and in fact, some of the traders of that nation voluntarily formed considerable speculations in conjunction with several of the associated merchants, yet they were always intent upon a more direct trade with the "buying and selling men," the outside dealers and unlicensed merchants of Canton. Accordingly, by degrees, they have pushed their irregular traffic to some extent, probably with some additional profit to themselves: for it cannot be supposed that a circuitous trade through the Hang could be so profitable to the American traders as a direct traffic with the inferior merchants. With the East-India Company it was otherwise. Their commanding attitude, and the extent and regularity of their purchases, enabled them, in dealing with the Hang, to keep down the prices of Chinese commodities to their minimum; and it is a well attested fact that traders of other nations always contracted for their tea at Canton at the Company's prices. From the same cause, namely, their extensive dealings, and the unexceptionable credit of their character, the East-India Company have always had the selection of the commodities: all the tea brought to the market is first offered to the Company's supracargoes, and other traders purchase what is rejected by them.

Thus it must appear that the Company have judiciously availed themselves of whatever means the institution of the Hang association offered of strengthening English influence in China, and of securing the best supply of its merchandize at the cheapest rate. Whether the abolition of the Hang would furnish still better facilities for these purposes it is useless to inquire, since it must be obvious that no such a measure can be anticipated. The Hang monopoly, moreover, affords some security against the multiplied frauds of the Chinese, than whom no nation probably in existence, or which ever existed, is or was more addicted to artifice. In spite of the vigilance employed by the Company's officers, fraudulent substitutions of rubbish for tea sometimes occur, which are invariably returned upon the hands of the merchant, even if not discovered till the arrival of the packages in England.

The prosecution of an illicit traffic, like that already described, which must necessarily be conducted with some degree of clandestineity, cannot fail to expose the interests of the Company to risk, as well as those of the Government; and we have been assured that fraudulent subductions of the Company's teas have been often effected by means of these underhand dealings, covered by the name of a Hang merchant. Other species of illegal traffic have been managed by the same expedient, and evasions of duties and the introduction of prohibited commodities, reached an extent which seems to have, at length, roused the jealousy of the Chinese authorities. We have received copies of the documents regarding this affair, which, as the subject is important, we shall insert entire.

The first document is a memorial from certain American merchants to the Hoppo, or commissioner of the customs, at Canton :

The undersigned American merchants beg leave to represent their situation to his Excellency the Hoppo.

They have come to China for purposes of trade; they have brought cargo which they have sold, and received in return other merchandize. This they have done according to the usages of China for many years; they have followed no new courses, but while reposing on the stability of the customs of China, they are suddenly stopped in their business by a new order of Houqua and the other Hong merchants. A custom beneficial to the revenues and the industry of China, and long existing in reference to the American trade, was changed; the privilege heretofore granted of having one of the Cohong to ship off merchandize purchased of shopkeepers, was now refused, and for what reason? The English Company had deprived Kingqua of a share of their busi

ness

ness for shipping off a chop of tea not first shewn to them, and had required the Hong merchants to cease from shipping off goods as formerly, or to expect the infliction of severer punishments. The Hong merchants had, in consequence, entered into a compact with the Company no longer to ship off goods according to their custom with the Americans. Therefore was the order issued,

The undersigned remonstrated with Houqua, protesting against this usurpation of foreigners in the affairs of China, and the alterations of its customs in reference to their trade. The justice of their appeal was admitted, and the Hong merchants withdrew their order, ostensibly placing the trade upon its former footing. But your petitioners are deceived; they remain under the same embarrassments. Their property is in China, and they are not permitted to take it away. For though the order of the Hong merchants is withdrawn, the threat of the Company remains to overawe them, and Kingqua cannot ship off goods as heretofore, for fear of being deprived of his share of the Company's business. Thus the English Company takes the place of the Emperor in reference to the foreign trade of China, and the Hong merchants submit to the usurpation, to the great injury of your petitioners. And the good intentions of the Emperor towards all nations are subverted by the pernicious intermeddling of foreigners and the servility of the Cohong. The Cohong have become the servants of the Emperor for the sole benefit of the English Company, and Americans have no one to take care of their interests. Their only resort is to appeal to your Excellency.

The undersigned pray your Excellency to inquire into the nature and extent of the American trade. It has existed for forty years. Is it not proper and worthy of care?

The undersigned seek their bread by trading to China. Under these new arrangements they feel that they are deprived of it: they pray for an order from your Excellency that one of the Hong merchants may ship off the goods now detained, and they pray for the creation of new Hongs, that shall have no connexion with the English Company, and who can, and will, act independently of them.

The undersigned represent that the present Hong merchants have not been able for a long time to do the business of Americans that come to China. Outside men have, therefore, gone into Hongs, who have acted as junior Hong merchants, and have done the American business. These are now expelled from the Hongs to suit the views of Houqua and the Company. We wish these men to be continued. The American business cannot proceed without them. The national revenue of China will suffer without such arrangements.

The undersigned are peaceable men; their nation is a peaceable nation. They have long traded to China in peace. They wish it may continue so, but they are seriously aggrieved. They therefore apply to your Excellency to save them from the injury which they sustain by the subserviency of the present Hong to the selfish views of the English Company. If your Excellency cannot help them, they must seek permission from their own government to send to Pekin, and pray the Emperor, who does equal justice to all nations, to do justice to the Americans.

Canton, April 1828.

The following courteous reply was returned from the Foo-yin:

In the forty-fifth year of the Emperor Kien-long, and in the twenty-third of Keaking, the treasurer of Canton held a consultation on the subject, and reported the result to the superior provincial authorities. I, the governor, also met with the late Hoppo, and issued a proclamation on the subject, which is on record. For several tens of years these regulations have been in existence, and no doubt ought to be generally known and obeyed. The said barbarians a short time ago repeatedly presented dunning petitions for things contrary to law, which show their stupid rashness. From pity for these remote barbarians, I did not inflict chastisement, but ordered the merchants to deliberate safely, and manage. "I likewise ordered them to communicate my orders to the said barbarian merchants, to obey the fixed regulations in their trade.

Now again, abruptly, a third time, they have presented a petition, saying, “Heretofore we did not know the law of buying eight sorts';" and they also say, “let us be allowed to buy of the shopmen tea, silk, sugar, chinaware, &c., and the whole be for

them

them reported at the custom-house," &c. This is indeed a wilful disobedience to the fixed regulations of the Celestial Dynasty. Their perseverance and stupidity have reached the acmé. Manifestly it is the shopmen who are acting with these barbarians, in the hope of trading with them, and who have urged them on to present these whining, dunning petitions. This shews in them a still greater contempt of the laws. Let an immediate search for and seizure be made of these people. Besides, I issue this reprimand, and require hereafter that these barbarians make a point of observing the old regulations. All large articles of commerce must, without exception, be fairly traded in by the Mandarin merchants. It is not allowed to go confusedly to foreigngoods shopmen, and clandestinely trade with them. This is a heavy offence against the laws. If the said shopmen dare to stir up the barbarian merchants to confused petitioning, or if they presume to trade with the barbarians, the moment they are discovered and caught, their crime shall positively be punished with severity.

I further make it the duty of the Hong merchants to search and point out the names of the offenders, and report them to government that having proof, they may be seized and prosecuted. If the Hong merchants connive, on its being discovered, they also shall be joined in the same punishment, without any indulgence.

Third moon, twenty-second day.

The last document is an edict issued by the Hoppo:

From His Excellency the Hoppo, Wan-Tajin, to the Linguists, Achow and others. It has been found out that some persons who formerly opened shops for European wares, have entered the merchants' hongs, and clandestinely do business with foreigners. But foreign ships coming to Canton are requested, in all their imports and exports, to deal with the Hong merchants. If native shopmen carry on a clandestine commerce, the law accounts it a treasonable intercourse. The severity of the law is to prevent frauds on the revenue. But the shopmen evade the law by forming connexions with the Hong merchants, gradually entering, and assuming a false pretence of superintending the Hong concerns, carry on their own illegal shops with the foreigners, and bring up and send down cargoes in the name of the Hong; the merchants connive at it, and the linguists receive bribes to report the duties. But it is forgotten that large debts for duties are accumulated, and foreign claims increase, and the Hong merchants are eventually injured. The best way to prevent future evils is to be careful before-hand.

Besides ordering Howqua and other merchants to examine whether there be any shopmen in the Hongs or not, and forthwith to expel them, instead of retaining them to carry on an illicit commerce with foreigners, I hereby declare, that if any presume to disobey this order, on the fact being discovered, the goods will be confiscated, and the shopmen delivered over to the local government to be punished. Further, an order is hereby issued to linguists, requiring them to act according to the tenour of this, and hereafter, should any shopmen clandestinely enter the Hongs, and deal with the foreigners, the linguists are disallowed to report their goods at the custom-house, but are to give information to government, that the goods may be confiscated.

Should the linguists openly assent to, and secretly oppose this order, and as before, report goods at the custom-house, the moment it is discovered they will be severely punished.

Taou-kwang, 7th year, 10th month, 29th day.

The case of the Americans is very artfully stated in a letter dated " Canton, May 10," signed an American Merchant," which has appeared in the National Gazette of New York. This statement is extremely long, and seems to be intended as an appeal to the nation upon its treatment by the English at Canton. We shall lay before our readers the principal allegations contained in the letter.

The writer begins by quoting a pretended extract from Milburn's Oriental Commerce," an authority," he observes," which the British must acknowledge," wherein that writer's words are entirely falsified, for the purpose of shewing

that

that this monopoly of the Hong merchants was in the first instance occasioned by the close monopoly of the English East-India Company, and their impolitic interference with the established mode of trade. With this view, he introduces Milburn as asserting, totidem verbis, that "in the first intercourse of the United East-India Company with China, each ship had one or more supracargo, who acted for his own ship alone, and made his bargain with any Chinese merchant resident at Canton." This is a false quotation. Milburn's words are these: “in the early period of the English trade to Canton, their business was transacted with the Chinese merchants resident on the spot; but there was then no association amongst these merchants, and the Europeans were at liberty to make their bargains with any Chinese merchant resident at Canton. The principal ones are called Hong merchants; and some one of them was required by the Chinese government to be security for the payment of the accustomed duties, and for the good behaviour of the Europeans during the time the ship continued in China. In those times, the East-India Company employed different supracargoes for their different ships, without mutual connexion," &c. The American writer goes on to state that Milburn asserts that in 1758 the Company changed their system, "and made another alteration, viz. by trading more directly with the country merchant who brought his goods to Canton." This is a more impudent attempt at deception than the other; for in the place in Milburn's work from whence the words in italics are taken, that writer immediately adds:" although from his ignorance of the English language, in a jargon of which the business of Canton is conducted, the agency of a Hong merchant was requisite, as well as for the security of government, that the duties should be paid, and for shipping goods, which can only be done in the name of the Hong merchant, who is security for the ship."

The American then states that when his countrymen first embarked in the China trade, in 1788 or 1789, they adopted the very system thus represented (or pretended) to have been pursued by the Company. He adds:

So rapid has been the growth of the American trade, that for some years it has been equal to the whole of the East-India Company's trade, carried on extensively through the shopmen buying and selling for cash or in barter, and the duties arranged through a Hong merchant, who has found it so advantageous that he has paid annually to the Hoppo from 7,000 to 10,000 dollars as a fee for allowing him the exclusive right of shipping for the shopmen. And so judicious has been the management on the part of the American agents, that they have for several years been importing British manufactures regularly, from London and Liverpool direct, selling them to the country merchants, through the agency of a broker, or bartering them for silks or nankeens, with great trouble and attention, often a single package at a time, at such terms as to induce a continuance of the trade, and by avoiding the local exactions and paying cash duties, enabled to undersell the East-India Company, who adhere to the old rule of 1770, selling their imports to the Hong merchants in the gross, at great sacrifices, and buying their exports from them, saddled with all the local restrictions and impositions. This growing trade, much more advantageous to the British manufacturer than to the American merchant, has been watched with a jealous eye by the Company's agents in China. As the commercial treaty between the United States and England sanctions the trade, and there is no possibility of attacking it in England, where the Company's monopoly is so odious, their influence had to be exerted in China to thwart the trade, and no method so effectual as to compel the American importer of British dry goods to sell to the Hong merchants, if possible, on the same terms as they do themselves,-terms ruinous to him, because, having to compete with the cash purchaser of tea in his own market, he could not compete with the Company's vender, who can make up his losses upon British imports by exaction from the tea drinkers of England.

This paragraph is dexterously directed to the passions of the people of England, who might otherwise naturally think that they were interested on behalf of their Company. Now with regard to the alleged sanction given to this extra-hong traffic, all the facts in the case, and particularly the Foo-yin's edict before inserted, show that it never existed. The truth is that a Hong merchant suffering goods to be shipped by shopmen, under colour of their being his own, is liable to a fine of one hundred times the amount of duties on the goods! As to this traffic, or the whole American trade at Canton, being equal to the East-India Company's trade, the assertion is a most audacious one, as we shall prove. We have before us reports, which appear to be authentic, of the American trade with China for the year 1826, and the first half year of 1827. The former, published in the Singapore Chronicle, exhibits the value of the imports into Canton, by Americans, in merchandize at 2,051,101 drs. and in specie at 5,725,200 drs; and the value of exports from Canton to all the world at 8,752,562 drs. In this year, the value of the merchandize exported by the East-India Company to China (exclusive of Bullion) from Great Britain alone, leaving out of the account their exports from India,* was £744,858, which is not much short of double the amount of the American trade. The Company's imports from Canton into Great Britain only in that year, was £4,435,949, or two millions and a half sterling more than the American trade. Again, the American imports in to Canton in the half-year ending July 1827, according to a statement published in the Philadelphia Gazette, amounted to 4,243,617 drs., whereof 1,841,168 were in specie, and 400,000 in bills of exchange on Europe, leaving the amount of merchandize, 2,002,449. drs. The exports from Canton during the same period amounted to 4,409,714 drs. The moiety of the Company's exports to Canton from Great Britain alone, in the year 1827, is £426,015, and the moiety of their imports from thence into this country only is £2,147,291. "These be truths," and they show the unblushing effrontery with which assertions are sometimes publicly hazarded, and the little reliance to be placed upon the rest of the allegations contained in this document.

That the Americans have carried out some adventures of British manufactures, must be admitted; but it is equally certain that the market is glutted with them, aud that the prices have miserably declined.

With regard to the supposed disadvantages incurred by the Company in dealing with the Hong rather than with the country merchants, the allegation is strangely at variance with the writer's former statement that the Company voluntarily departed from the latter mode in favour of the other. But the truth, on this point, as before, is precisely opposed to the American writer's assertion; it is not only consistent with reason and probability that the Company, having the command of the market, should be able to sell and buy at the best prices, but it is upon record that they do enjoy this advantage, particularly in respect to Chinese products. The evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on East-India Affairs in 1813 abundantly proves the fact. Mr. Beale, Prussian Consul at Canton for many years, and previously engaged himself in the China trade (a most impartial witness), distinctly says, that "the purchase of the Company's teas being made by one Committee, on one hand, has tended to keep down the price of teas, and will continue to keep it down, while it so remains." Other witnesses, even adverse to the Company, state the same fact.

What

* The cotton shipped on the Company's account from India to China in the year 1827, amounted to 158,000 bales, worth upwards of a million.