1 8 Kenneth S. Latourette, 



beginning of a series of voyages from Providence which con- 

 tinued for many years. 



The Canton trade thus started had become firmly estabHshed 

 by the year 1790. Merely running over such names of the ships 

 engaged in it as have come down to us gives us some idea of 

 its extent. There were the "Asia," Captain Barry, and the 

 "Canton," Captain Truxton, whose voyages were not very suc- 

 cessful,''' the "Jenny," Captain Thompson,^* and the brig 

 ''Eleonora," Captain Metcalf,^^ both of New York, at Canton in 

 1788; the "Massachusetts" of Boston, a large Indiaman built 

 for Samuel Shaw in 1789, said to have been the largest ship 

 built up to that time in America, sold to the Danish East India 

 Company at Canton on its first voyage*° ; and the "Astrea" of 

 Salem, James Magee, master, and Thomas H. Perkins, super- 

 cargo.*^ 



The American trade with China was from the first compelled 

 to fit into the Canton commercial system. This latter was so 

 peculiar, and yet so vital in all early relations with China that a 

 somewhat detailed description of it is essential to a full appre- 

 ciation of the succeeding sixty years of American intercourse 

 with the Middle Kingdom. 



What first impressed the traveller in Canton was that com- 

 merce was carried on "under circumstances peculiar to itself; 

 it [was] secured by no commercial treaties, [and] regulated 

 by no stipulated rules."*' Freed from all treaty restrictions and 

 diplomatic interference, the organization formed was the result 

 of a curious combination of Chinese contempt for foreigners, 

 of fear of their naval prowess, of desire for their trade, and of 

 official greed and corruption. Until modern times the Middle 

 Kingdom had been largely shut off from the rest of the world 

 by the vast mountain system on her west and by the sea on her 



^^ Shaw's Journals, pp. 295-296. 



^ Ibid. 



^^Ibid., p. 297. 



*" Delano, Voyages, pp. 21-25. 



*^ Journal of Brig "Astrea" to China. Ms. in Essex Institute, Salem. 



^ Edmund Roberts, Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, 

 Siam, and Muscat, in the U. S. Sloop of War Peacock .... during 

 the years 1832, 3, 4. New York, 1837, p. 126. 



