The Sun.
London, England, 1828-12-04 00:00:00

TRADE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY

WITH CHINA.

The following letter appears in a New York
paper, and may be regarded as the case of the
United States in what regards their commercial in-
tercourse with China. The facts stated, coining
from such a source, must be received with all proper
distrust ; but if true, they cannot fail to awaken at-
tention to them in this country :
" TO TkIE EDITOR. OF THE NATIONAL GAZETTE.
44 It 'it% well known that in the reign of Elizabeth
a company of English merchants obtained a charter
for the exclusive trade from her dominions to ports
eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, limited to a
number of years ; which charter has been renewed
and modified at various times, and at the present
moment exists with all the powers of a regal go-
vernment in India, and retains the close rponopoly
of the tea-trade from China under the British flag.
As it is only in the trade of China that the Writer of
this comes in contact with the English company, he
will confine his remarks exclusively to the trade of
die port of Canton, which be hopes will meet with
that attention which a subject of so much interest to
the commerce and revenue of his country demands.
He has been a resident commercial agent for several
years, intrusted with business of great magnitude,
but little accustomed to writing for the public eye ;
hence his language may be less clear, but his facts
are not the less to be relied on than those of others
expressed in better terms.
" Milburn, in his Oriental Commerce, article
Canton,' an authority which the British must ac-
knowledge, tells us, that in the first intercourse of
the United East India Company with China, each
ship had one, or more, supercargo, who acted for
his own ship alone, and made his bargain with any
Chinese merchant resident at Canton.' In the year
1758, the company changed their system, and ap •
pointed resident supercargoes, having a president
and select committee, &c. &c., and made another
alteration,--:ix., by trading more directly with the
country merchant, who brought his goods to Can-
ton ;' and further on he says, it may easily be per-
ccived that inasmuch as this new mode was benefi-
cial to the European, it must be hurtful to the
Chinese merchant ;' and again, ' in 1759, the re-
sident supercargoes sent a vessel to Tiensin,
the port of Pekin, with a remonstrance to
the Emperor on the grievances which the Eu-
ropeans suffered, in consequence of which certain
Canton security merchants were constituted a co-
hong, or company, with whom only the Europeans
were to transact business at Canton; and all busi-
ness transacted with Europeans by others than this
association, or cohong, became contrary to law, ex-
cept with licensed shopkeepers in one single street.
At first the Hong merchants traded jointly. In
1770, on application of the supercargoes, supported
by a large sum of money, the cohong was abo-
lished ; however, since this period, the Hong mer-
chants, who constituted the cohong, have continued
to transact business on their separate individual tic-
counts, though they still remain a body, and assemble
for purposes of a general concern. By laxity of
regulation, other Chinese, besides the Hong mer-
chants, have come to transact business with Euro-
peans; but still all such transactions are hi the eye
of the law illicit and contraband ; and as no goods
can be shipped but by a Hong merchant, all others
trade in the name and under the protection of some
particular one of them, who receives a consideration
on that account.
" Thus it appears that the monopoly of the Hong
• merchants was, in the first instance, occasioned by
the close monopoly of the English East India Com-
PanY) and their impolitic interference with the esta-
blished mode of trade. Such was the state of the
trade of Canton, when the Americans, in 1788 or
1789, first embarked in it, bringing with them their
principles of free trade, commencing in the same
course originally pursued by the English, carrying
on to the present time a commerce increasing in im-
portance, the monopoly of the Hong gradually giving
way before them, and free trade establishing itself
silently, first by the connivance, and afterwards under
the express sanction of successive Hoppos (the col-
lectors of the port) and the consent of the majority
of the Hong merchants. So rapid has been the
growth of
_the American trade, that for sonic years
it has. been equal to the whole of the East India
Company's trade, carried on extensively through
the shopmen buying and selling for cash or in barter,
and the duties arranged through a •ng merchant,
who has found it so advantageous that he has paid
annually to the Hoppo from 7,000 to 10,000 dollars
ae a fee for allowing him the exclusive right of ship-