Early Relations betzveen the United States and China. 75 



large proportion of the time of the House of Lords Committee 

 on the Foreign Trade which in 1820 and 1821 investigated the 

 East India Company was spent in gathering information on 

 American commerce with China. The evidence showed the 

 Americans to be so successful with unrestricted trade that the. 

 committee reported favorably on a similar plan for Great 

 Britain. 113 In 1829 and 1830 the discussion again came up in 

 Parliament, and again the American trade was the chief argu 

 ment. By this time the growth of American shipments of 

 British woolens had long been noticeable. It galled British 

 pride to see the Yankees come to England and carry British 

 manufactures to Canton. The East India Company tried in vain 

 to prevent it, 114 and the independent merchant raged at being 

 compelled to see Americans accumulate fortunes from profits 

 which he felt belonged to him. In public meetings, 115 in the 

 press, 116 and on the floor of Parliament, 117 American trade was 



answering a memorial of British ship-owners which had instanced the 

 American commerce with China in favor of free trade. 



113 Parl. Papers, 1821, 7:5. 



114 Wood, Sketches of China, p. 64, says (in 1827-8), &quot;The extensive 

 importation of British goods in American vessels had been materially 

 detrimental to the Company s trade in China, and as they found it 

 impracticable to prevent the exportation from England by Americans, 

 they resolved to thwart them by using their influence to affect their sales 

 in Canton.&quot; 



115 Proceedings of a Public Meeting of the India and China Trade, 

 Liverpool, 1829. The meeting was a protest against the East India 

 Company s monopoly of the China trade, and frequent mention was made 

 of the American trade. 



118 An article in the Edinburgh Review, Jan., 1831, 52:281-322, against 

 the East India Company s monopoly attracted much attention. It cited j^,- 

 the success of the American trade as an argument; an argument which 

 John Slade, Notices on the British Trade to the Port of Canton, etc., 

 London, 1830, p. 32, and British Relations with the Chinese Empire, ca. 

 1832, both attempt to refute. 



117 Huskisson, in speeches May 12 and 14, 1829 (Hansard s Debates, 2 

 Series, Vol. 21, pp. 1296 and 1365), and Whitmore, May 14, 1829 (Ibid., 

 p. 1349). The latter said, The Americans find no difficulty in carrying i 

 on their free trade with China, supplying not only the United States, but/ 

 all the world except Great Britain with Chinese produce, and importing 

 even British manufactures into Canton.&quot; 



