Earl\ Relations between the United States and China. 15 



Empress of China" sailed in company with some Dutch ships 

 for a distance, touched at the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived 

 safely in New York May loth, 1785. The final profit of the 

 voyage was estimated at $30,727, or about tw^enty-five per cent. 

 on the capital invested.-^ 



The news of this successful voyage created much interest and 

 added incentive to the plans which were already projected. Shaw 

 reported the result of the voyage to Jay, the Minister of Foreign 

 Affairs, and received soon afterward by order of Congress a reply 

 telling of that body's "peculiar satisfaction in the successful 

 issue of this first effort of the citizens of America to establish 

 a direct trade with China."-* Long accounts of the voyage were 

 published in the New York papers and copied in the different 

 commercial cities.-^ In Boston, plans were soon under w^ay for 

 building and fitting out a ship for the East India trade-^ in which 

 "any citizen who wished to become interested" might purchase a 

 share for $300. Robert Morris, satisfied with the result of his 

 first venture, continued his investments.-' He bought from Shaw 

 and Randall a cargo of teas which they had shipped home in the 

 "Pallas," and talked of engaging the two for another voyage.^^ 



^ Another brief summary of the voyage is in John Austin Stevens, 

 Progress of New York in a Century, 1776-1876. New York, 1876. p. 45. 



"^Shaw's Journals, Appendix, p. 2)2)7, gives Shaw's letter (May 19, 1785) 

 and Jay's reply (June 23, 1785). The report of the committee is in the 

 Continental Congress Reports of Committees (Ms. in Library of Con- 

 gress). It was read June 9, 1785. It is also mentioned in the Journal 

 labeled Reports of Coms. (Ms. in Library of Congress). 



" A column and a quarter was given to it in the Providence Gazette, 

 May 28, 1785. 



^'' Hill, Trade and Commerce of Boston, p. 81, quotes from the Indepen- 

 dent Chronicle for June 23, 1785, to that effect. 



"'Robert Morris to Jay, May 19, 1785. Jay's Corres. and Public Papers, 

 3 : 143- 



-* Shaw's Journals, p. 218. Morris may have sent the "Empress" a 

 second time. A letter to which there is no author nor name of person 

 addressed, but with the date New York, Nov. 3, 1786, in Letters Written 

 to the British Government by agents from America, labeled America and 

 England, 1783-1791, Ms. transcripts in Lenox Library, mentions the 

 "Empress of China" as having arrived June 6, 1786, from Canton after 

 a voyage of thirteen months. This leaves such a short time for her to 

 unload, load, and clear from New York after her first voyage that it seems 

 more likely that the date is wrong. It should probably be 1785. 



