Early Relations hctivcen the United States and China. 73 



the value of more than $300,000. Lead was brought in ingots 

 from Gibraltar and elsewhere to the value of about half that of 

 copper.^**^ A very little steel was brought in from England and 

 Sweden.^"- The importation of opium by Americans was always 

 much less than that by the English, and most of it was the 

 inferior kind obtained in Turkey. Figures are difficult to obtain 

 for it, since it was a contraband article, but it seems to have 

 been first regularly imported about 1816. One year, 1831-2, it was 

 brought in to the value of more than two million dollars^"^ but 

 this seems to have been its high-water mark. In few years did it 

 approach that amount. Ginseng still continued to be shipped 

 from America, but rarely to the value of $200,000.^'^* Rattans, 

 pepper, nutmegs, tin — from the Straits Settlements — cochineal, 

 cloves, and coral, are all articles which appear with more or less 

 regularity in the list of minor imports, ^"^^ but none of them were 

 of great importance. It is hard to tell just when their importa- 

 tion began. 



One last group of American imports to China, British manu- 

 factures, needs more than passing mention, partly because of its 

 value, ^'"^ partly because it illustrates x\merican enterprise, but 



^"' Ch. Rep., 2:463. Letters and Recollections of J. M. Forbes, 1:70. 



^""Chinese Repos., 2:471. 



''^ Phipps, China and Eastern Trade, p. 313. 



'" Pitkin, Stat. View., ed. 1835, p. 49. 



^"^ Phipps, China and Eastern Trade, p. 313, and Chinese Rep. 6:284-286. 



^'"' Pari. Papers, 1820, 5 : 183. Testimony of Charles Everett, an Ameri- 

 can Commission Alerchant. He gave as the amounts shipped in this way 

 through him, for 1818, 1,809 lbs. sterling, for 1819, 26,448 lbs. sterling, 

 for 1820, 139,639 lbs. sterling, 1821, 190,190 lbs. sterling, 1822, 28,468 lbs. 

 sterling, 1823, 67,048 lbs. sterling, 1824, 125,681 lbs. sterling, 1825, 7,408 

 lbs. sterling. 1826, 168.354 lbs. sterling, 1827, 45,696 lbs. sterling, 1828, 

 51,481 lbs. sterling. Joshua Bates, Ibid., 6 : 365, testified that one firm 

 (probably Perkins and Company) had exported in 1826, 120,000 lbs. 

 sterling, in 1827, 82,000 lbs. sterling, in 1828, 98,000 lbs. sterling, in 1829, 

 147,000 lbs. sterling. The East India Company estimated the amount 

 for 1823 as 107,531 lbs. sterling, of which 32,614 lbs. sterling were in 

 cottons, and 73,083 lbs. sterling were woolens. Ibid., pp. 724-727. Pari. 

 Papers. 1833, E. India Co. Papers relating to trade with India and China, 

 from S. Cabell, Accountant General of E. India Co., give the figure 

 for 1829-30 as $11,122,066, for 1830-1 as $781,429, for 1831-2 as $637,822, 

 and of the E. India Co. for these years, as $2,675,371, $2,818,766, and 

 $2,956,209 respectivel}'. 



