broadside put it, a plot to subject the colonies to the fate of India, to conquest and extraction. “The East India Company,” the broadside warned, “if once they get a footing in this (once) happy country, will leave no stone unturned to become your masters . . . They have a designing, depraved, and despotic ministry to assist and support them. They themselves are well versed in TYRANNY, PLUNDER, OPPRESSION and BLOODSHED.” British tea represented Britain’s monopoly over international trade and thus Britain’s ability to subjugate America.16

  Britain’s American colonies had thus embarked on their war of independence in part because of the restrictions the mother country placed on American international trade, and in response to the tariffs placed on British imports such as tea. With independence, many such restrictions disappeared, allowing American merchants to engage in avenues of trade that had previously been closed off. But international trade was not simply a possibility in the post-war years, it was also an imperative, a necessity if the American experiment was to survive and compete with the nations of Europe. America had long been reliant on trade, but with independence came the loss of access to British markets in the Caribbean and elsewhere. With many port cities suffering from the disruption of trade during the war, and the loss of crucial markets after, there was a clear need to find new outlets for American commerce, new partners in foreign trade. China, one of the few rich trading centers not controlled or monopolized by hostile European powers, presented the perfect solution, in some eyes the last or only option for a young nation in search of free trade. With an ailing port of Boston firmly in mind, John Adams contended that only “one branch of commerce is left us, for which we owe no gratitude to the European powers. Thank God the intrigues of a Christian court do not influence the wise decrees of the eastern world. Our pretensions there are equal: nor is it in their [Europe’s] power to prevent us sharing the most profitable trade, whenever we have the ability and spirit to build and fit out proper ships for the purpose.”17

  As it transpired, at the very moment that Adams was calling his nation to greater action in their trade with China, a mission, America’s first trading venture with the Middle Kingdom, was already well on its way to the increasingly important trading hub at Canton. The initial idea for expanding American trade into the Pacific had originated with John Ledyard, an explorer from Connecticut who had joined Captain Cook’s third and final expedition in 1780. His experience of America’s Pacific coast convinced him that the bountiful furs of the Pacific north-west could be used as a valuable commodity in the Chinese market. After he returned to America, Ledyard convinced Robert Morris, the British-born merchant who had helped finance the revolution, and a group of prominent investors to outfit a s
hip for the China trade. The ship they selected, a three-masted, 360-ton vessel, was fittingly christened the Empress of China and its hold crammed with items it was hoped would appeal to Chinese consumers: a box of beaver skins, 12 casks of spirits, 20,000 Mexican silver dollars, and 30 tons of Appalachian ginseng.18

  As it sailed out of New York harbor in February 1784, it was clear to many that its departure betokened the start of a brave new world of American commerce. Philip Freneau, later called the poet of the American Revolution, marked the auspicious occasion with a poem glorifying a new American Empire built on defiance of Britain’s monopoly of trade:

  With clearance from Bellona won

  She spreads her wings to meet the Sun,

  Those golden regions to explore

  Where George forbade to sail before.

  Thus, grown to strength, the bird of Jove,

  Impatient, quits his native grove,

  With eyes of fire, and lightning’s force

  Through the blue æther holds his course.

  No foreign tars are here allowed

  To mingle with her chosen crowd,

  Who, when returned, might, boasting, say

  They shewed our native oak the way.

  . . .

  To countries placed in burning climes

  And islands of remotest times

  She now her eager course explores,

  And soon shall greet Chinesian shores.

  From thence their fragrant teas to bring

  Without the leave of Britain’s king;

  And Porcelain ware, enchased in gold,

  The product of that finer mould.

  Thus commerce to our world conveys

  All that the varying taste can please;

  For us, the Indian looms are free,

  And Java strips her spicy tree.

  Great pile proceed!—and o’er the brine

  May every prosperous gale be thine,

  ’Till freighted deep with Asia’s stores,

  You reach again your native shores.19

  To lead this vital trade mission, the American investors had been no less careful in selecting its leader than the British would be when they chose Lord Macartney as the head of their Chinese embassy. At the head of a crew of forty-two men aboard the Empress of China was Major Samuel Shaw, a man with sterling credentials. Shaw had been born a merchant’s son in Boston in 1754, and thus even as a child had a front seat to the growing conflict between Bostonians and Britain over free trade. With such a background, Shaw was unsurprisingly precocious in his revolutionary sentiments. It was later reported that when still a young man, Shaw had challenged a British officer quartered in his father’s house to a duel after the soldier made disparaging remarks about Americans. With such a fiery devotion to his country, when war broke out in 1775 Shaw was eager to enlist, joining George Washington’s army at Cambridge, eventually rising to the rank of Major of the Brigade in the army.

  Shaw was quick to recognize the global dimensions of the war with Britain. Instead of a “babyish quarrel with your daughter,” the British were now faced with France, Spain, and America. The Seven Years’ War had ended in triumph, with Britain’s “arms victorious in every corner of the globe—your fleets triumphant on the ocean” and with her “then colonies contributing cheerfully in supporting your credit and independence, in which their own welfare seemed so closely interwoven.” This was a war between empires, but also a war about the future of empire, and, for many Americans, the growing belief that the British Empire no longer served their interests was one of the causes of the war. The ramifications of this imperial war would shape the globe in the years to come.20

  Thus, when rumors that peace was finally in the offing reached Shaw in 1783, he could not help but ruminate on the potential dangers of peace to an ill-prepared nation that had cast off the British Empire but was not yet sure of exactly how to expand its own. For Shaw and many Americans, the United States had arrived at a crucial juncture. They were finally independent from the British Empire, but if the American Empire was to rise to take its rightful place on the world stage, it needed a system of government adequate to the task, and a network of trade to match or supersede that lost with independence. “Is America prepared for the reception of the long-wished-for blessing [of independence]?” he asked a friend back in Massachusetts, “What system has she adequate to the government and prosperity of her rising empire?” In a letter written from West Point shortly before the Treaty of Paris was signed he continued, “America is now become an empire, and the eyes of the world are fastened upon her. If ever the spirit of wisdom was necessary to direct a nation, it is most peculiarly so at this instant. We have a character to establish among the great powers of the earth, who will . . . form their opinion of us from the manner in which we set out.”21

  For Shaw, who found himself without a career and deeply in debt when peace came, the solution to his own problems were part of the very same solution for his country’s post-war economic woes: trade. And so, when Shaw—with glowing testimonials from George Washington and Henry Knox—was approached by Robert Morris and his fellow investors, he leapt at the chance to make a new start in the world of international trade. Like many commercially minded Americans, Shaw realized not only that there were great fortunes to be made from the Canton tea trade, but also that if American vessels did not step in to supply America’s growing thirst for tea, that role would quickly be recaptured by the British. “The inhabitants of America must have tea,” Shaw recognized, “the consumption of which will necessarily increase with the increasing population of our country.” And, he continued, if they were going to drink tea, “they ought to employ the means most proper for procuring it on the best terms.”22

  However, if the United States was to take its rightful place in the China trade, it was crucial that her merchants identify commodities desired in the Chinese market. For a cash-poor new nation, draining America’s already inadequate supply of specie to pay for China’s silk and tea was an even less viable option than it was for the British. Shaw and his investors thought that the abundant produce of the expanding American empire, especially furs and ginseng, would find a ready market in China. This, Shaw believed, would prevent the United States from falling into the predicament that had threatened to undermine her balance of trade. He reasoned, “While, therefore the nations of Europe are . . . obliged to purchase this commodity for ready money, it must be pleasing to an American to know that his country can have it on easier terms; and that the otherwise useless produce of her mountains and forests . . . will supply her with this elegant luxury.”23

  After a journey of six months, the Empress of China finally arrived at Canton in August 1784. The Americans’ reception by the European factors already present was friendly and encouraging (though the Portuguese governor at Macao was unaware of the outcome of the American Revolution). The British were a bit standoffish and more than a little cold toward their erstwhile countrymen, bitter not simply at the outcome of the war but at the close relationship that quickly developed between the new arrivals and their former allies. The French helped secure a factory for the Americans and, even more crucially, secured the necessary introductions with the Chinese authorities. The response of the Chinese to the new arrivals was even less encouraging. “Our being the first American ship that ever visited China,” Shaw wrote, “it was some time before the Chinese could fully comprehend the difference between Englishmen and us. They styled us the New People.” However, when Shaw produced a map and showed the Chinese officials the extent of the American continent, they were quick to grasp the potential benefits of a relationship with such a vast new market for China’s produce.24

  The Empress of China returned to New York in triumph, arriving in May 1785 to a 13-gun salute, one for every American state. News of the arrival, and advertisements for her exotic goods—25,000 lbs of tea, plus a quantity of porcelain and cloth—littered the country’s growing periodical press, and the profits, $30,000, were enough t
o spur imitators in abundance. Shaw sent a letter to Congress giving details of his momentous mission, and received their thanks in return. Shaw’s journey had created a sensation, but beneath the surface of adulation, the venture had made little money for its leader, certainly not enough to secure Shaw’s future. Over the next eight years Shaw made three further trips to Canton, now as official American consul, and he was hardly alone. In the fifteen years following his first mission, over 200 American ships would follow in the Empress of China’s wake, making the volume of America–China trade second only to the Britain–China trade. But, after the Commutation Act of 1784, the number of British ships was expanding as well, as Shaw was careful to note. This greater competition in turn led to a spike in the price of tea of 25 per cent or more. At the same time, the ginseng market that Shaw was sure would secure America’s trade advantage was collapsing as American imports over-saturated the market. From $30 per pound on Shaw’s first trip, the price rapidly fell to $4 per pound and by 1790, 25 cents per pound. Faced with the real possibility of a growing trade imbalance, Shaw and his fellow American merchants scrambled to find new products to sell on the Chinese market.25