1787.] AMERICANS ENGAGE IN TRADE IN THE PACIFIC. 179 



whale and seal fishery around Cape Horn, which they had carried 

 on before the revolution, and also engaged in the direct trade with 

 India and China. In the latter countries, however, they labored 

 under great disadvantages, from the inferiority in value of the 

 articles carried thither to those brought back by them, in conse- 

 quence of which they were obliged to take out large quantities of 

 specie, in order to obtain full homeward cargoes. With the view 

 of obviating this inequality, some merchants of Boston, in 1787, 

 formed an association for the purpose of combining the fur trade 

 of the North Pacific with the China trade, as attempted by the 

 King George's Sound Company of London ; and in such an enter- 

 prise they certainly had reason to anticipate success, as, with 

 industry and nautical skill unsurpassed by any other nation, the 

 Americans were free from the restrictions imposed on British 

 subjects by the charters of the South Sea and East India Com- 

 panies.* 



In prosecution of this scheme, the ship Columbia, of two hundred 

 and twenty tons, and the sloop Washington, of ninety tons, were 

 fitted out at Boston in the summer of 1787, and laden with blan- 

 kets, knives, iron bars, copper pans, and other articles proper for the 

 trade with the Indians on the north-west coasts. The Columbia 

 was commanded by John Kendrick, to whom was intrusted the 



* The first American citizens who engaged in the whaling and sealing business 

 around Cape Horn, after the peace of 1783, were the Nantucket men, as will be here- 

 after more particularly stated. 



The first American vessel which entered the port of Canton was the ship Empress 

 of China, from New York, commanded by Daniel Parker, with Samuel Shaw as 

 supercargo : she arrived in China in the latter part of the summer of 1784, and 

 returned to New York in May of the following year. Mr. Shaw was appointed 

 consul of the United States at Canton in January, 1796; and, on the 31st of Decem- 

 ber of the same year, he addressed to his government, from Canton, an interesting 

 memoir on the state of commerce at that place, which still remains, with many other 

 communications from him, unpublished, in the archives of the Department of State at 

 Washington. In 1787, not less than five American vessels were employed in the 

 trade with China; among them were the Canton, under Captain Thomas Truxton, 

 who afterwards distinguished himself in the naval service of his country, and the old 

 frigate Alliance, so celebrated during the war of the revolution, which had been sold 

 by order of Congress, and fitted out as a trading vessel, under the command of John 

 Reed. The Alliance entered Canton on the 29th of December, 1787; and her arrival 

 at that season caused much astonishment, as it had been previously considered impos- 

 sible for a vessel to sail from the Cape of Good Hope to China between October and 

 April, on account of the violence of the winds, blowing constantly, during that 

 period, from the north-east. Reed, however, had steered eastward from the Cape of 

 Good Hope, to the southern extremity of Van Dieman's Land, around the east coasts 

 of which island, and of New Holland, he sailed into the China Sea ; and the course 

 thus pointed out by him has been since often taken, especially by American vessels. 



