Early Relations hctzvccn the United States and China. ii 



Another influence leading to American commerce with China 

 was the development of shipping in the colonies. The West 

 Indian trade, the fisheries, and a commerce with Portugal and 

 the Mediterranean,'* had been important means of support to the 

 Northern Colonies, and had raised up a hardy race of sailors 

 and small merchant firms. ^ The spirit of adventure needed in 

 the initiation of long voyages to China had received cultivation 

 from piracy. For instance, in the last years of the seventeenth 

 century the waters north of Madagascar were infested with a 

 band of marauders who fitted out their ships, obtained their sup- 

 plies, and often spent their ill-gotten gains in Rhode Island, 

 Massachusetts, New York, and the Carolinas.^ A letter of 1696^ 

 said of them, "All the ships that are now out are from New 

 England, except Tew from New York, and Want from Caro- 

 lina."** The privateering of the Revolution had an even greater 

 influence. Craft bearing letters of marcjue from the colonies 

 swarmed the seas. Large fortunes were accumulated, a surplus 

 shipping, too large for the coasting trade, was built, a knowledge 

 of distant seas was acquired, and an adventurous spirit was 



■'Charles E. Trow, Old Shipmasters of Salem, New York and London, 

 1905. p. 48. 



'" Log books in the Essex Listitute, Salem, for this period, show some- 

 thing of the extent of the trade. See also G. F. Chever, Some Remarks 

 on the Commerce of Salem, from 1626 to 1740, with a sketch of Philip 

 English, a merchant in Salem from about 1670 to about 1733-1734. Hist. 

 Cols, of Essex Instit. i : 6y. 



^ Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, The East India Trade of Providence, 

 Providence, 1896, p. 3, quotes the Governor of New York from the N. Y. 

 Col. Docs. Vol. 4, p. 306, to the effect, that "I find that those Pirates that 

 have given the greatest disturbance in the East Indies and the Red Sea, 

 have either been fitted from New York or Rhode Island, and manned 

 from New York." See also PauUin, Diplomatic Negotiations of American 

 Naval Officers. Baltimore, 1912, pp. 154-156. 



" T. South to the Lord Justices of Ireland, from Dublin, Aug. 15, 1696. 

 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies. 

 May 15, 1696 — Oct. 31, 1697. J. W. Fortescue, ed., London, 1904. 



* A letter to the East India Company from Bombay, Ibid. 1697-8, p. 363, 

 says of the same band, "There is a nest of rogues in the Isle of St. Mary's 

 [near Madagascar] .... where they are frequently supplied .... 

 by ships from New York, New England, and the West Indies." 



