Early Relations betiueen the United States and China. 17 



merchant. It was the first American Consulate beyond the Cape 

 of Good Hope, however, and was the only one in China until 

 after i844. 33 



On the return passage of her first voyage the &quot;Empress of - 

 China&quot; had found the &quot;Grand Turk&quot; of Salem at the Cape 

 of Good Hope, evidence that the enterprising merchants of the 

 witch town were already looking toward the East. It was this 

 same vessel which Elias H. Derby, a merchant who had made a 

 large fortune in privateering during the Revolution, sent to 

 Canton a few months later, the first Salem ship to visit that 

 port. 34 Providence, too, was caught by the China fever. Her-- 

 merchants, cut off from the West Indies, had been looking for 

 fresh fields for investment, and the n^ws of the profits to be made 

 in the Canton trade soon roused them. John Brown, a West 

 Indies merchant, and the senior partner of Brown and Francis, 

 was the first to make the venture. His ship, the &quot;General Wash 

 ington,&quot; Captain Dennison, sailed December 27, 1787, stopping 

 first at Pondicherry and Madras, 35 and going thence to Canton. 36 

 Returning she reached America July 4, 1789. Although the 

 venture was not as profitable as had been hoped, it was the 



33 Shaw s Journals, pp. 218-222. Shaw held the office until 1794. His 

 successors were Samuel Snow (Quincy s Life of Shaw, p. 125), Edward 

 Carrington, B. C. Wilcocks, Richard R. Thompson, John H. Grosvenor, 

 P. W. Snow, Paul S. Forbes (Consular letters, Canton). There were 

 frequent gaps, often of years, when the office was occupied by a vice 

 consul or a consular agent. 



34 She sailed from Salem January 3, 1786. Robert S. Rantoul, the Port 

 of Salem, in Hist l Cols, of the Essex Instit., 10 : 55. Paullin, Diplomatic 

 Negotiations of American Naval Officers, p. 161. 



35 This course was probably taken because of the influence of an Eng 

 lishman who had spent seven years in India and who went along on 

 the voyage. He is mentioned in a letter of John Brown to his brother, 

 August, 1787. Moses Brown Papers, 6: n, quoted in Miss Kimball s notes. 



36 The log book of the &quot;General Washington&quot; is in the Brown and Ives 

 Papers, in the John Carter Brown Library of American History in 

 Providence, and is above the average manuscript log for fullness of detail. 

 William B. Weeden, Early Oriental Commerce in Providence, in Mass. 

 Hist l Soc. Proceedings, 3d Series, 1 1236-278, Boston, 1908, pp. 236-240, 

 tells of it, and Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, The East India Trade of Provi 

 dence, Providence, 1896, p. 4, gives an account of it. Shaw s Journals, 

 p. 318, tells of the return voyage. 



TRANS. CONN. ACAD., Vol. XXII 2 1917 



