Early Relations between the United States and China. 75 



large proportion of the time of the House of Lords' Committee 

 on the Foreign Trade which in 1820 and 1821 investigated the 

 East India Company was spent in gathering information on 

 American commerce with China. The evidence showed the 

 Americans to be so successful with unrestricted trade that the 

 committee reported favorably on a similar plan for Great 

 Britain.'^-' In 1829 and 1830 the discussion again came up in 

 Parliament, and again the American trade was the chief argu- 

 ment. By this time the growth of American shipments of 

 British woolens had long been noticeable. It galled British 

 pride to see the Yankees come to England and carry British 

 manufactures to Canton. The East India Company tried in vain 

 to prevent it,^'* and the independent merchant raged at being 

 compelled to see Americans accumulate fortunes from profits 

 which he felt belonged to him. In public meetings/^"' in the 

 press/^** and on the floor of Parliament,"' American trade was 



answering a memorial of British ship-owners which had instanced the 

 American commerce with China in favor of free trade. 



""Pari. Papers, 1821, 7:5. 



"^Wood, Sketches of China, p. 64, says (in 1827-8), "The e.xtensive 

 importation of British goods in American vessels had been materially 

 detrimental to the Company's trade in China, and as they found it 

 impracticable to prevent the exportation from England by Americans, 

 they resolved to thwart them by using their influence to affect their sales 

 in Canton." 



""' Proceedings of a Public Meeting of the India and China Trade, 

 Liverpool, 1829. The meeting was a protest against the East India 

 Company's monopoly of the China trade, and frequent mention was made 

 of the American trade. 



""An article in the Edinburgh Review, Jan., 1831, 52:281-322, against 

 the East India Company's monopoly attracted much attention. It cited 

 the success of the American trade as an argument ; an argument which 

 John Slade. Notices on the British Trade to the Port of Canton, etc., 

 London, 1830, p. 32, and British Relations with the Chinese Empire, ca. 

 1832, both attempt to refute. 



"' Huskisson. in speeches May 12 and 14, 1829 (Hansard's Debates, 2 

 Series, Vol. 21, pp. 1296 and 1365), and Whitmore, May 14, 1829 (Ibid., 

 p. 1349). The latter said. "The Americans find no difficulty in carrying 

 on their free trade with China, supplying not only the United States, but 

 all the world except Great Britain with Chinese produce, and importing 

 even British manufactures into Canton." 



