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December 1968 | Volume 20, Issue 1
America And China: The Opening Gun
Text Complexity Grade Level
9
Having sacrificed trade with the British West Indies by seceding from the empire, imaginative New !England businessmen looked to the Orient to [ill the trade gap. To that end a Bostonian named Samuel Shaw was dispatched for Canton in February, 1784, as supercargo on the Empress of China. She arrived there on August 30, and is seen above at far left in a harbor scene painted on a fan given her captain by the Chinese. On Shaw’s return he sent a report to Jay.
… The Day of our arrival at Canton, August 30th, and the two following Days, we were visited by the Chinese Merchants, and the Chiefs and Gentlemen of the several European Establishments, and treated by them in all respects as a free and independent Nation. … The Chinese. themselves were very indulgent towards us, though our being the first American ship that had ever visited China. … They styled us the New People , and when by the map we conveyed to them an Idea of the extent of our Country, with its present and increasing population, they were highly pleased at the prospect of so considerable a market for the productions of theirs. …
The Police at Canton is at all times extremely strict, and the Europeans residing there are circumscribed within very narrow limits. … On the 25 November au English ship, in saluting some Company that had dined on board, killed a Chinese, and wounded two others, in the mandarine’s Boat along side. It is a maxim of the Chinese Law that Blood must answer for Blood, in pursuance of which they demanded the unfortunate Gunner. To give up this Poor man was to consign him to certain Death. Humanity pleaded powerfully against the measure. … [On November 27] the supercargo of the [British] ship was seized … and committed to Prison. Such an outrage on personal Liberty spread a general alarm, and the Europeans unanimously agreed to send for their Boats with armed men from the shipping … and ours among the number. … To what extremities matters might have been carried, had not a negociation taken place, no one can say. … A deputation, in which I was included for America, met the Fuen , who is the head Magistrate of Canton … [who] demanded that the Gunner should be given up within three days. … The English were obliged to submit—the Gunner was given up—[the supercargo] was released—and the English, after being forced to ask pardon of the Magistracy of Canton, in presence of the other Nations, had their Commerce restored. … The Gunner remained with the Chinese—his fate undetermined. …
We left Canton the 27 December. … To every Lover of his country, as well as to those more immediately concerned in Commerce, it must be a pleasing reflection that a communication is thus happily opened between us and the Eastern