Earlv Relations bctzvccn the United States and China. 79 



and continued to do so until 1825, when the East India Com- 

 pany was permitted to ship tea directly to the Dominion/'*'-' 



Tea was the most important American export from Canton, 

 but there were others which were prominent for many years. 

 Chinese silk was always exported, generally in a manufactured 

 form. In the fifteen years after 1820 it was of great importance, 

 several times amounting to more than one-third of the total 

 imports to the United States from China."*' Later, however, 



ten per cent on goods not imported in vessels belonging to citizens of 

 the United States, the increase to cease with the conclusion of peace. 

 (Ibid., 2:768.) The tariff of 1816, the first general one since 1790, raised 

 the duties on China goods over those of the earlier year from twenty to 

 forty per cent, still preserving a discrimination in favor of those brought 

 in American bottoms directly from Canton. The protective tariff wave 

 affected the duties on these goods, and in 1824, for the first time, an 

 import ta.x of twenty- five per cent ad valorem was placed on cotton and 

 silk manufactures from beyond the Cape of Good Hope. Two excep- 

 tions, however, were made in favor of the China merchants ; the pro- 

 visions of the law were not to apply until January ist, 1825, and nankeens 

 were not included in the rule which considered the minimum cost as 

 thirty cents a yard. (Ibid., 4:25.) The "Tariff of Abominations" (May 

 19, 1826) affected the China trade merely in the one item of an addi- 

 tional five per cent ad valorem on all silks from beyond the Cape of 

 Good Hope. (U. S. Statutes at Large, 4:270.) In 1830 the duties on 

 teas were reduced materially (Ibid., 4:404), and the tariff of 1832 for 

 the first time entirely exempted from duty teas brought in American 

 vessels directly from East Asia, and reduced the duty on ■ most of the 

 other China goods. At the same time the law permitting the deposit of 

 teas under bond was repealed, bringing to an end a system which had 

 been begun forty years before. (Ibid., 4:583.) The tariff of 1841 still 

 exempted from duty tea brought by American ships from China, although 

 levying one on other China goods (Ibid., 5:463), but with a brief revival 

 of higher tariff legislation in the act of 1842, a thirty per cent ad valorem 

 duty was placed on China ware, a specific duty on cassia, mace, and ginger, 

 and a twenty per cent ad valorem duty on all unenumerated goods, an 

 increase which must have included teas and silks. A ten per cent addi- 

 tional duty was placed on all goods imported from the East. (Ibid., 

 5:548.) The tendency of the long discrimination in favor of American 

 'ships was to keep the China trade in the hands of American shippers, a 

 protection, however, which was scarcely needed, so efficient was the 

 merchant marine. 



"" Report of Select Com. on E. India Co., Pari. Papers, 1830, 5 : xix-xx, 

 and Sen. Doc, i Sess., 19 Cong., No. 31. 



'*' Tables in Pitkin, Stat. View, 1835, p. 301. Ex. Doc. 35, 3 Sess., 37 

 Cong., p. 10. 



