68 Kenneth S. Latourette, 



In the little ports along the Connecticut coast there were no 

 large firms, but only a short-lived activity in sealing. Stoning- 

 ton, Hartford, New London, and New Haven, each had their 

 small share. The activity was large for a time, but it was only 

 in sealing, an adventurous, self-destructive trade, and was neces- 

 sarily of relatively short duration. It had practically ceased 

 before the War of 1812. 



It was from New York that the American trade with China 

 was first begun, and that city continued to be one of the three 

 chief ports interested. To a certain point the course of trade 

 seems to have been much the same as in Salem and Providence — 

 an increase to about 1805 and 1806, a decrease to the war, and 

 an increase immediately after it. Unlike Salem and Providence, 

 however, an increase rather than a decrease followed the depres- 

 sion of 1826.*''* As in Boston, we find a few prominent firms, 

 but unlike Boston, no single one predominated through the entire 

 period. John Jacob Astor was early in the trade, and kept it 

 up after the war.*'^ A story which unfortunately is not well 

 authenticated ascribes the foundation of his great fortune to 

 his early success in the trade. '° Oliver Wolcott and Company and 



tant. It almost monopolized the trade for a few years after the war, but 

 sufifered heavily from the depression in 1826, and only entered again after 

 some years, and then as a minor investor. (For further information on 

 the part of Providence in the China trade, see Weeden, Early Oriental 

 Trade of Providence, Kimball, East India Trade of Providence, and the 

 files of the Providence newspapers, especially the Providence Gazette. 

 The Brown and Ives papers are in the custody of the John Carter Brown 

 Library in Providence, and contain a great mass of manuscript material, 

 of which the log books are the most easily accessible.) 



•* See Letters and Clearance Books of the New York Custom House, 

 Mss. in New York Custom House, passim. These are incomplete, but for 

 the years they cover, they show the following numbers of vessels clearing: 



1799, 4; 1800, 7; 1801, 2; 1802, 7; 1805, 8; 1806, 9; 1807, 2; 1809, 7; 

 1818,3; 1819,3; 1829,5; 1830,5; 1831,4; 1832, none; 1836,5; 1844,11; 

 Total for sixteen years, 82. 



'"^ Ibid. 



'"Barrett, Old Mercs, of N. Y. City, 1:417-421. Astor is there said 

 to have told the story as that of the beginning of his fortune, but I 

 find no corroborative evidence. James Parton, Life of John Jacob 

 Astor, New York, 1865, p. 49, says that he sent out his first ship about 



1800, and that he continued the commerce for twenty-seven years, "gen- 

 erally with profit and occasionally with splendid and bewildering success." 



