Negotiating Friendships: A Canton Merchant Between East and West in the Early 19th Century 9783110629644, 9783110625851

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Shuo Wang Negotiating Friendships

Critical Readings in Global Intellectual History

Edited by Susan Richter, Milinda Banerjee, Sebastian Meurer, and Li Xuetao

Volume 3

Shuo Wang

Negotiating Friendships A Canton Merchant Between East and West in the Early 19th Century

ISBN 978-3-11-062585-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-062964-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-062599-8 ISSN 2568-843X Library of Congress Control Number: 2020934487 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Detail from “Loading Tea at Canton,” about 1852. From the studio of Guan Lianchang, also known as Tingqua. Augustine Heard Collection, 1931. E83532.16. Courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum. Photo by University of Tokyo. Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Contents Prologue & Acknowledgements Abbreviations

VII

XV

1 1.1 1.2 1.3

Introduction 1 An approach to Houqua 2 Aims, current state and sources of research Organisation of this book 18

2 2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.2 2.3

Historical milieu 21 Social relationship in China and the West 21 Christian thought in Western societies 21 Strangership and acquaintanceship 22 Personalization in imperial Chinese society 26 Hierarchy 33 A social rise of Chinese merchants? 39 The Canton System and the Hong Merchants 48

9

3 Houqua in his Chinese circles 61 3.1 A “Merchant with a Red Cap” 61 3.1.1 Prestige and inferiority 62 3.1.2 The dark side of patronage: The civil foreign affairs 3.1.2.1 The “London” Affair 65 3.1.2.2 The “Topaze” Affair 72 3.1.3 The “Napier Affair”: Resisting on the patron’s side 3.1.3.1 Phase I: July 1834 77 3.1.3.2 Phase II: August 81 3.1.3.3 Phase III: September and October 83 3.1.3.4 Dealing with Confucian bureaucrats 85 3.1.3.5 Houqua’s patronage and loyalty 87 3.1.4 The faith began to faint? 90 3.2 A Senior Hong Merchant: Balance between partners and competitors 99 3.2.1 Partnership 99 3.2.2 The “Hong friends” as competitors 105 3.2.3 Nursing the weaker Hong Merchants 110 3.3 Patriarchy, patrimonialism and patronage 119

63

75

VI

4 4.1 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3

Contents

4.2.3.1 4.2.3.2 4.2.4 4.2.4.1 4.2.4.2 4.2.5 4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.3.4 4.3.5 4.3.5.1 4.3.5.2 4.3.5.3

Houqua with his foreign friends and acquaintances 129 Living as a foreign devil in Canton 129 Houqua’s intercultural communication: A reconstruction 136 Pidgin English 136 Letters, notes and other written communication 146 Beyond business: Social entertainments in an intercultural context 155 Dinner parties 156 Mansions and gardens 161 Gifts, favors and reciprocal exchange 170 Exchange of gifts and favors 170 Houqua’s portraits as gifts 176 Modes of intercultural business partnership 189 Reducing risks, fostering trust 195 Insurance 195 Family bonds 198 Joint business, shared secrets 201 Houqua and John Perkins Cushing 207 The Coolidge affair: A test of Houqua’s trust 217 Joseph Coolidge and John M. Forbes 219 The Forbes brothers 224 Houqua 230

5 5.1 5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3 5.1.4 5.2 5.3

Résumé 237 Trust in imperial China and the West 237 Familiarity, confidence and trust in Western perception Where was “trust” in imperial China? 245 “Familiarity” and “confidence” in Chinese perception “Trust” under the shadow of sanctions 256 Houqua and his “friends”: Friendship in imperial China Houqua’s legacy and descendants 270

6

Epilogue: How open was China?

Bibliography Index

299

283

277

237 248 261

Prologue & Acknowledgements The beginning of a new era is usually connected with economic, social and political restructuring and progress of a society. In Europe for instance, the beginning of the modern era was marked by the French Revolution in 1789 or the start of the Industrial Revolution during the late eighteenth century. But in China, the modern era started with an event that has been spoken of as the most severe humiliation in Chinese history, that is, the Opium War in 1840. The Chinese government was defeated by a Western power for the first time.1 It was not only the war itself, but also the dramatic occurrences thereafter, such as defeats against Japan, the opening of the “treaty ports” and the division of the country into the “spheres of influence” etc., that repeatedly showcased China’s powerless status. Till date, the period from 1840 to the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 is defined as the century of “Semi-Colony and Semi-Feudal Society (半封建半殖民地社会)” in historical textbooks in China. However, in Western historiographies, this period is not interpreted in a negative manner. It was with the war in 1840 that China gradually began to open up and enter the family of nations. Regardless of how the year 1840 is interpreted and how the new era in Chinese history began, a central understanding that is shared by both Chinese and Western historiography is that of China’s isolation before 1840 and the process of opening up thereafter. Certain policies such as the “sea ban (海禁)” and the limited foreign trade during the Ming and Qing Dynasties had obviously contributed to this aspect of isolation. All attempts by Europeans to communicate with China as equals, including the famous Macartney Mission in 1793, had failed. Besides the official missions, many other Western travelers who had been to China, confirmed in their writings how “blocked” and “obstructed” Chinese

1 The discussion regarding the periodization of Chinese history has not been completed yet. Chinese historians of late Qing Dynasty like Liang Qichao (梁启超 1873–1929) defined the end of the reign of emperor Qianlong by the end of eighteenth century as the beginning of the Chinese modern era. However, the arrival of the Portuguese and Spanish in South China during the sixteenth century has been a preferred event to denote the beginning of the modern era by historians such as Lü Simian (吕思勉), Qian Mu (钱穆) as well as some Western Sinologists such as Frederic Wakeman (1937–2006) and Jonathan Spence. But since the 1930s and 1940s, the Opium War of 1839–1842, often referred to as the year 1840, was viewed by a majority of both Chinese and Western historians as the most important temporal boundary in China’s recent past. Chinese historians settled upon this date out of a patriotic concern with the issue of foreign imperialism. For the Western historians, the year 1840 marked the beginning of Western impact and thus the best starting point for their study of modern China. Cf.: Wang, “Maritime China in Transition,” 3. Cohen, Discovering History in China, 191. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-203

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society was.2 In this sense, 1840 was undoubtedly a turning point in Chinese history because Westernization characterized much of Chinese history after 1840, and in some way continues to do so even today. Despite this widespread understanding about China, there are studies showing that the opposite was true, especially in the last three decades: Despite the apparent isolation, some parts of China, especially coastal areas, were connected to the world outside during the time before the Opium War.3 Canton for instance, was famously indispensable in global trade long before 1840. Through Canton, China was actively involved in the intercontinental trade of metal and merchandise since the sixteenth century. In fact, the reduction of silver production in South America during the early nineteenth century actually caused an increase in the opium trade in China.4 As Osterhammel once noted, it was in large part thanks to China that the East India Company became the biggest commercial organization in the world at the time, since China’s exports helped provide the Chancellor of Great Britain a tenth of his revenue during that period: Could a country with this immense an impact be considered entirely “isolated”?5 Besides commercial aspects, China also had its channels open in cultural and political exchange: Peking, for example, was an oriental capital city that had frequent contact with Europe. Beside the official diplomatic missions, over a hundred Jesuits had visited Peking during the eighteenth century. Furthermore, at least 17 missionaries had spent a significant period of their lives in Peking.6 They were not only missionaries, but also researchers, diplomats, translators, civil and personal servants of the Chinese emperors. The position of the leading officer of the imperial astronomy institution (钦天监监正) was held almost continuously by European Jesuits from the mid-seventeenth century till at least 1826, because the western calendar was preferred for astronomical calculations.7 More importantly, through their diligence and talents in languages and science, these missionaries not only translated, but also composed numerous works about China for European readers, which became foundational materials for the emergence of Sinophile during the period of Enlightenment.8 Conversely, what

2 Porter, “A Peculiar but Uninteresting Nation,” 181. 3 Cf.: Liang, A misunderstood China, 23–41. 4 Lin, China Upside Down, 60 and 103. 5 Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft, 127. 6 Ouyang, “The Hidden Danger in the Flourishing Age,” 103. 7 Zhang and Wu, History of Cultural Relation between China and the West, 499. See also: Huang, “The combat of power,” 75–91. 8 Take the Jesuits’ works as example: Between 1552 and 1687, Jesuits in China produced 69 Sinological works by 28 authors. These numbers increased significantly during the period

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they brought from Europe to the court in Peking was not only a large number of books translated into Chinese,9 but also merchandise and various products that were newly developed in Europe. It was well known that clocks, weapons, musical instruments and other small mechanical inventions were of enormous interest to the Chinese emperors.10 In other words, during the decades or even centuries preceding the year 1840, the capital city of an “isolated” country and the surroundings of its emperors did not seem to be isolated. Therefore, considering the contradictory data regarding the theory of isolation, this book first delves into the question of how open China was before 1840. The different facets of China’s encounters with the West, particularly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, makes for a great beginning to investigate this question. There were visible “Western elements” or internationality during the period, including a substantial number of objects and knowledge that were exchanged, i.e. translated books, machines, instruments, artworks etc. Taking science and technology as an example: During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Jesuits had brought 23 kinds of devices into the palace.11 Emperor Kangxi (康熙, reg.1660–1720) had four Jesuits working for him to construct and repair various devices such as clocks, telescopes, microscopes, weapons, music boxes and so on. The clocks were favored objects with almost every Qing emperor. However, these devices were not revered or considered to be a sign of the superiority of Europe in technology. Europe was not considered to be a potential military danger to China. Only under special and urgent circumstances were these new inventions used. For example, cannons constructed by Jesuits were used during wartimes.12 Once these weapons and other machines had rendered their services, there was no interest for further research on them. Therefore, instead of investigating the status of technology and its developments in Europe, the machines and devices were accepted in a pragmatic way. They were not considered for any long term benefits they might offer nor used for

from 1687 to 1773, as the Jesuits in China produced 353 Sinological works by 55 authors. Cf.: Ouyang, The Hidden Danger in the Flourishing Age,” 40. 9 During the two centuries after the Jesuit, Matteo Ricci’s arrival in China around 1582, at least 437 European works were translated, including books on religion, geography, philosophy, astronomy, machinery construction etc. Cf.: Zhang and Wu, History of Cultural Relation between China and the West, 496. 10 Zhang and Wu, History of Cultural Relation between China and the West, 525. 11 Zhang and Wu, History of Cultural Relation between China and the West, 509. 12 Zhang and Wu, History of Cultural Relation between China and the West, 520–523 and Ouyang, Zhesheng 2014, 108.

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society.13 Just like the clocks and music boxes which only served to entertain the emperors and privileged Chinese, information and knowledge from the West remained mostly in the palace or within a very limited circle. The majority of Chinese stayed ignorant and uninformed about new technology and inventions.14 Besides this pragmatic manner of profiting from the advantages of the West, another aspect of China’s confrontation was the intellectual theory about “the Chinese origin of Western culture (西学中源)”, which emerged around the seventeenth century, as contact with the West became more frequent through missionaries.15 This theory made it comfortable for Chinese intellectuals or literati16 to face the West, especially considering their advancements in scientific areas, without denting their self-confidence and the sovereignty of Chinese culture in their imagined world. During the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), emperor Kangxi, who was interested in Western science, supported the theory that asserted “the Chinese origin of Western culture”. In 1711, after taking mathematic lessons from the Jesuits, Kangxi even claimed that algebra originally came from China.17 Under his reign, the theory of “Chinese origin of Western culture” was promoted and became the standard way in which Chinese literati dealt with the West. This tradition continued to dominate intellectual thought up to the late nineteenth century. Also the leading theory of the “Self-Strengthening Movement (洋务运动)” after 1840 proposed by Zhang Zhidong (张之洞 1837–1909) – “Chinese learning for fundamental principles and Western learning for practical application (中学为体，西学为用)” – reflected both the pragmatic and self-confident manner in which Chinese intellectuals had encounters with the West. Unlike most of the Chinese outside privileged circles who barely had information about the outside world, some Chinese literati including the emperors of the period had opportunities to experience Western culture. However, their discussions were not about the advantages of Western culture, but rather about the “Chinese origin” of aspects they had experienced so that they could stake legitimate claim on the predominance of Chinese culture. These characteristics of the Chinese way of facing the West – pragmatism and self-confidence – did not prevent contact with the West, but made the confrontation almost fruitless

13 Zhang and Wu, History of Cultural Relation between China and the West, 509–510. 14 The lack of information was only one of the various reasons leading to the ignorant and uninformed state of Chinese people of the time. Besides, the year 1840 did not change this characteristic of the people. 15 Zhang and Wu, History of Cultural Relation between China and the West, 510–512. 16 Literati in this book are referred to the Confucian intellectuals especially those who became scholar-bureaucrats. 17 Zhang and Wu, History of Cultural Relation between China and the West, 513.

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XI

because there is no proof of any part of Western culture having brought a qualitative and profound change in Chinese society. However, on the European side, this encounter turned out to be quite different. The exchange between China and Europe since the seventeenth century was obviously asymmetrical: While the flow of information from China increased enormously in Europe, the Chinese were even less informed about Europe in 1820 than a hundred years before.18 Considering this asymmetry in the exchange of information, China’s openness had a superficial quality rather than a profound and long term type of exchange. In this case, the aspect of isolation seems to be more plausible. Nevertheless, Peking was not the only location of encounters between China and the West. The emperors and the privileged social class were not the only Chinese who experienced Western culture. Besides the missionaries and diplomats in Peking, there was another group of Westerners living in China, namely the European and American merchants in Canton. As mentioned before, through foreign trade in Canton, China was actively involved in world trade long before 1840. Moreover, unlike in the capital city, where the openness of China was observed only among emperors or the privileged social class, in Canton, it was the Chinese merchants who got in touch with the outside world in their daily lives. This book endeavors to examine China’s openness or isolation through an additional perspective, that of the merchants in Canton. Since the Cantonese merchants did not belong to the privileged circle of Chinese society, they had a different position and worldview comparing to that of the literati. Although they were very successful in foreign trade considering the volume of trade they managed and the financial contributions that they made, their social standing was not equal to that of the literati. Regardless, they were the real pioneers at the forefront during conflicts between China and the West. Due to their position and social role as merchants, their contact with the West was based on personal relationships rather than official diplomacy. Conversely, unlike the Jesuits at the imperial courts, the Westerners in Canton did not see the Chinese empire in all its glory, but rather saw the nuanced and real social lives of merchants and other Chinese outside privileged circles. In this context, the openness of China is observed in this book in an intercontinental commercial atmosphere and through the social networks of the Chinese merchants. This openness includes not only a “traditional” Chinese

18 Ouyang, “The Hidden Danger in the Flourishing Age”, 104. Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft, 128.

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aspect, but also an intercultural aspect. How did the Chinese merchants behave in their encounters with the West? How did they conduct their relationships in their Chinese circles? Due to the strong influence of foreign trade in the daily lives in Canton as well as the profound heritage of Confucian thought, how open were the Chinese merchants? This book seeks to analyze not only a history of commerce, but also a history of Chinese society and intercultural confrontation and encounters before 1840. Through the details of daily lives collated from various sources, this book also reconstructs the social life and especially the struggle of a group of extraordinary Chinese, who played an indispensable role in the opening of China, but were never the focus of Chinese history up to now. Due to the wide scope of this research, this study has been the result of incredible teamwork, including the assistance and generosity of mentors, funders, friends and families. I am indebted to Prof. Dr. Sabine Dabringhaus who witnessed the entire development of this research from its beginning as the germ of an idea to the last revision of the manuscript. Other scholars of the Historical Department of University Freiburg during the last five years, particularly Prof. Dr. Sylvia Paletschek, have contributed immensely to my research. I also owe my thanks to Prof. Dr. Susan Richter of University Heidelberg for her brilliant thought and critiques, and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Osterhammel of University Konstanz, whose research always fascinate me and trigger new ideas time and again. I am extremely grateful for the financial support from the graduate school of University Freiburg and the German Research Foundation (DFG), as well as the collegial help of our project “Freunde, Gönner, Getreue” of the graduate school, especially Prof. Dr. Mark Greengrass, Dr. Sharon Adams, and Dr. Cristian Alvarado Leyton. Prof. Dr. Leng Dong (冷东), Prof. Dr. Zhang Wenqin (章文钦) of the Research Center of the Thirteen Hongs in Guangzhou (广州十三行研究中心) and Prof. Dr. Ching May-bo of the Hongkong City University helped me generously so that I could enhance my research with Chinese source material. In addition to the scholars mentioned above, I am constantly supported by many friends who not only gave me scholarly advice but also encouragement, in particular Dr. Sören Urbansky, Wu Xinhui, Dr. Wang Yifu, Dr. Lin Shing-ting, Dr. Christine Howard, Dr. Nadine Amsler, Sabine Dworog, Gissel Zamora, Anna Haut, Sabrina Feikert, Ni Xupeng, Zang Xiaolin, Yang Yan and so on. The Melcher family “transformed” my stressful research stay in Boston into an unforgettable and wonderful trip. Additionally, the kindness of numerous librarians and archivists, especially those of the Baker Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society and Connecticut Historical Society needs to be honoured.

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I would like to thank Phoebe Ai and Douglas Fear for helping me improve my written English. My German family as well as my Chinese family have always been there for me whenever I have had any need. My parents’ love for me is beyond words, since what they have done for me makes for amazing evidence of their unconditional and boundless love. Without my husband Yoska Meinokat, I would never have been able to finish this work. It is a great pity that my grandfather could not witness the conclusion of this book but I believe he would be happy to see my work complete.

Abbreviations BA BL B&S Records Cabot Papers CRC CHS Delano Papers EIC FDR FO Forbes Papers Forbes Records Heard Records HL Hunter Journal IDT IOR King Papers Latimer Papers LC MHS NAB NAK NAN RIHS Roosevelt Papers Russell & Co. Records R & Co. / P & Co. VOC Wolcott Papers

Boston Anthenaeum Baker Library, Harvard Business School Bryant & Sturgis (Boston, Mass.) Records Samuel Cabot Papers 1713–1858 Correspondence relating China. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by Command of Her Majesty. London: 1840 Connecticut Historical Society Delano Family Papers 1568–1919 East India Company Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum Foreign Office Records Forbes Family Papers 1842–1898 Forbes Family Business Records Heard Family Business Records Houqua Letterbook Journal of occurrences at Canton during the cessation of trade at Canton by William C. Hunter Imperial Documents on Sino-Western Trade during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (明清宫中西商贸档案) India Office Records Edward King Papers 1835–1842 John Richardson Latimer Papers Library of Congress Massachusetts Historical Society National Archives at Boston, Waltham National Archives, Kew National Archives of the Netherlands, the Hague Rhode Island Historical Society Roosevelt Family Papers 1469–1962 Russell & Co., Guangzhou, China, Records Russell and Co./Perkins and Co. Collection Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie Wolcott, Oliver Jr. Papers

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-204

1 Introduction On 9 September 1843, as Paul Siemen Forbes (1806–1886), a member of the American trading house in Canton “Russell & Co.”, attended the funeral of an old friend of his family named “Houqua”, he wrote down in his diary: With their fore heads to the ground and exhibiting their grief with groans and cries, his sons voice being heard above all the others. But the whole contrasting strangely with the calm resignation of deep silent grief which attends similar occasions with us. By the side of Old Houqua lay his Mandarin Cap & peacock’s feather – the emblem of his worldly distinction. But in his countenance could be seen the last retiring rays of that intelligence with which it had so often been animated while living.1

This is the last scene Houqua (1769–1843), who was seen either as a traitor of his fatherland in Chinese history or as an “oriental merchant prince” in the occidental mercantile world.2 As he finally left this world, he took his “Mandarin Cap & peacock’s feather” with him – the only “emblem of his worldly distinction”. What he left behind was not only a fortune that enabled his descendants to have wealthy lives until the early twentieth century,3 but also a vast commercial network, including exceptional long-term intercultural friendships with his American friends who managed this considerably huge fortune for a half century after Houqua’s death.4 However, despite his extraordinary life career, Houqua – traitor, merchant prince, and “constant friend” of Russell & Co.5 – was buried in oblivion for a long time. The present study intends to uncover this unique story about Houqua and his friends in the historical context of the early nineteenth century.

1 Paul Siemen Forbes’ diary on September 9th 1843, in: Forbes Records, Box 6, Folder 8, BL. 2 Forbes, “Houqua, the Merchant Prince of China, 1769–1843,” 9. 3 Some of Houqua’s grandsons and great-grandsons like Wu Yanliu (伍延鎏 1839–1908) and Wu Deyi (伍德彝 1865–1928) were well-known artists in Canton. Thanks to the fortunes left by Houqua, they enjoyed not only the best education, but also luxurious and leisurely lives. Cf.: Chuang, “Artist and rich gentry,” 26–27. 4 According to research by Downs, Houqua’s fortune abroad, which was reserved in the accounts of Russell & Co., was paid back to Houqua’s descendants yearly until 1890, as Russell & Co. closed. Cf.: Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 82. 5 Robert Bennet Forbes to Warren Delano on March 31st 1879, in: Forbes Papers, Part I, No.26, MHS. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-001

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1 Introduction

1.1 An approach to Houqua The focus of this study is on Houqua and his network of social relationships in Canton during the early nineteenth century. The early nineteenth, several decades before the Opium War began, was a significant period in history. After China’s defeat in 1842, the Qing Empire was challenged seriously for the very first time by Western civilization both militarily and culturally. The turbulent period of “SelfStrengthening Movement (洋务运动)” and the increased interaction with the West in order to reinforce the old and weak Chinese empire began in the second half of the nineteenth century. Since then, the confrontation between China and the West became a constant in Chinese history and remains so even today. However, what was ignored up to now was the period before 1840. The fact is that intercultural interactions and strong relationships between Chinese and Westerners existed in the early nineteenth century. This was a time when the first industrial revolution was beginning to change Europe and the Chinese were still confident in their self-perceived image as a world leader. The decades before 1840 were a culmination period for China especially regarding its economic development thanks to a series of modernisation and social transition measures.6 This period was before the process of China’s enforced opening. Therefore, the contrast between China and the West indicated through an early interaction during the time before 1840 deserves a closer inspection. This research provides an evidence of the intercultural communication and relationships between China and the West during this period. Beside the context of the Sino-Western relationship, another important characteristic of the early nineteenth century China was the development of communication techniques. Currently, communication depends heavily on cell phones, internet, and other forms of modern technologies. Before these technologies were invented, the telegraph became a standard way of international communication only in the 1840s.7 The only way of maintaining long-distance relationships between China and Europe or America during the early nineteenth century was 6 The eighteenth century in Chinese history is also called “盛世” or the “High Qing” in the West. This period was characterized by imperial expansion, prosperity in commerce and literature etc. Other noteworthy and efficient social measures from this period include commercialization and monetaization of agriculture, revival of private trade, emergence of a domestic market of commodities, and stimulation of export products. Without these modernizations, which had kept the Qing Empire vital, China would have become another India. Cf.: Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 63–89. Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft, 139. 7 On May 24th 1844, as the first interstate telegraph message “What hath God wrought.” was sent from Washington D.C. to Baltimore successfully by Samuel Morse (1791–1872) and other inventors, the telegraph began to revolutionize long-distance communication. Larkin, “Turning points in the

1.1 An approach to Houqua

3

mail delivered by ship. As illustrated later in this book by the “Coolidge Affair”, according to the standard time for ships and shipping routes at that time, a one-way mail between China and Europe or America took usually four to six months. Thus, considering these technological difficulties, as well as language and cultural barriers and dangers due to the wars, pirates, weather etc., business relationships including friendships were extremely vulnerable. This book attempts to answer the question – how did a Chinese merchant in Canton deal with the problem of communication during the early nineteenth century, especially with his partners or friends in Boston or London? Besides the period, the second relevant aspect to the present study is the place, namely Canton or Guangzhou (广州) in Chinese. Canton was, and is, the capital of the Guangdong Province. As one of the largest and richest cities of the Chinese Empire, its history dates back to the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD). Canton had long been a major seaport for overseas trade, notably in the Tang Dynasty (618–907) as it had a significant Arab and Muslim population. During the turmoil that accompanied the change of Dynasty from Ming (1368–1644) to Qing (1644–1911), it upheld the Ming, endured an eleven-month siege in 1650, and suffered a widespread massacre of its inhabitants. However, it recovered, and by the mid-nineteenth century it had a population of around one million people.8 It was renowned for its manufacturing – carried out without the aid of machinery – particularly of silk and cloth, whilst international and regional trade was described as being “the great business of life”.9 Furthermore, as mentioned, Canton is the place where the first instance of foreign trade as well as the Opium War took place. Even when the Chinese Empire was generally perceived as isolated, the port of Canton served as the most important “window” for foreigners to China. Especially after the 1750s, Canton became the only place in Qing China, where trade with foreigners was officially allowed. During the 100 years from the 1750s until the end of the Opium War in 1842, this foreign trade in Canton operated under the so-called “Canton System”. And the Chinese merchants, who were allowed to trade with foreigners, were called the “Hong Merchants (行商)”. Due to their position as the middlemen between Chinese officialdom and foreign traders, these Hong Merchants were the only Chinese people who were allowed to have personal contact with Westerners. On the one hand, being a Hong Merchant meant a path to a wealthy and luxurious life. On the other, for most of them especially

telecommunications history,” 515. The Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration was firstly established in 1881. 8 Hayes, “The world of the Old Canton Trade,” 32. 9 Hayes, “The world of the Old Canton Trade,” 32.

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1 Introduction

after the 1760s, this position brought tragedy rather than profits as a result of their obligations and duties in their social networks influenced by the Canton System. Despite this, there was an individual in this group who crafted an exceptional career full of achievements. This individual, Houqua, is the protagonist of this book. Before we get into the details regarding his social relations in the context of the early nineteenth century Canton trade, it is necessary to know who he was and where he came from. Houqua, whose Chinese name was Wu Bingjian (伍秉鉴),10 was the third son in his family, born in 1769 – the same year that Napoleon and Wellington were born in – and died in 1843. In 1801, he officially became a Hong Merchant and began his career in foreign trade in Canton. In 1813 he became a Senior Hong Merchant. Although this position was taken by his son Wu Yuanhua after 1827, Houqua remained the head of his family firm and the responsible partner in his international commercial network until his death. Unfortunately, there are very few Chinese historical sources available today regarding his life and family background. Although there are various versions of Houqua’s Family Genealogy,11 they

10 The family name of Houqua in Chinese is Wu (伍). In order to communicate with the Western traders easily, almost every Hong Merchant had a westernized name, such as “Houqua” for Wu Bingjian (伍秉鉴), “Mowqua” for Lu Guanheng (卢观恒) or his son Lu Wenjin (卢文锦), “Puankhequa” for Pan Qi (潘启) or his son Pan Youdu (潘有度), and “Conseequa” for Pan Changyao (潘长耀) etc. The affix “qua”, which is correctly understood by an American trader William Hunter as “a term of civility or respect, and is equivalent to Mister or Sir”, comes from the Chinese word “guan (官)”, which means mandarin or official – a more respective social status in imperial China. Cf.: Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 34. But the use of “qua” or “guan” by wealthy merchants can be traced back to the Song Dynasty. And beside the “qua”, there were also other affixes with similar functions, such as “shaw” coming from the Chinese word “shao (少)”, which can be found in Hong Merchants’ names like “Cumshaw” or “Kewshaw”. According to Liang Jiabin (梁嘉彬), some of the Hong Merchants also had nicknames. Houqua (Wu Bingjian) for instance was called “[Mr.] Wu with pierced cheek (伍穿鳃)”, since one of his teeth grew almost outside of his mouth. Another Hong Merchant named “Samqua (吴天恒)” was sometimes called “[a] hearty chicken seller (卖鸡爽)”, since he began his career as a chicken seller. Cf.: Liang, The Thirteen Hongs of Canton, 12–13. However, as will be shown later, the problem with Houqua’s teeth or pierced cheek might be only in his early age, since this cannot be found on any of his portraits. 11 Up to now I have found three versions of Houqua’s Family Genealogy in Chinese: The first one is “Genealogy of Wu Family’s entering in Guangdong Province (安海伍氏入粤族谱)” edited by Wu Ziwei (伍子伟) in 1956. But this version is not complete, since the part about Houqua’s generation seems to be missing completely. The second one is “Genealogy of the entire Wu Family (伍氏合族总谱)” edited by Wu Yaoguang (伍瑶光) in 1934. Both of them are reserved in Guangdong Provincial Zhongshan Library (广东省立中山图书馆). The third one is “Genealogy of Wu Family, branch of those involved in the Thirteen Hongs (广州十三行支脉族 引谱)” edited by Wu Lingli (伍凌立) in 2011.

1.1 An approach to Houqua

5

provide very limited information about Houqua’s personal life and his ancestry.12 Based on these genealogies, the family Wu would originally have come from Fujian Province (福建). And Houqua himself belonged to the sixth generation of his family in Canton. His great great grandfather, who belonged to the second generation of Wu family in Canton, had already established a trading house named “Yuanshun Hang (元顺行)” in the early years of Chongzhen (崇祯 1628–1644).13 However, there are no sources available today that provide further information about this house and its possible connection to Houqua’s business. However, it can be stated with certainty that Houqua’s father established the “Yihe Hang (怡 和行)” or better known as “Ewo Hong” in the West, which became the most famous Chinese trading house in Canton under Houqua’s management.14 Clearly, Houqua came from a long line of merchants. Beside the foundation of “Ewo Hong”, there is little information about Houqua’s father in Chinese sources. In English sources, Houqua’s father was mentioned for the first time in 1777 in EIC’s records, as he sold 154 chests of teas.15 In the next ten years, Houqua’s father continued to provide the EIC with teas and raw silks. Based on the fragmented information that is available, we can only presume three facets of his personality: Firstly, in business, Houqua’s father did not seem to be financially sound and capable of guaranteeing a satisfactory quality of his goods. In early 1781, as some of EIC’s teas brought from Houqua’s father were returned due to the lack of quality, he was not able to pay back 500 taels of silver.16 Considering that the Hong Merchants at that time usually made several thousands taels of profit in a single business transaction, Houqua’s father must have been struggling

12 It is worth mentioning that even though there are Chinese sources about Houqua’s family or the family Wu, only those who had Confucian education were included, for example his eldest brother Wu Bingyong (伍秉镛), his sons Wu Yuanlan (伍元兰), Wu Yuanhua (伍元华) and Wu Chongyao 伍崇曜) etc. As will be illustrated later, Houqua, together with his second older brother Puiqua, did not have Confucian education. He was never seen as a literatus and thus seldom mentioned in Chinese scources. Cf.: Luo, “A brief introduction,” 42–43. 13 Luo, “A brief introduction,” 42. Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 40 and 83–84. 14 According to Luo Guoxiong, the “Yuanshun Hang” should be the direct predecessor of Houqua’s “Ewo Hong”. Cf.: Luo, “A brief introduction,” 42. Up to now, I have not found any evidence proving this connection. But the information about Houqua’s father (伍国莹) as the founder of “Ewo Hong” can be found in every genealogy. Cf. also: Liang, The Thirteen Hongs of Canton, 283. Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 40. 15 IOR, Volume G/12/58, Consultation on October 26th 1777, 105. 16 Finally the EIC agreed that Houqua’s father, instead of paying 500 taels, should provide “Hyson Tea of a superior Quality and deliver it at such a Price as shall be judged equitable when examined.” Cf.: Consultation on March 25th 1781, in: IOR, Volume G/12/7, 254.

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1 Introduction

financially. Moreover, this was not the only time that the EIC was not satisfied with the teas delivered by Houqua’s father. The quality of his teas often appeared to be deficient.17 Secondly, despite his personal connection with Puankhequa, the Senior Hong Merchant at that time,18 Houqua’s father was not keen to be a Hong Merchant. According to the records of the EIC, he refused the government’s offer to become a Hong Merchant in 1782 and was forced to become a salt merchant. At the end of the same year, when he officially became a Hong Merchant, it is noted that he “absconded for some time, as a punishment for which he is compelled to be a salt merchant, which will probably ruin him very shortly”.19 It had cost Houqua’s father 80,000 taels to avoid further punishments of local officials.20 Thirdly, in the eyes of the Americans, Houqua’s father was not trustworthy. In January 1789, an American trader named Samuel Shaw noted: He [Houqua’s father] delayed performing his contract, – absented himself almost continually from his hoang [i.e. hang or “Ewo Hong”] – smoked opium – absconded on the 24th of December [1788], – was declared bankrupt, and his effects were seized.21

In other words, it was not only his inadequacy as a businessman and problematic relations with local officials and his colleagues, but also his drug addiction that made his career in the Canton trade a catastrophe. After the end of 1788, Houqua’s father never appeared in EIC’s records.22 From the beginning of the family business in 1777 till its bankruptcy in 1788, Houqua witnessed the failures of his father, growing from an eight year old boy to a nineteen year old young man. Years later, as he himself became a Hong Merchant, his image as a

17 See for instance the consultation on 11 December 1781, in: IOR, Volume G/12/73, 40. Particularly catastrophe quality of Houqua’s father’s teas cf.: Consultation on 18 November 1788, in: IOR, Volume G/12/89, 188. 18 According to the EIC, Houqua’s father used to be Puankhequa’s purser. Cf.: Consultation on 29 December 1782, in: IOR, Volume G/12/76, 195. This connection should provide a favoured beginning in the Canton Trade. However, as will be illustrated later, considering the unpleasant relationship between Houqua and Conseequa, a relative of Puankhequa, it can even be assumed that the relation between Puankhequa and Houqua’s father was probably the unpleasant beginning of the relationship between these two families. 19 Consultation on 29 December 1782, in: IOR, Volume G/12/76, 195. 20 Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 263. 21 Shaw, The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, 301. 22 Since Houqua’s father died in 1810, it is still a puzzle as to how he and his whole family survived after the bankruptcy in 1788. There were no records indicating that Houqua’s father paid back his debts. Zhang Wenqin supposes that it was due to EIC’s help. Cf.: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 41.

1.1 An approach to Houqua

7

businessman was almost the opposite to that of his father: He was careful and trustworthy, capable in business,23 and he “never liked the flavor of opium”.24 After Houqua’s father left the Canton trade, Houqua’s second older brother “Puiqua”25 registered as a new Hong Merchant in late 1792 and reestablished the firm “Ewo Hong”.26 In a Chinese document about an agreement on the division of Houqua’s family assets,27 it is noted that among the four sons of Xiuting (秀亭 – Houqua’s father), the first son Dongping (东坪) intended to get a Confucian education. Since the fourth son Nanzhou (南州) was still very young, the second son Puiqua and the third son Houqua took over the family business in 1792, the financial responsibility for their father’s debts and their eldest brother’s expensive education. In EIC’s records from 1792 until Puiqua got seriously sick in 1800, the name of Houqua was not mentioned. But this period of eight years provided Houqua the best learning curve, since he could experience his brother’s management consistently. There are not many sources regarding Puiqua, either, though based on EIC records, Puiqua seemed to be more capable than his father. As a Hong Merchant, Puiqua was very careful about his relationship with local officials from the very beginning.28 When it came to business, in the first year of his career Puiqua already appeared to be reliable in the eyes of the EIC.29 Moreover, the EIC was quite impressed with Puiqua’s earnest desire to pursue business.30 In early 1798, the EIC confirmed that due to their satisfaction with Puiqua in every season, they were willing to provide Puiqua 20,000 dollars in advance, in order to aid him in

23 Report from the Select Committee, 1840, 142–143. 24 Robert Bennet Forbes to Hubbell Esq. on March 6th 1879, in: Forbes Papers, MHS. 25 “Puiqua” was the western name of Houqua’s second brother Wu Bingjun (伍秉钧 1767–1801). The word “pui” comes probably from Wu Bingjun’s pseudonym (号), namely “Heng Po (衡坡)”. Cf.: Liang, The Thirteen Hongs of Canton, 283. 26 It is interesting that Houqua’s father also used the name “Houqua” in his dealing with Western traders. According to Liang Jiabin, this is due to Houqua’s infant name “Ya Hao (亚浩)”, which is pronounced in Cantonese dialect like “A-Hou”. Cf.: Liang, The Thirteen Hongs of Canton, 283. If this is true, Houqua could have been the favorite son of his father, since only Houqua’s infant name was chosen among all the four sons. 27 Original in Chinese:《代怡和洋行伍敦元作分家产议约》in “Posthumous work of Pan Zizheng (潘资政公遗稿)” published in 1880, 77–79, reserved in Guangdong Provincial Zhongshan Library (广东省立中山图书馆). 28 In September 1792, just a few months after Puiqua became a Hong Merchant, he refused to do business with an EIC ship, in order to avoid problem with the Hoppo. Consultation on September 21st 1792, in: IOR, Volume G/12/103, 39. 29 See for instance the consultation on September 21st 1792, in: IOR, Volume G/12/103, 39. 30 See for instance the consultation on September 14th 1792, in: IOR, Volume G/12/103, 32, or on February 9th 1792, in: IOR, Volume G/12/103, 240.

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1 Introduction

clearing Geowqua’s debts.31 With this increase in Puiqua’s business, in 1800 he became the third most important partner of the EIC in Canton, behind only Puankhequa and Mowqua.32 As mentioned before, since his father began to sell teas to the EIC in 1777, Houqua’s life and destiny were inextricably connected with the Canton trade. Until the late 1800s, as Puiqua was seriously sick and had to leave the family business to his younger brother,33 Houqua had already been surrounded by the ins and outs of the foreign trade for more than two decades. In other words, Houqua practically grew up in the atmosphere of business. This is evident by the fact that he later wrote to his best friend in America, John P. Cushing, expressing envy that Cushing could retire from business and “[enjoy] the fruit of your labor.”34 But still, Houqua did enjoy his life as a businessman, admitting that the work “affords me more gratification than I could desire from any other courses of life.” Moreover, he was extraordinarily successful as was evidenced by his wealth. According to an American trader William Hunter, Houqua’s wealth was estimated at about 26 million dollars in 1834,35 which would be approximately three billion dollars or more in year 2000.36 Houqua was also recorded as one of the richest people in the world in the last thousand years.37 However, as Zhang Wenqin correctly commented, although Houqua’s property was nearly one half of the annual revenue of the Qing government at that time, his wealth was not noteworthy compared to those of the “rich” officials or corrupt Confucian bureaucrats of his time.38 For instance, Niohuru Hesen (鈕祜 祿·和珅 1746–1799), the notorious favorite of emperor Qianlong (乾隆，reg. 1736–1795), was reported to possess at least 400 million taels of silver – a sum equal to more than 20 times of Houqua’s fortune in 1834.39 Therefore, wealth is not the primary factor that makes Houqua an interesting historical figure in this book. In contrast to the “wealthy” Confucian bureaucrats

31 Consultation on February 6th and 11th 1798, in: IOR, Volume G/12/119, 121–134. Geowqua was a cousin of Puiqua. Due to this family connection Puiqua was made responsible for Geowqua’s debts. About the regulations of Hong Merchants’ debts see section 3.2.3. 32 Morse, Chronicles, Volume II (1926), 348. 33 Houqua was mentioned for the first time in EIC’s records on November 8th 1800, in: IOR, Volume G/12/131, 141. 34 Also for the following citation cf.: Houqua to John Cushing on April 14th 1834, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–5, BL. 35 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 48. 36 Crossen, The Rich and How They Got That Way, 172. 37 Crossen, The Rich and How They Got That Way, 170. 38 Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 92. 39 Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 92.

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of his time, Houqua made his fortune in business, specifically in foreign trade, and not in Confucian bureaucracy. The reason why Houqua is the protagonist of this study is because of the period that he lived in. As stated previously, Houqua was born in 1769 and died in 1843 – shortly after the end of the opium war in 1842. His most successful years were the decades before 1840. Therefore, he was a perfect witness to the early nineteenth century and the social transition of international business in Canton trade. Secondly, Houqua was the most famous one of all the Hong Merchants in Canton, not only because of his wealth, but also because of his close relationships with Westerners, especially with the agents of American trading houses like Russell & Co. Meanwhile, his position as a Hong Merchant in the Canton System required him to “commute” between local officials or his Chinese patrons and foreign “barbarians”. Thus his network of social relationships provides not only documented instances of intercultural communication between China and the West in early nineteenth century beyond the official contact between governments, but also reveals various facets of the social life of a Chinese merchant of the time. Finally, Houqua’s story offers another perspective regarding China’s openness and interactions with the West.

1.2 Aims, current state and sources of research Based on the system of the Canton trade, this book highlights social relationships in imperial China, particularly in early nineteenth century as the Chinese society developed to its most mature phase under the influence of absolutism since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Additionally, through Houqua’s practice in dealing with foreign traders, I will reconstruct the intercultural communication, which could be impossibly without any language and cultural barriers. Moreover, due to these insurmountable distinctions, it is necessary to understand the varying comprehensions of social relationships such as friendship and certain defining qualities of relationships such as trust under the vulnerable circumstances of long distance trade with insufficient security. Therefore, since Houqua was a successful middleman between Chinese officialdom, his Chinese colleges, and his foreign trading partners for more than four decades, this research focusing on his social relationships provides a case study to discover and identify the differences between traditional Chinese and Western understandings of friendship and trust. Founded on the aims mentioned above, this book provides new insights and several fresh perspectives to add to the current state of research. Firstly, although there are studies on the history of intercultural relationships or communication

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1 Introduction

between imperial China and the West, these studies emphasize the official relations between governments with focus on the period after 1840, i.e. in the second half of the nineteenth century or later. Research focused the period before 1840 has been scarce, specifically regarding intercultural communication. This study on Houqua offers the possibility of closing this gap. Secondly, it is well known that the practice of social relationships, or “guanxi (关系)”,40 determines various fields of social lives in China. In certain areas such as politics, guanxi is seen as an informal, but extremely important structure.41 Due to the central importance of guanxi, it is the focus of studies on Chinese society both in China and in the West.42 Since the 1980s, social relationship became a science called “guanxi xue (关系学)”, which deals with pragmatic strategies to improve communications and social life in China, such as the exchange of gifts and favors, the cultivation of personal relationships, networks of mutual dependence, and the manufacturing of obligations and indebtedness etc.43 But these studies concentrate on social relationships in modern China or the post-Mao era, and on business networks, management science and marketing, not on the historical and cultural origin of guanxi. Only a few studies consider a historical perspective based on the context of imperial Chinese society.44 However, these historical studies on guanxi emphasize the 40 The Chinese term “guanxi (关系)” might be the most suitable translation for “social relationship”. The term “guanxi” has been used in oral Chinese since hundreds of years, but is not found in classical formal Chinese. It consists of two words, “guan” and “xi”. “guan (关)” means originally “gate” or “door”, which could also refer to an affiliation or belonging to a group “behind a closed door” in a metaphorical sense. The second word “xi (系)” means “connection” and “relation” between persons, power and goals. Cf.: Adili, Controlling in China, 55. 41 Namely a “informelle Entscheidungsstruktur,” cf.: Klein, Geschichte Chinas, 110–111. 42 Several recent studies are among others: “Guanxi as a gateway in Chinese-Western business relationships” by Hongzhi Gao, John G. Knight, David Ballantyne, in: Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol.27, No.6 (2012), 456–467. “Guanxi vs networking: Distinctive configurations of affect- and cognition-based trust in the networks of Chinese vs American managers” by Roy Y. J. Chua, W. Morris, Paul Ingram, in Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 40 (2009), 490–508. Among the earlier studies about social relationships in China, one of the most significant works is “Gifts, Favors, and Banquets. The Art of Social Relationships in China” by Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, published in 1994, which provides extraordinarily rich empirical sources about the social life of the Chinese after the culture revolution. Sun Longji’s (孙隆基) work on the “Deep structure of Chinese culture (中国文化的深层结构)” deals with the cultural background of guanxi in present day China. 43 Cf.: Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets, 6. 44 For instance: Male Friendship in Ming China, edited by Martin W. Huang. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007. Kutcher, Norman. “The Fifth Relationship: Dangerous Friendships in the Confucian Context.” The American Historical Review, Volume 105, No. 5 (2000): 1615–1629. Chittick, Andrew: Patronage and Community in Medieval China. The Xiangyang Garrison, 400–600 CE.

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practice and perspective of Confucian literati or bureaucrats – a niche social class. And the relationships that were analyzed were mostly those of a specific type such as friendship or patronage, making it challenging to get the understanding of a network of relationships involving diverse roles. More importantly, as is to be discussed later, since the primary sources in Chinese are normally Confucian texts, the previous historical studies on guanxi are theoretical rather than empirical. In contrast, the present study reconstructs and depicts a network consisting of different types of relationships based on the different roles that Houqua played in the “Canton System”. Furthermore, due to Houqua’s position and status, his practice represents the social life of a Chinese merchant outside privileged circles such as those of the Confucian literati or bureaucrats. Thirdly, whereas “friendship” as an indispensable part of social relationships is perceived positively in the Western context, especially since the eighteenth century – “the century of friendship”, its perception in Chinese history was problematic and even negative. Up to now, there are indeed several studies dealing with this problematic “friendship” in imperial China.45 However, since they are mostly based on Confucian theory or on the viewpoints of the educated literati, empirical studies on a Chinese concept of “friendship” beyond the Confucian ideology praised by the literati is lacking. Beside “friendship”, research on the Chinese conception of “trust” is also scarce. Chapter 5.1 shows that “trust” with regard to social relationships has been well researched in Western studies since the 1980s. In particular, the concepts of “trust”, “confidence” and

New York: SUNY Press, 2009. Vervoorn, Aat. “Friendship in Ancient China.” East Asian History, No.27 (June 2004): 1–32. Jiao, Guocheng (焦国成). The human relationship in ancient China (中国 古代人我关系论). Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Chubanshe (中国人民大学出版社), 1991. Wang, Lihua (王利华). “Transformation of ‘friends’ from Zhou to Qin period (周秦社会变迁与 “友”的衍化)”. Jiangxi Social Science (江西社会科学), Volume 10 (2004): 48–53. Generally, it is to be confirmed that “guanxi” in historical perspective gains more interests in Western social studies than in Chinese studies up to now. 45 For instance: Male Friendship in Ming China, edited by Martin W. Huang. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007. Kutcher, Norman. “The Fifth Relationship: Dangerous Friendships in the Confucian Context.” The American Historical Review, Volume 105, No. 5 (2000): 1615–1629. Chittick, Andrew: Patronage and Community in Medieval China. The Xiangyang Garrison, 400–600 CE. New York: SUNY Press, 2009. Vervoorn, Aat. “Friendship in Ancient China.” East Asian History, No.27 (June 2004): 1–32. Jiao, Guocheng (焦国成). The human relationship in ancient China (中国 古代人我关系论). Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Chubanshe (中国人民大学出版社), 1991. Wang, Lihua (王利华). “Transformation of ‘friends’ from Zhou to Qin period (周秦社会变迁与 “友”的衍化)”. Jiangxi Social Science (江西社会科学), Volume 10 (2004): 48–53.

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1 Introduction

“familiarity” introduced by Niklas Luhmann46 and Adam Seligman,47 have integrated “trust” into the historical development of Western societies. In Chinese studies, a comparative historical concept of “trust” is still missing.48 Due to divergent developments in Western and Chinese societies since the early modern era, both “friendship” and “trust” must be realized differently. Among the attempts to compare the perceptions of “trust” in China and the West in recent decades,49 the most influential work on trust in an intercultural context is “Trust. The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity” by Francis Fukuyama. Founded on his empirical examinations of a wide range of national cultures, Fukuyama represents the different cultural and social conditions leading to different qualities of trust. For instance the strong familial ties in societies such as China, France and southern Italy prevent trust from developing beyond the circles of the family, whereas the lack of strong “familism” in countries such as the USA, Japan, and Germany fosters general trust that extends beyond the narrow confines of the family.50 However, the transformation of “trust” in the course of historical development or in changing social contexts is not the central concern of Fukuyama’s work. The concept of “trust” and social relationships, especially beyond the privileged social class in imperial Chinese society before 1840 is an area of historical research that lacks depth. Using the

46 See especially: Luhmann, Niklas. “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust: Problems and Alternatives.” In Trust: making and breaking cooperative relations, edited by Diego Gambetta, 94–107. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1988. 47 Seligman, “The Challenge of Ambiguity,”The Problem of Trust. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.Seligman, “The Challenge of Ambiguity,” “The Challenge of Ambiguity: Confidence, Trust and Shared Experience.” In Faces of Communities. Social Ties between Trust, Loyalty and Conflict, edited by Sabrina Feickert; Anna Haut; Katrin Sharaf, 29–41. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2014. 48 Similar to the current state of research on “guanxi”, studies on “trust” in Chinese society focus on the current state of China and do not engage in a historical perspective. For instance: “Business relationships in China: lessons about deep trust” by Anton Kriz and Byron Keating, Asia Pacific Business Review, Vol. 16, No. 3 (July 2010): 299–318. “Guanxi and trust in strategic alliances” by Baiyun Gong, Xin He, Huei-Min Hsu, Journal of Management History, Vol.19, No.3 (2013): 362–376. 49 In recent years, Chinese studies have increasingly had research on a comparative Chinese concept of “trust”, for instance “Relation and trust: A local study about trust in interpersonal relationships in China (关系与信任: 中国人人际信任的一项本土研究)” by Peng Siqing (彭泗清), China Year-Book of sociology 1995–1998 (中国社会学年鉴1995–1998), 290–297. Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe (社会科学文献出版社), 2000. “The Essence of Trust and Its Culture (信任的本质及其文化)” by Zhai Xuewei (翟学伟), Society (社会), Vol.34, No.2 (2004): 1–26. But the central concern of these studies remains the current Chinese society, not in imperial China. 50 Cf.: Fukuyama, Trust, 66–67.

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perspective of a Chinese merchant – who was a representative figure in Chinese social relations as well as intercultural communication – this book addresses a new perspective of guanxi in early nineteenth century China. Compared to the state of research on early intercultural communication and “guanxi” in imperial Chinese society, the history of the Canton trade, i.e. foreign trade in Canton before 1842 and the Hong Merchants, is better explored. The French historian Henri Cordier (1849–1925) carried out the earliest study on the Hong Merchants “Les Marchands Hanistes de Canton” in 1902.51 Thereafter, several Japanese studies also made their contributions.52 These works were expanded by the first Chinese study on the Hong Merchants, namely “The Thirteen Hongs of Canton (广东十三行考)” by Liang Jiabin (梁嘉彬 1910–1995), published first in Shanghai in 1937. Down to this day, this book by Liang is one of the classics on the Hong Merchants and the Canton trade. A real breakthrough in research on the Hong Merchants came in the 1990s with two works53: “The Insolvency of the Chinese Hong Merchants, 1760–1843” by Kuo-Tung Anthony Ch’en (陈国栋) published in 1990, and “The Hong Merchants of Canton. Chinese Merchants in Sino-Western Trade” by Weng Eang Cheong in 1997. Both works are similar to Liang Jiabin’s structure of research based on Hong Merchants’ family units or family firms, the “Hong (行)”. But their focus is very different: Cheong’s work focuses on the Hong Merchants’ relations to local officials between 1684 and 1796. Since the sources used in this study are mainly British official records, the study can be seen more as an exploration of the political and administrative system of foreign trade than as an attempt to uncover the personal lives and relationships among the Hong Merchants. The study by Ch’en, which uses both Chinese and English sources extensively, deals with the debts of the Hong Merchants and their credit relationships. In the last two decades, there have been several Chinese and English studies on the Hong Merchants and the Canton trade. In particular, the two works of Paul A. Van Dyke are worth mentioning54: “The Canton Trade. Life and Enterprise on the 51 Cordier, “Les marchands hanistes de Canton,” Vol. 3, No. 5 (1902): 281–315. 52 Liang, The Thirteen Hongs of Canton, 3. 53 Before the 1990s, there were several studies worth mentioning, in particular: Fairbank, John King. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast. The Opening of the Treaty Ports 1842–1854. Volume I. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1953. Greenberg, Michael. British Trade and the Opening of China 1800–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951. Both studies give an excellent overview of the political background of the Canton trade in early nineteenth century. But they focus on the British trade in Canton or diplomatic relations, rather than on the Hong Merchants and their personal relations. 54 Some important Chinese studies are among others: Huang, Qichen (黄启臣); Pang, Xinping (庞新平). Guangdong Merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasty (明清广东商人).

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1 Introduction

China Coast, 1700–1845”, and “Merchants of Canton and Macao. Politics and strategies in eighteenth-century Chinese trade”. The distinguishing feature of Van Dyke’s studies is that his research is based on extended primary sources, including almost every possible collection to do with Canton trade preserved in the United States, Denmark, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium, and Sweden. Thank to these investigations, our knowledge of the sophisticated system of foreign trade under the Qing administration and the daily lives of the various players involved in the Old Canton Trade has been significantly improved. Since these studies focus primarily on the eighteenth and late seventeenth centuries, they help illustrate the period immediately before Houqua’s time. Another remarkable work published recently is “The Chinese cornerstone of modern banking” by Frederic Delano Jr. Grant, which examines the origins of financial collective responsibility in China through the insatances of foreign debts that emerged in the Canton Trade.55 In summary, the aforementioned studies on the Hong Merchants and the Canton Trade provide an indispensable foundation for this study on Houqua. Unfortunately, they focus mainly on the economic and political structure of the Canton System and not on the social lives of the merchants. Social relationships, especially intercultural relationships and friendships based on trust in the context of foreign trade, have remained a desideratum. The same desideratum can be found in the research on individual Hong Merchants. Up to now only a few of them have been investigated in individual studies, such as Puankhequa I (1714–1788)56 and Conseequa (1759–1823).57 Due

Guangzhou: Guangdong People’s Publishing House (广东人民出版社), 2001. Li, Guorong (李国荣); Lin, Weisen (林伟森). Chronicle of the Hong Merchants in Canton during Qing Dynasty (清代广东十三行纪略). Guangzhou: Guangdong People’s Publishing House (广东人 民出版社): 2006. Tan, Yuanheng (谭元亨): The Guard of Thirteen Hongs. Regression from the opening to restriction (国门十三行，从开放到限关的逆转). Guangzhou: South China University of Technology Press (华南理工大学出版社), 2011. Zhou, Xiang (周湘). The Merchants of Canton involved in foreign trade (广州外洋行商人). Guangzhou: Guangdong People’s Publishing House (广东人民出版社), 2002. Zhang, Wenqin (章文钦). The Thirteen Hongs in Canton and the Early Relationship between China and the West (广东十三行与早期 中西关系). Guangzhou: Guangdong Jingji Chubanshe (广东经济出版社), 2009. But probably due to the limited access to sources in foreign languages, Chinese studies are mostly based on very limited Chinese sources and English sources which were translated into Chinese. 55 Grant, Frederic Delano Jr. The Chinese cornerstone of modern banking: the Canton guaranty system and the origins of bank deposit insurance 1780–1933. Leiden: Brill, 2014. 56 Pan, Gang’er (潘刚儿); Huang, Qichen (黄启臣); Chen, Guodong (陈国栋). Tung-Wan / Tung-Fu Hong of Puankhequa I–III (潘同文/孚行). Guangzhou: South China University of Technology Press, 2006. 57 The interest in Conseequa is mainly due to his problems in credit relations with foreign traders, which is discussed later in this study. Cf.: Grant, Frederic D. Jr. “The Failure of the Li-

1.2 Aims, current state and sources of research

15

to his outstanding success in the Canton trade, Houqua is currently the most studied Hong Merchant: “From Feudal Official Merchant to Comprador. An Analysis of Wu Yihe’s Hong Merchant Family during the Qing Dynasty (从封建官 商到买办商人 – 清代广东行商伍怡和家族剖析)” by Zhang Wenqin (章文钦), published in 1984, is the first historical study on Houqua.58 Despite using limited sources – mostly those in Chinese or Chinese translations – the author reveals the development of Houqua’s family business, from Houqua’s father to his son. Houqua’s network of social relations, especially his awkward position due to his roles in the Canton trade, have been reconstructed and analyzed for the first time. However, since original non-Chinese sources have not been used, the representation of Houqua is unavoidably one-sided. This study reflects on certain aspects of Zhang’s study, especially regarding Houqua’s patronage relationships. Additionally, the research presents a comprehensive understanding of Houqua, based on the combination of Chinese and foreign sources. A most recent work on Houqua by John D. Wong, “Global Positioning: Houqua and His China Trade Partners in the Nineteenth Century”59 is similar to the studies of Van Dyke and is impressive due to its rich use of primary sources. Starting with the origin of Houqua’s family business and concluding with the financial management of Houqua’s “Swiss Account” in the US after his death, John D. Wong’s study attempts to uncover every possible business detail and to reveal Houqua’s ability to maintain “an intricate balance between his commercial interests and those of his Western counterparts,” because this ability – as the author argues – was the key to his success.60 Thus, in order to understand the Sino-Western trade in early nineteenth century and the business interactions between Houqua and his Western partners, this study provides the most recent research with a historical-economic perspective. The cultural background of the

ch ́uan Hong: Litigation as a Hazard of Nineteenth Century Foreign Trade.” American Neptune, Volume 48, No. 4 (1988): 243–260. Grant, Frederic D. Jr. “The April 1820 Debt Settlement between Conseequa and Benjamin Chew Wilcocks.” In Americans and Macao. Trade, Smuggling, and Diplomacy on the South China Coast, edited by Paul A. Van Dyke, 73–94. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012. 58 This study is firstly published in two parts in Modern Chinese History Studies (近代史研 究), Vol.3 (1984): 167–197, and in vol.4 (1984): 231–253. Later, a new version of this paper was published as The Thirteen Hongs in Canton and the Early Relationship between China and the West (广东十三行与早期中西关系) in 2009, edited by the author himself, 39–95. 59 This dissertation was published in 2016 with a new title: Global Trade in the Nineteenth Century. The House of Houqua and the Canton System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 60 Wong, “Global Positioning,” iii.

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time such as the influence of Confucian thoughts and social hierarchy on these interactions is obviously beyond Wong’s focus. In contrast to John D. Wong’s research, this book does not restrict itself to representing Houqua’s business interactions and strategies. Based on the analysis of Houqua’s dealings and social relationships, I reconstruct his mental world as far as possible, and attempt to shed light on a Chinese concept of “friendship” and “trust”.61 In order to do this, various sources including those reflecting the private and daily lives of Chinese before 1840 are needed. Up until now, among studies on Chinese society, two types of conventional sources are used. The first being official sources such as government documents, official histories, local chronicles and published literature like novels. The second type of source includes unpublished, private sources, including private letters, diaries, personal memoirs, and the like. However, both types of sources are not sufficient in order to research the private lives or social networks of the “ordinary” Chinese beyond those from privileged social classes. As detailed later in this book, traditional or imperial Chinese society had a strict hierarchical structure and was built on a conscious concept of classification with Confucian literati and bureaucrats at the top and merchants at the bottom. In other words, the Chinese people were ruled by an educated minority, who believed that they had a right to rule ordinary people because of their superior education and morality.62 Up until now, most of the studies on Chinese society are based on official sources, which are the historical writings of this educated minority who generalized everything about Chinese society, treating everyone as one unit. However, sources such as official documents and chronicles are sometimes the poorest sources on Chinese society with regard to personalities and social lives of “ordinary” Chinese, because they mostly reflect the mental world of Confucian literati and bureaucrats, presenting events in a pseudo-objective style. Thus the only sentiments that are encountered are virtuous attitudes and moral reactions that express civil commitment.63 Also, representations in published literature like novels do not necessarily reflect the actual lives of the Chinese

61 Besides the studies mentioned above on the Canton Trade and Houqua, there is another study relevant for this research, namely The Golden Ghetto. The American Commercial Community at Canton and the Shaping of American China Policy 1784–1844 by Jacques M. Downs. Although Downs did not focus on Houqua, but on American traders in Canton, Downs’ study provides a large number of details about Houqua’s intercultural relationship because of the close relationship between Houqua and his American partners. 62 Eberhard, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China, 117. 63 Santangelo, Sentimental Education in Chinese History, 62–63.

1.2 Aims, current state and sources of research

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population, but are often idealized representations by the educated authors or their imagination of how these characters would have reacted.64 This domination of Confucianism in Chinese historiography leads to the limitation of the primary sources, especially unpublished private sources: There are only a few writings produced by ordinary Chinese that are available today, because most of the primary sources were written by educated Confucian literati.65 Therefore, the availability of Chinese sources provides only a very limited possibility to uncover the “real” lives – including details about their social relationships like friendships – of the common Chinese people in imperial China beyond the privileged minority of Confucian literati and bureaucrats. This problem regarding primary sources also influences the research on the Hong Merchants. The only Chinese sources about the Hong Merchants available today are official records and correspondences recorded by the Confucian bureaucrats, which – as is illustrated later through the “Napier Affair” in 1834 – provide almost no information about the personalities and the behaviors of the Hong Merchants in their daily lives.66 Van Dyke saw this disadvantage of Chinese sources as a “lack of respect for its own history”.67 However, this problem is also the result of the tradition of historiography in imperial China under the influence of Confucianism. The Chinese sources used by this study on Houqua are therefore unavoidably limited. Besides the previously mentioned family genealogies, the most relevant Chinese sources are official records, such as “Customs Record of Guangdong Province (粤海关志)” compiled by a late Qing scholar named Liang Tingnan (梁廷枏 1796–1861), and the “Records of Appeasement of the Qing Dynasty (清朝柔远记)” compiled by another scholar Wang Zhichun (王之春 1842–1906). More details about the Hong Merchants reflected in Chinese sources are provided by some official correspondences, such as those recorded in

64 Cf.: Santangelo, Sentimental Education in Chinese History, 52. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties there were a few popular novels, which were called vulgar literature, in which “normal Chinese” like merchants, instead of historical heroes or famous literati, played the central role. However, such literature could very possibly be about the masses and written by educated authors rather than having been written by the masses. Cf.: Yu, “The social and cultural development,” 159 and Eberhard, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China,119. 65 It seems that writing personal diaries or memories was only connected to the Confucian literati. Among the historical sources about Chinese merchants for instance, there are barely any private writings. The most “personal” sources are probably the commercial records, of which the private lives beyond business are not the focus. Concerning the Hong Merchants, I have not found any personal or private source in Chinese written by Houqua, except his correspondence with the EIC. 66 Cf.: Van Dyke, The Canton Trade, 177–178. 67 Van Dyke, The Canton Trade, 179.

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“Imperial Documents on Sino-Western Trade during Ming and Qing Dynasties (明清 宫中西商贸档案)” compiled and published by the First Historical Archives of China (中国第一历史档案馆). Nevertheless, in contrast to the Chinese chronicler and historiographers influenced by Confucian ideology, many Westerners living in China like traders and missionaries, who neither had knowledge of Chinese literature nor access to a privileged life, have based their descriptions of Chinese society on their personal impressions. Thus, they were in a better position to provide a more authentic picture of the lower social classes as they perceived it in the light of their own standards and prejudices.68 For research about the Hong Merchants and the Canton trade, and also for this study on Houqua, foreign records became the most important sources, which are well preserved in various archives in Europe and New England. Thanks to the close relationship between Houqua and his American partners, particularly the members of Russell & Co., American sources such as diaries, journals, memoirs, letters and other considerable collections provide a rich foundation for an exploration.69 The records of the EIC,70 which are indispensable in uncovering Houqua’s family background, are also relevant in representing his behavior in patronage relationships towards local officials. Moreover, in addition to the documents in English, there is also correspondence in Chinese between Houqua and the EIC reserved today in the National Archives in Kew,71 which enormously help recover the lost details of intercultural communication. These American and British sources compensate at least partly the gap in understanding due to limited Chinese sources.

1.3 Organisation of this book Unlike many historical works, this book is not organized in a chronology of events, but instead in a logical and thematic order. After an introduction about the protagonist and the state of research, the next chapter details the historical and cultural background of social relationships in China and the West, so that certain fundamental distinctions are clarified right

68 Eberhard, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China, 117. 69 The most important collections in the US regarding Houqua are the papers of Forbes family reserved in the Baker Library of Harvard University (BL) and the library of Massachusetts Historical society (MHS), as well as the records of Russell & Co. reserved in the Library of Congress in Washington (LC). 70 “India Office Records” reserved in the British Library in London (IOR). 71 “Foreign Office Records” reserved in the National Archives in Kew, London (FO).

1.3 Organisation of this book

19

at the beginning. Thereafter, the social position of Chinese merchants, and more specifically, the position of the Hong Merchants in the so-called Canton System helps create a general understanding about Houqua’s social life. Chapter three illustrates the Chinese facets of Houqua’s social relations, namely his dealings with the local officialdom and other Hong Merchants. The exploration of Houqua’s roles as a Chinese merchant and diplomat in foreign affairs explains not only his “loyalty” in patronage, but also the essence of the social hierarchy in imperial China. The strategies that he uses in his relationships with other Hong Merchants shows his ability to balance his financial interests with his personal needs. Chapter four begins with a reconstruction of the intercultural communication based on Houqua’s practices, which includes oral language, written correspondences, interactions between Houqua and his foreign partners beyond business such as dinner parties and the exchange of gifts. The second part of the chapter deals with the most sensitive and difficult problem Houqua had to face in long-distance trade, namely how to foster trust and reduce risks. The various strategies applied by Houqua to protect his business and to establish solid partnerships, which are partly transformed into personal friendships, represent the “Westernized” facet of Houqua’s network. Founded on the analysis of Houqua’s social relations, chapter five concludes this book with a comparison of Chinese and Western understandings about “trust” and “friendship”. Unfortunately, with the outbreak of the First Opium War and the end of the Old Canton Trade, Houqua’s extraordinary career could not be carried out by his descendants after his death. Finally, in chapter six, based on Houqua’s story, his openness is examined again before returning to the initial question – how open was China before 1840?

2 Historical milieu 2.1 Social relationship in China and the West Social relationships are an indispensable part of our daily lives. Due to different historical and cultural developments, the understanding, functions, and practices of social relations developed quite differently in Chinese and Western societies.1 The following chapter illustrates these differentiations regarding early modern social relations, so that a general understanding about social life in China and the West especially in the early nineteenth century can be gained.

2.1.1 Christian thought in Western societies One of the most obvious differences between Chinese and Western societies with regard to cultural aspects are the different ideological influences that impacted these societies. In Europe, from the middle age until at least the sixteenth century, spiritual life was dominated by Christian thought. The church was not only the main provider of social safety and services for the poor, but also the main organizer of social life for everyone.2 After the Reformation, Counter Reformation and the religious wars, the increasing importance of the state, which took over the functions of the church, did weaken the significance of the church. But the influence of the Christian thought, be it Protestant or Catholic, still had a central place in spiritual life. Two elements regarding social relationships inherited from Christian thought remained particularly far-reaching and profound. The first one was to do with the concept of equality.3 The framework of early Christian thought adopted the concept of equality arising from the notion of universalism. The Christian understanding of universal relationships especially friendship while being unrealistic and utopian, was at least theoretically based on an understanding of equality. In particular, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) developed the idea of universal equality before God. His writings on divine law

1 Due to the location of Houqua’s network, “Western societies” in this study refer to the Western European societies, especially British and later American society. 2 Cf. Greif and Iyigun, “Social Organizations,” 536. 3 Equality as a concept dominated Europe even before Christian thought came about. For the Greeks for instance the idea of equality was an important principle in their understanding of “democratic society”, with limitations concerning gender, power and wealth etc. This is closely associated to twentieth century conceptions of equality. Clifford, “Locating Equality,” 13. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-002

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emphasized an egalitarian approach, whereby everyone is united under the common bond of happiness in which all individuals are directed by God.4 Though this equality was only spiritual and could not change social hierarchy, it did have influence on social relations. Just as Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) noted, everyone was loved equally by God and everyone was demanded to “be friends to all: that is, apt to do good, loving them really, and doing to them all the benefits which we can, and which they are capable of,” because “the friendship is equal to all the world, and of itself hath no difference.”5 Later, despite the decline of the political power and authority of the Catholic Church, the idea of equality remained and became the basis for certain fundamental conceptions of Enlightenment. From John Locke (1632–1704) to Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), and Natural Law to individualism, equality has always been one of the keywords in political and social debates on liberty, emancipation, justice and the like. Moreover, equality is considered a desirable feature of social relationships in various forms, most importantly friendship and “strangership”, concepts which are discussed shortly in the book. The second heritage of Christian thought regarding social relationships was the perception of abstraction. In the dominant age of Christian religion, the problem of a relationship between God and the people is solved by abstraction, because people were “trained” to rely on God – something that is non-addressable and intangible. Later, this perception of abstract relationships made it possible to perceive not only an abstract relationship to a God, but also to other intangible entities such as the nation or imagined communities. Therefore, if one is capable of believing in God, it would not be difficult for the individual to believe in something that he could neither see or feel. This ability of perceiving abstract relations, which can be taken for granted in Western societies nowadays, was one of the basic conditions to establish and understand nationalism and the public sphere. Furthermore, this abstraction is also responsible for the divergence between China and the West in ways of understanding social relations.

2.1.2 Strangership and acquaintanceship As a result of equality and abstraction rooted in social relationships in the West, a new kind of social relation – strangership – emerged in the course of commercial development since ca. eighteenth century.

4 Clifford, “Locating Equality,” 14. 5 Taylor, “The Whole Works,” vol.11 (1822), 304.

2.1 Social relationship in China and the West

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In pre-commercial society before the eighteenth century, to “[l]ive with your friend as with one who may become an enemy” is an unpleasant but prudent counsel, which a philosopher of Scottish Enlightenment like Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) had to admit.6 The purpose of friendship in this period, as the Scots saw it, was to help friends by defeating enemies. In contrast, in a commercial society, another Scottish philosopher of Enlightenment Adam Smith (1723–1790) argued that the dynamics of sympathy create the possibility of friendship across the boundaries of social status and the constraints of necessitudo.7 In fact, in contrast to exchanges governed by self-interest, this dynamics of sympathy was fundamental in social relationships in a society, which was no longer morally governed by princes, clergy, notables, and landlords, and where the creation and coordination of moral action was made possible by sympathy. Smith argued that people moderate their behavior to attract others’ sympathy, forthcoming only if others “sympathize” with their ideas and conduct.8 Therefore, there should be more possibilities for “true” friendship free from utility. As the central element in Smith’s concept, sympathy not only supports voluntary, true and “warm” friendship, but also provided– what might be far more important in Smith’s theory – a constitutive element for the “strangership”, or the so-called “cool” friendship, logically opposite of “warm” friendship.9 This “strangership” as a new form of social relations not only abolished royal constraints on market exchanges, but also contributed to a civil commercial society ideally free of exclusive and mutually hostile or suspicious personal associations.10 Meanwhile, according to Smith, “true” and “warm” friendship was indeed desirable but not to be realized on a mass-level, because in a commercial society the vast majority of people with whom one interacts everyday were neither warm friends nor potential enemies, but indifferent neutral strangers.11 In other words, warm, private and voluntary friendships were rare, because they were so demanding. The space between friend and enemy was not charged with uncertain and menacing possibilities anymore but was occupied by mere neutral strangers.12 Thus the dominant part of social relationships in the business world became “strangership” or “cool” friendship. The changing

6 Ferguson, Principles of moral and political science, vol.2 (1792), 363. 7 The term necessitudo was denoted by Adam Smith as “imposed by the necessity of the situation”. Cf. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol.1 (1790), 83–84. 8 Silver, “Two Different Sorts of Commerce,” 52. 9 Cf.: Hill and McCarthy, “On friendship,” 6–8. 10 Silver, “Two Different Sorts of Commerce,” 54. 11 Silver, “Two Different Sorts of Commerce,” 54. 12 Hill and McCarthy, “On friendship,” 8.

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meanings of “strange” and “stranger” found in the Oxford English Dictionary also indicate a historical transformation of “strangership” from a rather negative to a neutral interpretation, thus neutralizing social relationships.13 There were commercial developments in China during the eighteenth century, just like in Western Europe,. However, there was no comparable structural change in Qing China concerning social relationships like the concept of “strangership”. The “acquaintanceship (熟人社会)” as the basic type of Chinese social relationship could still be observed in the twentieth century. This “acquaintanceship” as a character of traditional Chinese society was first mentioned by Fei Xiaotong (费孝通 1910–2005). In his “Rural China (乡土中国)”, he describes “acquaintances (熟人)” as major players of social relationship in rural China during the early twentieth century, and this was because of the Chinese social and economic structure. Patterns of agrarian life differ essentially from that in nomadic and industrial societies. Nomadic tribes move from one place to another depending on the supply of grass and water, while workers in industrial societies move to wherever they could get a job offer. However, peasants could not move anywhere since their lives were dependent on their lands. Therefore, the saying that “one dies where he was born and grew up (生于斯，死于斯)”, spoke a lot about the normal patterns of social life in rural China. In a society such as this with low geographical mobility, social relationships arise mostly from acquaintances. In other words, everyone grows up in a circle of acquaintances where everyone knows everyone – a society built up of acquaintances, almost without strangers.14 In fact, the “acquaintanceship” as Fei Xiaotong notes does not only refer to China during the early twentieth century where he himself lived, but also to Chinese relationships in general in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and earlier, since Chinese society was established as an agrarian society with a selfsufficient economy for over two thousand years. This agrarian tradition had never been changed despite commercial development in some areas. The major part of

13 The term “stranger” once predominantly denoted anyone who is “foreign, alien; of a place [. . .] other than one’s own; who belong[s] to others”; who is “unfriendly [. . .] distant or cold in demeanor [. . .] uncomplying, unwilling to accede to a request or desire.” Meanwhile, the Oxford English Dictionary remarks that these meanings are “now somewhat rare, [replaced by such] recent examples” as: “A new comer who has not yet become well acquainted with the place, or [. . .] one who is not yet well known [. . .] an unknown person whom one has not seen before [and] with whom one is not yet well acquainted.” Cf.: Silver, “Two Different Sorts of Commerce,” 54. 14 Fei, Rural China, 4–6. Cf. also: Zhang, “Distinctions of relations,” 58–59.

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the population – the peasants – were “stuck” to their lands and lived in an acquaintanceship. Among the merchants too, “acquaintanceship” was decisive.15 As mentioned, the occidental mercantile world of the eighteenth century was occupied increasingly by strangership, where nobody knew each other very well. Contracts or laws that provide consistent regulation of everyone’s behavior served as prerequisite for “trust” or “confidence” in business. In this sense, just like Max Weber once noted, the behaviors of Chinese were not “calculable” or within a “calculable legal system”,16 and hence not conductive for capitalism. Indeed, in Chinese society based on acquaintanceship, there was no place for law. Reliability was not based on rational calculation, but primarily on acquaintanceship, especially through blood-connection (血缘) or family bonds. In other words, family or kinship members were considered to be the most reliable people. Since this was not enough to enlarge a commercial network, merchants also looked for other acquaintances who came from the same region or who had the same occupation. In this case, building up a commercial guild provided the best possibility of enlarging acquaintanceship and reliability. The merchants coming from the same region, especially those who had to do their business elsewhere, often established their guild (帮) based on this regional connection (地缘); Those who worked in the same business branch often established their guild (行) based on this occupational connection (业缘). Most of the powerful merchant guilds during the Ming and Qing period are based primarily on the former form of acquaintanceship, namely the regional connection, such as the guild of Shanxi merchants (山西商帮), also called as “Jin merchants (晋商)”.17 The occupational connection was especially relevant for the administration of local government. The Thirteen Hongs (十三行) or “Cohong” in Canton for example consisted of Cantonese merchants who were all involved in the foreign trade. Thus, the acquaintanceships among these merchants were both regional and occupational. Moreover, as illustrated later in the book, family bonds due to marriage

15 The development of commerce in south China, especially in coastal areas like Canton, had significant social effects compared to other areas. The social mobility of the first and second generations of the Hong Merchants, like Houqua’s great great grandfather during the early eighteenth century, was indeed remarkable, since they moved from their “acquainted” home society in Fujian to “stranged” Canton. Most of them had to commute between Canton and Fujian to establish their interregional business networks and their descendents after ca. 1760 such as Houqua even had international networks, though they settled in Canton. However, as illustrated later in this study, the effect of traditional social values even on the “open-minded” Hong Merchants and the manner in which they still got “trapped” in social hierarchy should not be underestimated. Cf. Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 44–48. 16 Cf. Weber, The Protestant Ethic, xxxviii. 17 “Jin (晋)” was another name of Shanxi province.

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were also common as the most stable acquaintanceship in the guild of the Thirteen Hongs. However, unlike guilds in European history, the Chinese guilds, at least before the mid-nineteenth century, were not independent but controlled by the local government and used as an instrument for commercial regulation. The “Cohong” in Canton was one of them. The main purpose of such guilds was not to fight against the government in order to gain more rights as the Western guilds did, but to seek convenient relationships or even co-operate with local officials in order to protect their business and fortune.18 Therefore, the relationships within a Chinese guild cannot be viewed as voluntary ones. The function of a guild, which was to transform a strangership into an acquaintanceship, played the central role. An acquaintanceship might not be as close as specific personal bonds between two people, but it was the first step to begin business. Moreover, it contributed to the personalization of social relationships in the way that it made “trust” and “confidence” – especially in business – dependent on a concrete person, i.e. not on an abstraction like the law or an organization. The successful business relationships between the Hong Merchants and foreign traders also showed that the closer the personal relation, better and more smoothly was the business relationship. Also Houqua’s confidence in Russell & Co. was based on his personal relationship with John P. Cushing and the Forbes brothers. This might also explain why Houqua tried so hard to retain them as his business partners and his agents for his huge fortune abroad.19

2.1.3 Personalization in imperial Chinese society Whether or not Confucianism should be regarded as a religion is still controversial since the New Cultural Movement in the late 1910s and early 1920s.20 The reason why Confucianism is comparable to a religion is because it was not only a moral philosophy, but also took over a social function in China similar to the one that Christianity took in Western Europe.21 Its dominance in Chinese spiritual, social life and political order, which was established at first under the Han

18 Cf.: Chen, The role of Chinese merchants, 78–79 and 182–183. 19 Cf.: Forbes, Reminiscences of John Murray Forbes, vol.1 (1902), 227–228. Forbes, Letters from China, 225. 20 Taylor and Arbuckle, “Confucianism,” 347. 21 There were other moral philosophies and religions like Buddhism, which was introduced during the Tang Dynasty. But none of them had a dominant place like Confucianism did in China.

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emperor Han Wu Di (汉武帝 157–87 BC),22 had never been seriously challenged until the late nineteenth century. Therefore unlike Western societies, in Chinese history before the late nineteenth century, there had never been a profound revolution in culture and thought like the Renaissance in fifteenth century Europe or the Enlightenment in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. Despite one Dynasty being replaced by another, the structure of state administration in the Ming and Qing period (1368–1911) more or less followed that of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD). Also, the philosophy which dominated the social order and daily lives of Chinese was virtually unchanged since the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD).23 Even today, traces of Confucianism in Chinese thinking are still noticeable. However, despite the similarity in social functions, there are distinct differences between Christianity and Confucianism regarding their influences on social relationships. The first distinction is the perceivability of abstract relation, mentioned before. Unlike the Christian God, Confucius – the founder of Confucianism – was an addressable person. He was born in 551 BC in Zouyi (陬邑) in what is nowadays Shandong Province of China, and died in 479 BC. His life and especially his political career was recorded in detail in historical works such as “Han Feizi (韩非子)” written by Han Fei (韩非 281 BC – 233 BC), and “Records of the Grand Historian (史记)” by Sima Qian (司马迁 ca. 145 BC – 86 BC), all written before Christ. Confucius’ writings, which were compiled by his students and commentated on by important political thinkers in every Dynasty, served de facto as the bible for the imperial exam (科举). His descendant from the seventyninth generation, Kong Chuichang (孔垂长 1975-), who lives in Taiwan, is currently the titular head of the Kong family.24 In other words, Confucius was an addressable person, who was honored like a God. Therefore, the relationship to Confucius was different from an abstract relationship to God. It was not novel in Chinese tradition to worship a real person like a God, such as Guanyu (关羽 ?–220), who was worshiped as Guan Gong (Lord Guan) or even Guan Di (Emperor Guan) due to his loyalty and fortitude. Bao Qingtian (包青天 999–1062) was worshiped as Bao Gong (Lord Bao) due to his incorruptibility and justice. But all such secular Gods were praised because of some of their Confucian virtues.25 Moreover, even the very

22 Cf.: Fairbank, China, 62–63. 23 Tian and Wilson, “Commercial Development,” 166. 24 “Q. & A.: Kung Tsui-chang on Life as the Heir to Confucius” by Austin Ramzy, The New York Times, accessed 14. November 2018, http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/ 14/q-a-kung-tsui-chang-on-life-as-the-heir-to-confucius/?_r=0. 25 Spiritual Gods were also worshiped in China, i.e. Gods who existed only in theory like the Buddhist goddess Guanyin (观音) and Daoist God, the Jade Emperor (玉皇大帝). However,

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“ordinary” uneducated Chinese who felt no connection to Confucius or any of the secular Gods representing Confucian ideology, worshiped the Chinese emperor as the “son of heaven” and the only ruler “under the heaven”. Obviously it was easier for a Chinese person to establish a relation to a real person rather than to create an abstract one. This lack of abstractions in social relations in China compared to Western societies had various profound consequences. In Western societies especially after the Enlightenment, social relations were diverse, including personal and private relations with family or friends, as well as abstract and public relations in public spheres. But in the Chinese context, due to the weakness of abstraction, we hardly find such diversity. Social relationships in China until late nineteenth century can be described as overwhelmingly “personal”. Liang Shuming (梁漱溟, 1893–1988) once noted in his “Substance of Chinese Culture (中国文化要义)” that traditional Chinese social relationships occurred mostly “between two persons (此一人与彼一人之间)”.26 In other words, for a Chinese person, social relationships represent his personal relationship with another concrete person, not to an abstraction like community, government or nation. This “personalization” was one of the fundamental features of social relationship in imperial Chinese society.27 The lack of abstraction was not the only reason for strong personalization present in Chinese society. Fei Xiaotong also explains why the Chinese tend to personalize social relations. In his opinion, the strong perception of personal relations can be traced back to the unclear boundaries of communities and organizations in Chinese culture.28 In Chinese history there has never been a religious organization with a strong influence on social life like the church did in European history. But just like in the West, the basic unit of society in China was the family and clan. However, even the boundary of a Chinese family was not clearly defined. An interesting example introduced by Fei Xiaotong occurrs even in present day China:29 If an American informed his friend that he and his family would visit him, normally the host could calculate how many guests he expected, namely this friend, his wife, and his children. In a Chinese person’s since there wasn’t a prevalence of monotheism in China, none of the Gods had the consistent and absolute authority in fashioning social life as Confucius and his ideology did. As Donald J. Munro observed, unlike the Christian images of Hell and Satan, Chinese ghosts are all deceased humans, and the evil ghosts are those who has suffered injustice or who had met violent deaths. Cf.: Munro, The Concept of Man, 39. 26 Liang, The Essence of Chinese Culture, 167. 27 Therefore in some Chinese studies social relationship in traditional China is also characterized as “between two persons (二人化)”. See for instance Lai, “Intermediary relations,” 82. 28 Fei, Rural China, 20–21. 29 Fei, Rural China, 22–23.

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case, it would be much more difficult, since the boundary of a Chinese “family” is unclear and “flexible”. It could refer to him and his wife or wives only, or it could include his children or his brothers, his cousins, and so on. Besides, the most important organization in the West since the eighteenth century – the state – was perceived in Chinese context as “天下 (literally: under the heaven)” whose boundary was impossible to be defined. Therefore, unlike in Western countries, the bond between the Chinese mass and their state was too weak to evoke a Chinese national consciousness. Due to this weakness of boundaries, a “Gemeinschaftsgefühl” and thus a relationship of a person to an organization or a community could not be perceived as relevant in his social life.30 Instead, it was easier to perceive relationships between people. This lack of community life (团体生活) and public life (公共生活), which played a fundamental role in religious life in Western history, contributed immensely to personalization of social relationships in China. Furthermore, it also made the sense of equality, individual rights and awareness of public difficult to realize in the Chinese context. Beside the lack of abstraction, the unclear familial boundaries and the lack of community life, the third factor for the personalization of social relationships was the unclear perception of “private” and “public”. The term “private” in Chinese – 私 – is already problematic, since it also connotes selfish and selfinterest, which illicitly invades the public domain in Western sense.31 In traditional Chinese moral philosophy, “private (私)” was doubtless something negative and in any case should be avoided.32 Unlike in Western countries after the eighteenth century, where the public gained an increasingly important role,33 in China even the boundary between “private” and “public” was not clear. This can be clearly proved using the example of the Chinese legal system. Firstly, in traditional Chinese law there was no difference between public law (公法) and private law (私法).34 The Qing Code for instance was a mixture, dealing with not

30 There were commercial communities like the Cohong in Canton, where paid membership were compulsory and important for the Hong Merchants and even clearly defined by the government. But in contrast to contemporary commercial communities in the West, the Chinese Cohong was not based on equality of members, but on their one-sided obligations towards the government. Secondly, for a Hong Merchant like Houqua, what mattered was not his relation to Cohong, but to the government officials in person who controlled Cohong. For more on this, see chapter 2.3. 31 The meaning of “私” is rather broad: private, personal, selfish, partial, unfair; secret, contraband, underhand, illicit; the private pro-creational parts. Cf.: Wakeman, “Boundaries,” 167. 32 Sun, The deep structure, 76–77. 33 Cf.: Habermas, Strukturwandel, 110–121. 34 Liang, The Essence of Chinese Culture, 75.

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only public matters but also private familial affairs such as fornication.35 Secondly, in Chinese law there was no guarantee for private property. Such a guarantee was denied by the dominating Confucian moral philosophy, because the right of private property was seen as a cause for individual independence and potential danger to social hierarchy and harmony.36 Although the government did protect “private” property like lands, this “private” ownership did not mean the rights of individual possession, but the common property of a family or clan, which was preserved by the head or patriarch of this family during his lifetime.37 In this way, every individual, as a member of family-clan, was at least financially dependent on his superior – the patriarch, with whom he had a personal bond. This familial patriarchal hierarchy was extended to the whole society with the understanding that Chinese society was like an extended family with the emperor as its patriarch, or the de facto property owner of this family – everything under the heaven. That’s why the Chinese term for “country” or “state” – 国家 – literally means “state-family”: Just like the family member was dependent on family patriarch, every Chinese should be dependent on the emperor.38 Besides the unclear perception and even denial of privacy in Chinese law, the “personalized” execution or enforcement of law also made the perception of “private” and “public” in Chinese context very difficult. The development of the social function of law especially after the eighteenth century, which provided merchants in Western societies with more security and confidence, was hardly imaginable in the Chinese context. In Western history, law has not only been an integral part of the culture for as long as written records have existed, but in almost all instances it has been regarded as having some sort of supernatural sanction which places it above men. The laws of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Jews were believed to be gifts from their gods; in Christian Europe it was God who sanctioned the laws of the state; and in more recent times it was “the people”.39 This supernatural sanction gave Western law its strength. In China, however, law was neither considered divinely inspired, nor was it associated with magic or curses. It was man made and, as such, had to rely on the strength of men to enforce it. This is

35 In the late Qing legal reform in 1910 – just shortly before the fall of the Qing Dynasty, there were still discussions if fornication, though a private matter concerning female virtue, should be included in the New Criminal Code. Cf.: Yeung, “Fornication,” 311. 36 Cf.: Chen, The role of Chinese merchants, 33–35. 37 Chen, The role of Chinese merchants, 40–41. 38 This phenomenon is also what Liang Shuming called the “shared construction of family and state (家国同构)”. Cf.: Liang, The Essence of Chinese Culture, 167–168. 39 Folsom, Friends, Guests, and Colleagues, 5–6.

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also what Liang Qichao (梁启超) called “governed by law (法治)” in the West and “governed by person (人治)” in China.40 However, it is not true that China was “governed by person” from the very beginning. Prior to the unification by the Qin Dynasty in 221 B.C., there were attempts to establish a government based on law. This was done under the influence of the Legalist (法家). Theoretically, the system proposed by the Legalist was a very efficient one with a legal basis in which everyone was controlled by the same law. Shang Yang (商鞅 390–338 BC), the prime minister of Qin, attempted to put this theory into practice. Unfortunately, the most powerful man – the emperor – was outside the law. And this omission destroyed the whole system of the Legalists.41 Just as Fei Xiaotong noted: If the highest authority were bound by law, then administrative authority would be able to cage the tiger. But in Chinese history this has never happened. [. . .] Not by challenging the emperor’s authority but by coming close to him, by serving him and from this service gaining an advantage in being enabled to shift the burden of the emperor’s demands onto the backs of those lower down, did the propertied class attempt to neutralize the emperor’s power over them and to avoid the attack of the tiger.42

Due to the absolute significance of a personal bond to the emperor and his position above the legal system, the existing law could not function as universal norms for social behaviors in daily life. In fact, only a fraction of civil litigations was judged officially by the government. The major portion of the cases were resolved privately between those involved in the dispute or in an unofficial legal proceeding based on the so-called “customary law (习惯法)”.43 Theoretically, customary laws should follow Confucian virtues.44 But in practice, since customary laws did not have a universal written form, the proceedings depended heavily

40 Liang, A History of political thoughts, 95. 41 Shang Yang himself lost his life on this account, for, though under the law he was able to punish the prince when he was only the heir to the throne, as soon as the prince became emperor, he ordered Shang Yang killed and the efficient system which Shang Yang himself had established prevented him from escaping. Cf.: Fei, China’s Gentry, 24–26. 42 Fei, China’s Gentry, 26–27. 43 This lack of legal enforcement was due to several factors, e.g. incomplete legal regulations, i.e. the existing laws could not cover all cases (that often occurred in commercial disputes); overburdening of administrative powers on a local level etc. Even in an official litigation, the adjudication would not always be bound to existing laws. Therefore, in the execution there was a huge grey area or space for personal relations. Cf.: Liang, Customary Law, 172–173. 44 Most important were the five constant virtues (五常：benevolence 仁, righteousness 义, propriety 礼, wisdom 智 and fidelity 信) and the three bonds (三纲). Despite the difficulty in execution, these virtues, especially the three bonds, were institutionalized over the course of time. More about their influence on social relations is discussed in section 2.1.3.

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on local customs and especially on the individual’s personal relationship to the unofficial “judge” – in most cases during the Ming and Qing period (1368–1911) a kind of client (师爷) working for local government.45 Under these circumstances, the Western style of “governing by law” could be hardly enforced. The regulation of social lives, i.e. not only private affairs within the family and clan, but also issues that were public like a dispute in business, became “personal”. Therefore, it is clear that personal relations were dominant in the social life of Chinese, from high officials close to the emperor to the lowest social class of ordinary people. Until now, the focus has been on the negative perception of “private”. The question arises – how was the perception of the “public”? In contrast to “private”, “public” had a very positive connotation in Chinese tradition. The famous quote by Huang Zongxi (黄宗羲 1610–1695) – the most important thinker of the late Ming and early Qing period – “to substitute the large self-interest for the world’s commonwealth (以我之大私为天下之大公)”, was regarded as the most important and effective political slogan for a virtual ruler.46 Its shortened form “天下为公 (the world is public, or literally: under the heaven is public)” is still used in China proper, Taiwan and even in Chinatowns in the United States nowadays. Unfortunately, this positive sense of “public” and denial of “private” did not lead to a strengthening of the public sphere. Since “private” was something that could not be simply extinguished or avoided, and the boundary between “private” and “public” was so diffused, the “public” sphere in traditional China was weak, whereas the “private” got extended significantly with regard to social relationships. In other words, personal relations dominated the public domain, and thus public relations became personal, so that public issues became issues between persons (公共领域私人化).47 For instance, as one of the three bonds (三纲), the relation between ruler and officials (君臣) or subjects, which should belong to public sphere, became finally a very personal bond between an emperor and one of his officials. Therefore, it is not surprising that the loyalty of officials was not to refer to the ruler as a position, but only connect to the person.48

45 Zhang, Customs, Law, Society, 14–15. Particularly in Qing Dynasty, from governors to county-magistrates, almost every official had such clients or unofficial “judge”. 46 Original in Chinese in “On Monarchs (原君)” by Huang Zongxi (黄宗羲). 47 Besides, absolutism achieved its peak in Chinese history during the Ming and Qing period. After the foundation of the Qing empire, not only the public sphere but also leisure times of regular Chinese people with local customaries and public entertainments were strictly controlled by the Qing authority. Cf.: Zhang, Customs, Law, Society, 65–71. 48 An example of this kind of personal loyalty in social relationship is Houqua’s loyalty in the Napier Affair in 1834. See section 3.1.3.

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2.1.4 Hierarchy Personalization was the first feature of social relationships in imperial China with consequences such as personal trust and personal loyalty that are demonstrated not only in Houqua’s practice in early nineteenth century, but also in Chinese social life nowadays. Another fundamental feature that was probably more obvious than personalization in imperial Chinese society was social hierarchy. Just like the Christian thought, social hierarchy also played a central role in European history of mind. In medieval Europe, the social hierarchy had three social classes: aristocracy, clergies, and the third class (“Dritter Stand”) including bourgeois and peasants. Each class had its own rights, obligations, privileges, jurisdictions, and values, which were dictated through the sumptuary laws (“Kleiderordnungen”). If the reformation, counter-reformation, and the religious wars in the seventeenth century provided certain relief from religion, the Enlightenment thereafter was a greater step towards a profound change in the social hierarchy. The growth of a new, educated middle class challenged the power of the court and aristocracy. The development of rationalism changed views of the natural world and human society and began to act as the basis for authority. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) defined Enlightenment as the courage to use one’s reason to think independently and critically, and to refuse to accept the tutelage of another’s authority.49 In the context of social relationships, this independence in thinking, connected with freedom, equality, and the questioning of authority provided the possibility for an individual to fashion his own destiny.50 Although social hierarchy still determined social life, there was a noticeable tendency toward a neutralization and liberalization of social relationships. In other words, the constraints of social identity and hierarchy still existed but became more diminished, while the scope of every individual to act became less restricted. As the Enlightenment tried to release social relationships from various constraints in Europe, Chinese society experienced a change in the opposite direction. The best illustration of the differences in the importance of hierarchy in China and in the West might be the issue of homosexuality. In imperial Chinese

49 At the very beginning of his essay “What is Enlightenment”, Kant pointed out this independence: “Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen. Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes liegt, sich seiner ohne Leitung eines andern zu bedienen.” In: Kant, “Was ist Aufklärung,” 5. 50 Garrioch, “From Christian Friendship to Secular Sentimentality,” 166.

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society, homosexual practice continued de facto, because homosexuality in reality was not fundamentally problematic to the social hierarchy when it did not interfere with a son’s duty to produce heirs.51 As a result, compared to premodern Christian societies, homosexuality was tolerated more in China. Instead, that which could not be tolerated in imperial China was equality and independence of individuals, since these threatened the social hierarchy, which was of vital importance for social harmony according to Confucianism. Thus, the concept of equality in ancient Greek and modern Western sense is entirely lacking in Chinese history.52 Instead, a social hierarchy in various forms was always present in almost every aspect of Chinese social lives, such that the entire society was constructed through hierarchies.53 As these hierarchies were strengthened and institutionalized, there were certain transitions that took place in social relationships. Firstly, the most influential thinking regarding social relations according to Confucianism – as perceived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – was the “Three Bonds” (三纲): ruler guides subject, father guides son, and husband guides wife (君为臣纲，父为子纲，夫为妻纲). The real spirit indicated by these bonds was that of unconditional obedience, i.e. subject must obey ruler, son must obey father, and wife must obey husband. Though this obedience secured social hierarchies, this sense of absolute allegiance was not necessarily a part of the moral philosophy initiated by Confucius. It is true that Confucius regarded the maintenance of correct human relationships as an important tool for maintaining political and social order. However, he never mentioned the Three Bonds, but only regarded two relationships among the Three Bonds as having primary importance, namely the relation between ruler and subject, and between father and son.54 Moreover, Confucius emphasized the primacy of family and the virtue of filial piety. In his moral philosophy, the family is the space where mutual affection, care, moral feelings, and understanding of mutual obligations arise.55 Therefore, what Confucius valued is not absolute obedience but rather harmony and reciprocity between the two individuals. Later, Mencius (372–289 BC), the successor of

51 Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1624. 52 Ho, The Ladder of Success, 2. 53 Therefore, traditional Chinese society is often characterized as a “structure of steps and orders (阶序结构)”. Cf. Yang, “The mode of joint capital,” 125. 54 It is noted in Analects: “Duke Ching of Ch’i [died in 490 BC] asked Master K’ung [Confucius] about government. Master K’ung replied saying: let the prince be a prince, the minister a minister, the father a father and the son a son.” Quoted from: Hsü, “The Myth,” 27. 55 Vervoorn, “Friendship in Ancient China,” 14.

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Confucius, delineated the Five Cardinal Relationships (五伦), which enlarged Confucius’ primacy of family and filial piety: The Sage King [. . .] taught the human relationships: love between father and son, duty between ruler and subject, distinction between husband and wife, precedence of the old over the young, and trust between friends. 圣人 [. . .] 教以人伦：父子有亲，君臣有义，夫妇有别，长幼有序，朋友有信56

Mencius indicated the duty and obligations that both parties have in a relationship, rather than the absolute obedience of the latter towards the former. But as these Five Cardinal Relationships appeared again in “The Doctrine of the Mean (中庸)”, one of the four Confucian Classics compiled and edited by scholars of Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), the order was changed: the “ruler – subject” relation is put on the first place, above the “father – son” relation,57 so that the position of the ruler is accentuated. This emphasis on the ruler, specifically the virtue of absolute allegiance to the emperor being the most important one till the end of the nineteenth century, was only one of the reasons that made social relations hierarchical and instrumental. The Three Bond had far-reaching influence and replaced the Five Cardinal Relations to become leading principles of social relationships in society. The fact that the Three Bonds are perceived until today as Confucian moral principles, was the result of the events of the last two millenia, especially under the influence of Han Confucianists and later Neo-Confucianists. In fact the Three Bonds had never been mentioned in any of the Confucian works before the Han Dynasty nor in any of the pre-Qin (before 221–206 BC) writings,58 but were first mentioned in “Han Feizi (韩非子)”59 – one of the classics of the Legalist (法家), which was the most powerful rival school of the Confucianists before the Han Dynasty:

56 Originally Chinese in “Meng Zi: to Teng Wen Gong (孟子·滕文公上)”. English translation quoted from: Vervoorn, “Friendship in Ancient China,” 3. 57 Hsü, “The Myth,” 29. 58 The fact that the Three Bonds did not originally belong to Confucianism was observed by Liang Qichao (梁启超) in the early twentieth century. He was of the opinion that the original Confucian Five Cardinal Relations (五伦) was based on reciprocity rather than on one-side obedience. Cf.: Liang, A History of political thoughts, 91. 59 Hsü, “The Myth,” 29–30.

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Minister serving ruler, son serving father, and wife serving husband, if these three relations run in harmony, All-under-Heaven will have order; if these three relations run in disorder, All-under-Heaven will have disorder. 臣事君，子事父，妻事夫，三者顺，天下治；三者逆，天下乱。60

It is worth mentioning that despite the hierarchical character, the term used here is “three relations (三者)”, not “three bonds (三纲)”. Secondly, since this work “Han Feizi” was compiled and edited during the Qin and Han Dynasties, the extent to which this work can be attributed to the Legalists is questionable.61 However, it is certain that the most prominent Confucianist of the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu (董仲舒 179–104 BC), the greatest contributor to hierarchization and institutionalization of Confucianism before the Neo-Confucianists, integrated the “Three Bonds” entirely in the spirit of the Yin-Yang concept, which divided the world into two parts: Yang was always superior and accordingly Yin was always considered inferior. Social relations followed this: The relationships between ruler and subject, father and son, and husband and wife, are all derive from the principles of the Yin and Yang. The ruler is Yang, the subject is Yin; the father is Yang, the son is Yin; the husband is Yang, the wife is Yin [. . .] The three bonds of the Way of the (true) King may be sought in Heaven. 君臣、父子、夫妇之义，皆取诸阴阳之道。君为阳，臣为阴；父为阳，子为阴；夫为阳， 妻为阴 [. . .] 王道之三纲，可求于天。62

Based on this Yin-Yang concept, not only the three bonds, but also absolute obedience and hierarchy were legalized by the superiority of Yang over Yin. The social relationship became a moral institution to secure the authority of the ruler, father, and husband. Just like Max Weber noted, “Pietätsbeziehung” of the children toward their paternal authority was transferred to the whole society.63 The social harmony, which originally came from filial piety, was combined with stability of social hierarchy. This process of institutionalization continued, especially by Neo-Confucianists like Zhu Xi (朱熹 1130–1200), whose principles dominated social life in China from the South Song Dynasty (1127–1279) till the late nineteenth century. Under his system, Confucianism was further institutionalized to accommodate and serve 60 Original Chinese in “Han Feizi, Loyalty and Piety (韩非子·忠孝)”. English translation quoted from: Hsü, “The Myth,” 29–30. 61 Cf.: Hsü, “The Myth,” 30. 62 Original Chinese cf.: “Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals, Vol. 53 (春秋繁 露·基義第五十三).” Accessed 16th July 2019. https://ctext.org/chun-qiu-fan-lu/ji-yi/zhs (中国 哲学书电子化计划) My English translation. 63 Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1142.

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the stability of the hierarchy. One of his famous slogans, “uphold the heavenly principles, annihilate human desire (存天理, 灭人欲),”64 indicates how far he went. The fundamental part of these “heavenly principles” was the Three Bonds. In other words, in order to maintain social hierarchy, having desires, which is a natural part of being human, was forbidden. From the development of Confucius’ filial piety and Mencius’ Five Cardinal Relations, to the Three Bonds, social relationships in China transformed, becoming hierarchical and institutionalized. The principle of reciprocity indicated by Confucius was revised and replaced by strict one-way obedience, which was especially strengthened under the Neo-Confucianists till the end of the nineteenth century. The flexibility that an individual had with regard to his position in social hierarchy became increasingly restricted. These shifts indicated not only a theoretical change, but also real-life instances of the enforcement of this progress. The most obvious instances of these changes were seen in a clan or family. Firstly, filial piety to do with the son’s obedience with regard to his father became stricter. Confucius believed that children were allowed to disagree with their parents, but only in a polite manner.65 During the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC) filicide was a capital crime. During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) a son was to be punished with 100 strokes if he had been disobedient towards his father. In 1865, there was a recorded instance of a married couple who were both skinned alive, since the wife had the insolence to beat her mother-in-law. Their skin was displayed at city gates in various towns and their bones burned to ashes. Several of their kinsmen were hanged. The wife’s mother’s face was tattooed with the words “neglecting the daughter’s education” and she was paraded through seven provinces. The local official in charge was not spared too and had to undergo 60 strokes and banished to a distance of 1000 miles. The couple’s ninemonth-old boy was given a new name and put in the county magistrate’s care.66 Secondly, the obedience that was expected from the wife to the husband became stricter. During the Han Dynasty, widows could remarry in great numbers. But during Ming and Qing Dynasties, a woman was obliged to keep herself “chaste and undefiled (贞节)”. Gu Yanwu (顾炎武 1613–1682), a famous Confucian

64 This slogan comes from “Words of Zhu Xi (朱子语类)”, Vol. 4. The Chinese phrase “天理” can also be interpreted as “principles of heaven”, “course of nature” or even “justice”, which is combined with superiority and authority. According to a study on cultural history in China by Qi Liang (启良), the extraordinary complete system of Zhu Xi can be summarized as “uphold the heavenly principles, annihilate human desire (存天理, 灭人欲)” and to enforce the Three Bonds and the Five Cardinal Relations. Cf.: Qi, History of Chinese Culture, 453–459. 65 Yang, “Bao,” 73. 66 In formation in this paragraph cf.: Hsü, “The Myth,” 36–37.

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philosopher at the end of the Ming, remembered that his adoptive mother had married a wooden tablet of her deceased fiancé. Not only Gu’s adoptive mother, but also innumerable women and girls had to remain widows throughout their life with no possibility of remarrying when their husbands or fiancés had died. Some even committed suicide. As a reward, their names could appear in the section of “chaste women (烈女)” of the dynastic annals or local gazetteers.67 Thirdly, the hierarchization was also noticeable outside the family. Take the Chinese emperor as an example: Absolute monarchy was not always the dominant political form in imperial China. Before the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), the prime minister as the head of government had de facto the executive power and could restrict the emperor. During the Tang Dynasty (618–907) for instance, important government decrees or “imperial orders” (“敕” in Chinese) could be issued by the emperor officially, only after they were drafted and decided by the prime minister and his cabinet. An imperial order without governmental seal was invalid. But over time, the power and position of the prime minister decreased, and the power of the emperor increased. Under the reign of the first Ming emperor (明太祖 1328–1398), the position of prime minister was abolished. The cabinet became the emperor’s secretary’s office. Later, during the Qing Dynasty, this secretary was directly and personally under the control of the emperor. Thus, the emperor’s power essentially expanded multi-fold. Since then, the government never had the ability to seriously challenge the position of the emperor. Taking these changes into consideration, a Chinese historian Qian Mu (钱穆 1895–1990) commented that the political process in China since the Ming Dynasty showed a degeneration.68 As discussed later in section 5.2, due to strict hierarchies, even potentially equal friendships were made hierarchical over the course of the last two millenia. The flexibility available to an individual in nineteenth century China was

67 Hsü, “The Myth,” 37. Some recent studies indicate a phase of liberation of Chinese women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in a variety of ways. For instance, male sojourning of husbands, being left alone at home for extended periods gave women considerable leeway for action. As a result, by the early nineteenth century, highly educated women had become a non-controversial aspect of at least certain segments of elite society. They modestly yet confidently discussed both cultural and political issues with prominent male scholars. Cf.: Rowe, China’ s Last Empire, pp108f. However, after 1840 during the mid- and late nineteenth century, 30 to 45 percent of the men, and two to ten percent of the women in China knew how to read and write. This group included the fully literate members of the elite and those knowing only a few hundred characters. Cf.: Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy, 140. Therefore, highly educated women constituted a very small social group. They were exceptions rather than a sign of female liberation. 68 More details about this political process in imperial China cf.: Qian, The gain and loss, 102–105. See also: Bo, History of the Chinese People, vol.2 (2008), 550–551.

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increasingly controlled and limited compared to his Western counterparts. It is not surprising that a study on friendship in ancient China concluded with an assessment that friendship in Chinese society was more “modern” than we are sometimes led to believe.69 More importantly, as the following section shows, due to the enforcement and rigidity of revised Confucian values, especially in the minds of the lower social classes and ordinary Chinese, another hierarchy outside family based on the so-called “four categories of people (四民)” made the social life of Chinese merchants particularly difficult. The protagonist of this book, Houqua, grew up in a “mature” period, when social relations were personalized and hierarchical. Inside his family and clan, he might have enjoyed a certain freedom, since he was the de facto head of his family and his firm. But outside, he was a merchant who belonged to the lowest social class. Therefore, in order to perceive Houqua’s social environment, it is necessary to envision the status of a merchant in early nineteenth century China.

2.2 A social rise of Chinese merchants? There have been two “commercial revolutions” in imperial China. The first one, also called the “medieval economic revolution”, spanned the Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279) Dynasties.70 The second one occurred during the late imperial period from the late Ming (ca. 1550–1644) to the “high Qing” (1680–1820).71 In particular, the eighteenth century was regarded as the “golden age” of commercial development of imperial China. Therefore, it is often assumed that the social position of Chinese merchants greatly advanced from approximately 1600, especially during the eighteenth century. It is not only the adherents of Marxist and Maoist philosophers in China proper,72 but also many Western historians and sinologists

69 Vervoorn, “Friendship in Ancient China,” 30. 70 Cf. Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past, 172–178. 71 Lufrano, Honorable Merchants, 24. 72 For more than half a century now, the thorny question has remained: Why did China not industrialize like Great Britain in the eighteenth century and Japan in the nineteenth century? In other words, why did China not develop into a capitalist country? Mao Zedong once gave a response to this saying that there were already capitalist sprouts in China. If there had been no invasion of Western capitalists in China in the nineteenth century, China would also have become a capitalist country one day. By this thesis of the social development of Chinese merchants and the interruption of this development by invasion in nineteenth century, Mao’s solution could be proven. Cf.: Yu, Yingshi 1987, 57. Till today the facts regarding the emergence of capitalism in imperial China are very controversial. According to David Faure, capitalism arose quite early in China, no later than the fifteenth century. But the Chinese imperial state

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who are convinced of an extraordinary development or even a social rise of Chinese merchants during the eighteenth century. According to various studies, the social position of Chinese merchants did advance during the eighteenth century in multiple ways. However, this advancement must be understood in its context and keeping in mind the limitations that it came with. This section details the commercial development and the social position of merchants in late imperial China, primarily during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Due to the increasing importance of commerce, the role of merchants became important in economic sectors as well as in ideology and literature. According to the social hierarchy that existed at the time, which was based on the so-called “four categories of people (四民)”, Confucian literati including the bureaucrats (士) represented the highest social class, followed by peasants (农), craftsmen (工), and finally merchants (商) at the bottom. The reason for the low social position of merchants can be traced back to Confucianism, according to which the gentry was oriented towards justice, whereas a nasty person, such as a merchant, seeks profit.73 However, since the sixteenth century, some leading thinkers like Gu Xiancheng (顾宪成 1550–1612) had denied a separation of justice and profit (义利 离), and preferred a unification of the two (义利合).74 Therefore, a positive image of merchants can be found in literature. During the Qing Dynasty, popular or vulgar literature (通俗文学), especially novels, reached their peak popularity in imperial China. In such popular literature, instead of having historical figures as protagonists, merchants became the most important characters in the stories.75 This reflected a fusion between high culture (中原文化) and popular culture, which also led to a fusion between the literati class and the merchant class.76

abolished it and turned to patronage. Later, during the nineteenth century, even Chinese banking, which seemed to be developed, did not help the predominance of share-holding operations in business to create the investment environment for steam-based industrial and commercial development. Cf.: Faure, “Commercial Institutions,” 93. 73 Original in Chinese: “君子喻于义，小人喻于利” Confucius. Analects. Book IV, On Moral (论语，里仁). https://ctext.org/analects/li-ren/zhs (Accessed 17. Feb. 2019) 74 Yu, “The interactivities”, 181. However, it might be important to mention that, despite the negative attitude of Confucianism toward merchants, the social hierarchy of the “four categories of people” was not that strict at the very beginning. According to Ho Ping-ti (何炳棣), during the West Han Dynasty (206 BC – 8 AD) capitalist merchants, money-lenders and industrialists not only defied sumptuary laws by conspicuous consumption but traveled with large retinues and were treated almost as social equals by the vassal kings and marquises. Cf.: Ho, The Ladder of Success, 42. This shows again how hierarchies were strengthened over the course of time. 75 Cf.: Yu, “The social and cultural development,” 159. 76 Yu, “The social and cultural development,” 158–159.

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Beside literature, there were various other factors that helped elevate the literati and merchant classes and contributed to the “social rise” of the merchants. The most crucial one was the “inter-exchange” between Confucian literati and the merchants. On the one hand, there was a popular slogan during the Qing Dynasty: “waiver of Confucianism, begin with commerce (弃儒就贾)”, which speaks of a pattern among many Confucian scholars, especially those who could not obtain a position in government, to become merchants.77 On the other hand, during the eighteenth century, it became much more common for a rich merchant family to join the class of Confucian literati. Either the merchant himself purchased a title so that he became officially a Confucian bureaucrat, or his son, after years of Confucian education financed by his family, passed the imperial exam (科举) and became a government official. Such bureaucrats with purchased titles, or even officials in government with merchant backgrounds, would have been willing and able to reroute the state policy in favor of a social rise of merchants. In summary, there were indeed many factors indicating an advancement of the social position of Chinese merchants in late imperial China, especially during the eighteenth century as the Qing economy reached its culmination. However, as Yu Yingshi (余英时) once wrote, this advancement influenced mostly society (or the public sphere) and culture (社会与文化), and hardly had any impact on the state policy (政治).78 Nevertheless, it is the state policy, which is the most relevant indication for social advancement. Therefore, the advances in society did not necessarily mean an authentic “social rise”. There are certain indisputable facts, which made the social rise of merchants quite difficult. Firstly, despite great commercial development, the Qing economy remained overwhelmingly agrarian, with 95% of the population still living in villages and market towns.79 In contrast, by the sixteenth century, England had almost half of the state income coming from taxes on domestic commerce.80 However, 72.6% of the Qing state income in 1766 was still based

77 By the end of the fourteenth century, the population was ca. 65 million. Around 1600, this number more than doubled to ca. 150 million. However, the number of government officials did not increase accordingly. The competition in a state exam must have been fierce as we can gather from a popular saying from the sixteenth century: “One of ten scholars can be successful, whereas nine of ten merchants can be successful (士而成功也十之一， 贾而成功也十之 九)”. Ho, Ping-ti 1959, 264 and Yu, “The interactivities”, 164. 78 Cf.: Yu, “The interactivities,” 178. 79 Lufrano, Honorable Merchants, 26. 80 Pearson, “Merchants and States,” 47.

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on agrarian taxes.81 For the Qing state, the peasants were more important for the stability of the state than the merchants. Secondly, the number of the wealthy merchants, who could really afford to buy a position in government, was extremely limited. From 1644 to 1801 for example, there were altogether 180 salt merchants who were wealthy enough to afford official titles,82 which amounts to about 1.15 salt merchants per year on average. In Canton, thousands of merchants worked directly or indirectly in the Canton trade during the eighteenth century. But only around ten or less had an official title. Additionally, since it was difficult to pass the imperial exam (科举) during the eighteenth century, only a small number of children from wealthy merchant families were able to get a position in the government. In Houqua’s family for instance, none of his sons had passed the imperial exam, even though all of them had Confucian education and possessed titles that they had purchased. More importantly, the possession of such a title did not necessarily guarantee an administrative position or the power that came with it, but only the “honor” of such a title (虚衔).83 The majority of Chinese merchants were still far away from positions of power. Beside the facts mentioned above, the essential hindrance against a social rise of Chinese merchants was because of state policy and Confucian ideology. In one of the brochures or “merchant manuals (士商要览)” of the late Ming Dynasty, there are three important principles laid out for merchants to unquestioningly follow: 是官当敬; 倚官势，官解则倾; 少入公门，毋观囚罪84 Respect all the government officials; Rely on the power of the official authorities or officials, who were expected to regulate problems; Enter the government office as seldom as possible. Do not watch any criminals.

This indicates not merely respect and distance towards government officials, but also the fear and insecurity that merchants experienced. This fear can be 81 Zhou, finance and economy of late Qing, 29. At least until the Qing Dynasty’s final half century, all non-agrarian sources of government revenue remained but a small fraction of the take from the land tax. Rowe, China’ s Last Empire, 44. 82 Shen, “Protection and control,” 22. 83 This is also why Houqua, who held a very high ranking official title, was not treated as an equal by the local officials who possessed the administrative power. Cf.: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton,101. Such sales of civil service degrees or official positions (most often nominal ones without power) did not aim to benefit the merchant’s interests, but were carried out to finance the state’s impressive system of relief granaries in each locality. Cf.: Rowe, China’ s Last Empire, 44. 84 Quoted from: Ma, The change of merchants’ spirits, 20. (My English translation)

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traced to three reasons. Firstly, imperial Chinese society was a “minimally regulated economic environment”.85 There were hardly any concrete legal regulations regarding business operations. Until 1903, there was no commercial department in the government in China that could represent the concerns of the merchant class. In case of a dispute in business, it was the local official who was responsible for making a judgement. Under such circumstances, the process of regulation of commercial matters was based heavily on the personal relationships that merchants had with local officials.86 In contrast to the merchants in Europe at the time, who had representatives that argued for their interest in parliament and could even affect legislation, the Chinese merchants often had to appeal to local officials through bribery and social organizations like guilds, which were usually controlled by the state.87 Secondly, in some studies it has been argued that there was improvement in the political situation for merchants during the Qing Dynasty.88 While it is true that the Qing policy in favor of merchants seemed to be more tolerant compared with that of the Ming Dynasty, a comparison of the state policy in Qing China and England can easily demonstrate how the Qing policy was a far stretch from promoting the interests of merchants. While the English government in the eighteenth century favored the side of industrial enterprises to protect merchants from social unrest, the contemporary Qing government prioritized calming peasants first, especially in case of peasant rebellions, to stabilize the situation at an expense of the merchants.89 Therefore, the merchants in Qing China enjoyed only situational support, or what could be considered a blessing of the emperor and his bureaucrats. Agriculture was still regarded as fundamental (本) whereas commerce was secondary or even came last (末).90 As Susan Mann wrote: “State policies protecting and fostering traders’ activities thus aimed not at improving the status of merchants, but at preserving the agrarian social order. Traders were integral parts of this order only insofar as they were able to shun the sphere called profit-seeking.”91

85 Lufrano, Honorable Merchants, 1. 86 Cf.: Zhang, “The perception,” 101. 87 In the Qing Code (大清律例), not only the “contributions” for the government, but also activities of merchants in various areas are prescribed in details. Even to build a common house for regular meetings of a commercial guild or organization needed a permission of government at first. Cf.: Shen, “Protection and control,” 24. 88 Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 132 and Naquin and Rawsky, Chinese society, 26–27. 89 Concrete examples cf.: Hung, “Agriculture Revolution,” 579. 90 Cf.: Brook, “The Merchant Network,” 172. 91 Mann, Local Merchants, 20.

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Thirdly, the financial burden of merchants proved that the merchants’ life did not become easier. Commercial taxes were only a small portion of the whole state income of the Qing. Indeed, as Pomeranz noted, the Chinese merchants were largely spared the problem with expropriation, which occurred quite often in Europe when the European monarchs defaulted on their loans.92 However, the financial burden of Chinese merchants cannot be found in such official records, but came from the unofficial charges or “donations”, which were often required by local officials and necessary for local governance.93 These charges could vary and be quite high. From 1773 to 1842, for example, the Hong Merchants in Canton had “voluntarily” donated at least 130,000 taels of silver per year.94 Among them, Houqua had donated officially from 1806 until 1842 more than 1,6 million taels of silver.95 Additionally, local officials often required unexpected and unregulated donations, so that merchants could not calculate and protect their capital. The problems with debt that the Hong Merchants in Canton had are an excellent example of this. In 1771, the Hong Merchants established an account called the “Consoo Fund (行用)”, and all the Hong Merchants were required to contribute to this account from which official donations and charges could be paid. Since it was a fixed amount charged to each of them equally, the Hong Merchants could calculate their budgets more easily. However, the local officials became gradually dependent on the Consoo Fund. They saw it as a source that could be tapped whenever funds were needed and it was not long before the demand outweighed the supply, and the Hong Merchants were again accumulating debts.96 Even certain foreign traders in Canton noticed the difficult situation of their Chinese business partners. In 1830, an American trader in Canton wrote: [The Hong Merchants] are controlled by the will of the officers of government, and his control is so strict that the situation of a hong merchant is not at all desirable: the domination of all the officers of government, and the large sums they are made to pay, under any and every pretext, make the situation one of thorough mortification.97

92 Pomeranz, The great divergence, 169–170. 93 Due to the lack of financial resources, local government officials must find unofficial sources themselves. Extorting merchants was one of the methods they used to secure funds. Moreover, such unofficial “contributions” were also an important source of additional income for corrupt officials. 94 Xiao, “Study of Cohong System,” 39–40. 95 Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 46. 96 Van Dyke, The Canton Trade, 100 and Morse, Chronicles, Volume II (1926), 361. 97 Slade, Late of Canton, 14.

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Considering the fear that merchants had and their dependence on officials, it was a requirement and a backup for long-term success in business to have somebody in government or at least a Confucian literati, who could speak with the government on an equal level on their behalf. Beside investing in joining the Confucian literati, the investment in agriculture was another way for merchants to secure their future. For example buying a piece of land or real estate so that a merchant could become a landlord was a tactic that was sometimes used. Unlike in Europe, a merchant family seldom retained their status and wealth for generations in imperial China: This was because they either they could not retain their capital, or their merchant status disappeared in next generation.98 It is noteworthy that there were barely any Confucian literati or bureaucrats who wished to change their status to that of the merchant class voluntarily.99 They had to join the merchant class unwillingly, because there was no other way to survive, for example after many attempts and failed exams. Besides the social situation of the merchants, their personal experience of this situation and their self-esteem is also important. The temptation that rich merchants faced to change their social status or to escape their social status indicate that it was not desirable to be a merchant in imperial China. This is also due to the Confucian social value-monolith. Unlike the West where higher social goals could be reached through business, industry, specialized professions, art, the theater and even sports, in imperial China, particularly in Ming and Qing Dynasties, the ultimate goal of social status was attainable only through academic bureaucratic success.100 In other words, money or wealth in Ming-Qing China was not in itself an ultimate source of power. It had to be translated into official status to make its power fully felt.101 Thus, it is no wonder that wealthy merchants in Qing China, like the Hong Merchants, usually possessed purchased titles or ranks, which seemed to count more than their wealth. In 1728, as soon as a Hong Merchant named Cudgin became the first recorded case of a Hong Merchant buying himself out of the lowly merchant class into official ranks, he could not wait to retire immediately and get rid of his merchant status.102 Beside this obvious longing for status as Confucian literati, there are two factors that indicate the self-esteem of merchants. The first one is about the Confucian bureaucrats or government officials who were from merchant families. An American study of government officials during the Ming and Qing periods

98 Cf.: Hung, “Agriculture Revolution,” 577. 99 Hung, “Agriculture Revolution,” 578. 100 Ho, The Ladder of Success, 89–90. 101 Ho, The Ladder of Success, 51. 102 Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 107.

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with merchant family backgrounds shows that these officials very rarely mentioned their merchant background in their own writings. It seems that they tried to ignore or even conceal their origins.103 So it is questionable how far these officials in government really represented the merchant class. The second factor which indicates the low self-esteem of merchants can be observed in genealogies of merchant families: In the genealogies of the Hong Merchants’ families available today, there are no records about their career in business, and instead only records of their purchased titles showing their “success” in bureaucracy.104 Taking the genealogy of Houqua’s family as an example, nothing is mentioned about his business dealings and success in the Canton trade. The information given about him is only how many wives and sons he had and what official titles he had purchased. It seems that, even his own

Fig. 1: The front page of the Genealogy of Family Wu (伍氏合族总谱), courtesy of the Guangdong Provincial Zhongshan Library (广东省立中山图书馆). My photograph.

Fig. 2: Information about Houqua (伍秉鉴) from the Genealogy. Courtesy of the Guangdong Provincial Zhongshan Library (广东省立中山图 书馆). My photograph.

103 Smith, “Social Hierarchy,” 423. Cf. also: Hung, “Agriculture Revolution,” 578. 104 Tan, The Guard of Thirteen Hongs, 26.

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descendants preferred that he be remembered as a pseudo-literatus with purchased titles, rather than emphasize his identity as a merchant, which was purposely ignored. This again indicates that judging the social advancement of merchants in traditional Chinese society, is not only about evaluating their economic situation, but also their political and social life. If we consider the social environment as a whole as well as where merchants lived, it is not difficult to conclude that the quality of their social advancement was not enough to cause a social rise. Although they were economically or commercially strong, they still remained weak in politics compared to the class that wielded power. Moreover, due to the self-esteem of Chinese merchants, it is to be assumed that they were not ready or willing to claim power or to fight against Confucian ideology and bureaucratic hierarchy. While it might not be completely accurate to claim that the weakness of the merchant class was the reason why China did not industrialize during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is true that it an important obstacle in the implementation of various social reforms after 1840. It was not until their defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, that the Qing government began to be concerned about a structural change of governance in favor of merchants or commerce. In the same year, some high ranking government officials, such as Zhang Zhidong (张之洞, 1837–1909), requested that a central department of commerce be officially established, in order to regulate commercial affairs professionally and to resolve the distance between officials and merchants.105 After years of discussion, in 1903, a commercial ministry (商部) was finally founded for the first time in Chinese history. But the continued inefficiencies of the old Chinese bureaucracy ensured that this ministry could not contribute to the development of commerce. Many of the personnel in this ministry, including the minister himself – Zaizhen (载振, 1876–1947), a royal prince – had close relationships with the imperial family. Consequently, even after 1840, most of the Confucian officials were not ready to share their power with the merchant class or to give merchants a free hand. The newly founded provincial departments of commerce were not run by merchants or even by Confucian bureaucrats with merchant family backgrounds, but by local officials who had no experience in commerce and did not really stand for the rights of the merchants.106 Beyond that, the activities of merchants and their organizations were still under the rigorous control of the Qing government. Many applications for the foundation of new firms or commercial organizations were simply declined as

105 Zhu, “A research on the ministry of commerce,” 74–75. 106 Cf.: Zhu, “A research on the ministry of commerce,” 89.

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precautionary measures for protecting imperial authority rather than for commercial reasons.107 The forced financial “donations” by merchants were still in place and taken for granted by local officials.108 The rather dismal perception of the situation of Chinese merchants during the last 100 years of the imperial era can be sensed in a contemporary comment: 行之数年，敷衍如故，隔阂如故，[. . .] 依然官自官，商自商，而于整顿商务之端，仍如 隔十里之雾。109 After so many years, [the commercial reform] is still just for show, [the boundary between gentry and merchants] is still irreconcilable. [. . .] Officials remain as officials and merchants remain merchants. To rectify the governance of commerce seems still quite far away.

2.3 The Canton System and the Hong Merchants The Canton System, also called the Canton Trade System, is still an interesting research field in Chinese Studies. Without the Canton Trade, there would not have been any Hong Merchants in history, and Houqua might not have become one of the richest men in the world during the last thousand years. To understand how Houqua’s network of relations worked, it is important to understand the Canton System as his working environment. Broadly speaking, there were three main actors in this system: the government, specifically the officials of the Superintendents of Maritime Customs who were better known as the Hoppo110; the Hong Merchants; and the foreign traders. The Canton System worked as a balance among these parties with different interests. For the government, the Canton System was officially managed as a “Puffermechanismus (buffer mechanism)”111 with the fundamental principle that “Officials controlled the Chinese merchants, Chinese merchants controlled the foreigners (以官制商，以商制夷)”. This meant that the emperor and his Confucian bureaucrats did not have to manage the trade directly, and

107 Cf.: Pan, “The board of trade,” 64. 108 Pan, “The board of trade,” 64. 109 Shen Bao (申报), 19th June 1901, quoted from: Zhu, “A research on the ministry of commerce,” 91. (My English translation) 110 The word “Hoppo” probably comes from a Western (mis)pronunciation of Hubu (户部), the ministry of revenue, because the majority of taxes collected from the Customs at Canton were handed over to this ministry in Beijing. 111 This term is borrowed from: Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft, 114.

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yet did not lose their control. Moreover, this principle implied a hierarchy in the Canton System with government officials at the top, then the Chinese merchants, and finally the foreign traders at the bottom. The government official in charge of foreign trade at Canton was originally the aforementioned Hoppo. But after ca. 1760, the Province Governor (总督) – the highest local official at Canton – also wanted to share the profits.112 It is important for the trade management that a Hoppo had only one year’s tenure by the 1720s.113 So there was often not enough time for a new Hoppo to master his job before his tenure ended. Thus, a certain interdependence emerged between the Hoppos and their client-merchants, namely the Hong Merchants. Meanwhile, the Hoppos were involved in managing foreign trade themselves. In many Western documents, the Hoppos in Canton during the early phase before 1760 were often characterized as commercially pragmatic. For instance, while an EIC ship “Macclesfield” had an unpleasant meeting in 1700 with the local officials at Amoy – a concurrent seaport for foreign trade – it was received with great benignity at Canton. The Captain of this ship noticed that the Hoppo had learned “doubtless from his shrewd Cantonese advisers, that the foreign trader must be lured on, and not frightened away by extortionate demands at the threshold; and without pressure, he abated considerably his claims for measurement dues.”114 Although such communication between government officials and foreign traders was officially to be avoided, the Hoppo was often pragmatic and flexible. After ca. 1760, it seemed that the Hoppos were not dependent anymore and worked with the Governors hand in hand. After the 1720s, they continued the tendency to distance Confucian officials from foreigners. However, this practice insu-

112 Since the Hoppo was often a Manchu Bannerman and directly supervised by the Imperial Household Department (内务府), there was a rivalry between Hoppos and other local officials, especially the Governor, sometimes also Viceroys. This rivalry was especially open in the first half of Canton trade era up to the 1760s, and also reflected the traditional rivalry between the Han Chinese bureaucrats, who attained their career positions through the imperial examinations, and the Manchu favorites, whose appointment was a sign of influence in the inner court. From 1685 until about 1760, the court tried several times to strengthen the Hoppo’s power, but without success. Cf.: Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 193–208. 113 Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 196. A cardinal principle of Qing administration was that a field official was never allowed to serve in his home district or even province. In the system of checks and balances he was never paired with or adjacent to a relative or even fellow provincial. Rowe, China’ s Last Empire, 38–39. 114 Morse, H. B. 1926, Chronicles, Volume I, 99–100.

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lated them not only from the bother of the trade and from the lowly merchants, but also from the valuable experiences in dealing with the realities of trade and building relationships.115 But regardless of who was in charge of the Canton Trade, there were two concerns to address: peace in the region and increasing the revenue to be paid to Peking. Foreign trade in Canton thus needed to increase, and every person involved had to be under the control of local officials. That was why all the Chinese merchants, Macao Pilots,116 linguists (Chinese translators), etc. were officially licensed. The second group in the Canton System were the Hong Merchants – the client-merchants of the Hoppo or governor. The tradition of the Hongs at Canton can be traced back to the Sui Dynasty (581–618).117 The Chinese word “Hong (行)” originally referred to something resembling the medieval European merchant guild. At Canton, a Hong was equivalent to a trading house or family firm, which could do business with both Chinese and foreign traders. A Hong Merchant was a major member, usually the head of such a firm. Soon after the establishment of the Customs at Canton (粤海关), the merchants favored by local officials in Canton were chosen to establish the famous “Thirteen Hongs”, representing the Qing government and authorized to trade with foreigners. Though the number of Hongs did not always remain thirteen, but varied from seven to over twenty,118 they are still called the “Thirteen Hongs” today as a convention. These Hong Merchants were the only ones officially recognized by the government and were authorized to trade with foreigners on a large scale.119 In 1720, the Hong Merchants set up a cartel called “Cohong” (公行), in order to organize foreign trade more efficiently and manipulate prices for more profits. Soon after, this organization was controlled by the government. From then on, the Cohong consisting of the registered Hong Merchants had a de facto monopoly over foreign trade.120 During the decades from about the 1720s to the 1760s, the role of the Hong Merchants transformed greatly. More responsibilities were 115 Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 210–211. 116 They guided foreign shops through the narrow water way into the port of Canton. 117 Liang, The Thirteen Hongs of Canton, 346. 118 Liang, The Thirteen Hongs of Canton, 358–359. and Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, 53. 119 Beside the Hong Merchants, there were other Chinese merchants working “outside” the Canton System, also called “Shopmen”, who were permitted to retail small personal articles to the foreign traders. Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, 53. But since these Shopmen are beyond the focus of this study, they are not listed here as major actors in the Canton System. 120 Hunter, The Fankwae at Canton, 34.

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transferred from Hoppos or governors to Hong Merchants as a way for the government officials to cope with the expansion of foreign trade and the rise in the number of foreigners.121 As a result, the Hong Merchants functioned increasingly as a quasi-official governing body in addition to their mercantile role. This role of being a quasi-official governing body became more important after the 1740s, as the Hong Merchants became responsible as “Security Merchants (保商)” for every ship which came to Canton, and were in charge of collecting customs duties on every article of cargo and all the foreigners on this ship.122 Often a Security Merchant enjoyed a monopoly of the business with the ship he secured, but he also assumed responsibility for the conduct of its foreign crew and the Chinese personnel who served these ships.123 If any foreigner broke Chinese law, his Security Merchant was questioned first and even punished.124 Later, the Security Merchants even had to pay the customs duties for “their” foreigners. This system of security originated in the Baojia-System (保甲) of the Qing administration – a system of responsibilities for members in communities at different levels.125 In the period from ca. 1760 to 1842, the Hong Merchants assumed more duties. They settled prices, purchased and sold goods, guaranteed duties, restrained foreigners, negotiated with them, monitored for smuggling, and leased factories or storehouses to foreign traders. They also had to manage all the aspects of a banking business, act as interpreting agencies, and support the militia and educational institutions.126 After 1800, many Hong Merchants, especially those who were seriously in debt, claimed that they could not take on such heavy responsibilities anymore. However, just like the officials in traditional China, a Hong Merchant was not allowed to retire. After ca. 1760 this regulation was enforced more strictly. Between 1808 and his death in 1843, Houqua tried repeatedly to

121 Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 12. 122 Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, 53. 123 The Chinese personnel were the linguists, the compradors and the Hoppo’s minions who measured ships, weighed silver and recorded the proceedings. They were the ship guards and the boatmen. All of them were licensed by Hoppo. 124 Original in Chinese: “洋商承保夷船，[中略] 如有违法，唯保商试问” in: Customs Record of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), 566. 125 According to the Baojia-System, all Chinese households were to be registered in communities (bao) of 1000 households; each such community was divided into 10 sub-communities (jia). For every community at every level there was a superintendent selected from this community, who took responsibility for all members of his community and helped with governing, such as collecting taxes. For more details, cf.: Spence, Chinas Weg in die Moderne, 160. 126 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, vol.1 (1953), 51.

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retire, without success.127 Puankhequa II (1755–1820 潘有度 Pan Youdu) even bribed the local officials with 100,000 Taels of silver to no avail.128 This illustrates the undesired life of a Hong Merchant as being involuntary quasi-official. This study takes a closer look at a Hong Merchant’s awkward position later in the book. The third main group in the Canton System were the “secured” foreign traders, mainly Europeans and Americans. There were generally two types of foreign traders in Canton. The first type was represented by the chartered companies which were organized by merchants and designed specifically for trade, mainly maritime, such as the EIC (East India Company) and the VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie). The other type of foreign traders were private merchants or “free” traders, who were not hugely patronized or protected by their homeland. Before 1830, the merchants of chartered companies dominated foreign trade in China and were the major business partners of the Hong Merchants. As mentioned, merchants in traditional Chinese society were at the lowest position under Confucian bureaucrats or literati, peasants, and craftsmen. Theoretically, foreigners possessed an even lower position compared to the Chinese merchants, because they did not belong to the circle of Chinese culture and thus were uncultured. In Canton, foreign traders were often called “Fan Kwae”, namely foreign devil, who were totally isolated from Chinese civilization. Not only their trade, but also their daily lives were monitored. Their living space was limited to the so called “factories”, which were individual properties of Hong Merchants, and were rented to foreign traders as their residences and warehouses.129 After the affair of James Flint in 1757 and 1759,130

127 As will be mentioned later, Houqua did retire officially in 1827, and allowed his son to take charge of the firm “Ewo Hong”. However, during his “retirement” Houqua was not really left alone, especially with regard to foreign affairs. 128 Xiao, “Study of Cohong System,” 37. 129 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 24. More about the lives of foreigners in Canton see chapter 4.1. 130 In 1755 and 1756, an English trader of the EIC, James Flint, traded several times at Ningbo without the interference of any Hong Merchants, which bothered the local officials and Emperor Qianlong. This incident prompted Qianlong in 1757 to issue two imperial edicts officially restricting Chinese foreign trade to Canton, and explicitly forbidding English traders from trading elsewhere. However, in 1759, Flint headed a mission to Beijing again to seek redress for a long list of grievances suffered by the British merchants at Canton, such as the corruption of the officials and the monopoly of the Hong Merchants. Although Qianlong undertook certain sanctions, the long-term result was the “Regulations for guarding against foreigners (防范外夷条例)” in 1760, which enforced strict and severe restrictions on the life of

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the control by the Qing government on foreign traders in Canton became even more strict. For instance, they were prohibited from spending the winter in the provincial capital; Chinese merchants were prohibited from borrowing capital from foreign traders and foreigners were forbidden from hiring Chinese as their servants privately. Furthermore, every foreign ship had to be examined; no women, guns, spears, or firearms of any kind were allowed to be brought to the factories.131 Due to this administrative hierarchy with the government officials at the top and foreign traders at the bottom, the Hong Merchants who acted as the middlemen were obviously central to the Canton System, for they were decisive in both the hierarchical relationships. They needed to be loyal clients of local officials as well as patrons of foreign traders. However, after 1800, the Hong Merchants were no longer able to keep both these patronage relations working and, as the study explores later, became the clients of foreign traders due to their dependence on foreign credit. After that, the Canton System unavoidably began its descent till its end in 1842. The development of the Canton System can be summarized in following steps: In 1685, Customs at Canton (粤海关) was established. Meanwhile, selected Hong Merchants were authorized to trade with foreigners. In 1720, Cohong was established to further monopolize foreign trade. Between the 1730s and the 1750s, the system of Security Merchants was established, and the Hong Merchants became quasi-officials. In 1757 Chinese foreign trade was restricted to Canton. In 1759 new regulations regarding foreigners were issued. In 1834 the EIC withdrew from Canton. In 1840, the First Opium War between Great Britain and China began. Two years later the Hong Merchants paid their last “contribution” of two million dollars in reparations for the war.132 Particularly after the restrictions on foreign trade to Canton, the number of foreign ships anchored at Canton increased more quickly than before, especially after 1770.133 It thus became difficult for the Hong Merchants to manage the trade machine and extend their control over all foreigners. Moreover, the amount of

foreigners. For more details cf.: Wang, Records of Appeasement, 110. Cf.: Cao, “A further study on the Canton System,” 88. 131 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 28–30. Fu, Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relation, 224–226. 132 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 45. 133 Between 1750 and 1760 around 15 foreign ships on average traded annually at Canton, and in the 1770s there were around 30. After 1817, there were often more than 100 foreign ships trading at Canton, but most them were not from the EIC anymore. Cf.: Liang, Customs Record of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 24, 484–488.

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capital required by the Hong Merchants to continue their business also increased. A direct reason for the decline of the Canton System was the financial difficulties experienced by the Hong Merchants. In 1779, four of the eight Hong Merchants were either entirely ruined or seriously in debt.134 However, the financial crises of the Hong Merchants were, to a great extent, due to the structural problems and the inability of the Qing government to adapt to the development of world trade. Regarding the reasons for the decline of the Canton System, the EIC was of the opinion that the greater part of the debts owed by the Hong Merchants was caused “by the oppression of the Mandareens”.135 Apart from vanity and extravagance in lifestyles, miscalculations in trade136 and other investments137 of the Hong Merchants, the various financial needs of the Hoppos and other government officials were indeed one of the most important factors leading to the decline of the Canton System. Furthermore, these financial needs also had to contend with corruption, an old problem in Chinese governance, especially at the local level. In Canton, corruption was particularly widespread, for the place was far from the central government. It was quite easy for a Hoppo or governor to keep unreported taxes or a part of the “contributions” which the Hong Merchants paid to Peking for himself.138 Between 1725 and 1728, the governor of Canton, Yang Wenqian (杨文乾), who also held the position of Hoppo, siphoned off 150,000 Taels of silver.139 Considering that a Hoppo earned officially only 3000 taels of silver per annum,140 the sum which Yang stole was remarkable. A century later, the corruption among the local officials in Canton seems to have reached another dimension. The governor in Canton Li Hongbin (李鸿宾), who was in charge of foreign trade in the late 1820s, established a system of “patrol boats (巡船)” to monitor opium smuggling. However, it is revealed later that each patrol boat under the command of the governor and other local officials

134 Morse, Chronicles, Volume II (1926), 45. 135 Morse, Chronicles, Volume II (1926), 44. 136 Xiao, “Study of Cohong System,” 44. 137 Usually a rich merchant could invest in two ways. The first was Juanguan (捐官), i.e. by means of financial contributions to obtain an official title, so that he could be formally one of the gentry or a bureaucrat. Another way was investment in agriculture, by buying land. The latter method of investment was quite popular, since the merchant could become a landowner. But both investments could not enhance merchants’ capital for trade. Cf.: Huang, Qichen 1985, 226–234. For Houqua for instance, a title for his son cost him in 1842 10,000 Dollars. Cf.: Houqua to Robert B. Forbes and John M. Forbes on December 23rd 1842, in: HL, MHS. 138 Xiao, “Study of Cohong System,” 38. 139 Xiao, “Study of Cohong System,” 39. 140 Liang, Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 16, 323.

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received a monthly bribe of 360,000 taels to “overlook” the illicit trade.141 This corruption in officialdom at Canton was not new in the Qing Dynasty. A native scholar in Canton in the seventeenth century wrote that the corruption among the bureaucrats in Canton was so well known that anyone who obtained a position in Canton began to collect bribes before he began his work.142 It was a well-known fact that almost all officials working in Canton Customs were corrupt.143 In addition, what made the corruption through the Canton System “special” when compared to conventional corruption, was that even foreign traders had joined in the process. Sometimes they had to give “extra presents” to the Hoppo, so that their ships could depart on time.144 In 1771, the EIC once succeeded in breaking the monopoly of Cohong by bribing the Governor with 100, 000 taels of silver.145 Although the Qing laws against corruption were clear and severe, the Hong Merchants, the officials, and even the emperors realized that most infractions were never prosecuted. In fact, corruption was necessary for the fiscal system of the Qing empire to survive, since it was largely fueled by informal “donations” and customary fees. Throughout the Qing Dynasty, officials were dependent on various informal sources of revenue that existed within the grey area of corruption to run their administration, apart from their personal interests. Therefore, corruption was always a serious dilemma for the Qing emperors. They did not want to and could not afford to crack down on corruption.146 A local official at Canton, who was generally not from the region, had a tenure of only a few years, during which bribes served to satisfy his desires before he was sent elsewhere, used for the upkeep of his relationships with other officials and the local gentry, and was also used to aid his own administrative activities.147 But for the Hong

141 Liang, The Thirteen Hongs of Canton, 367. 142 Original in Chinese: “无论官之大小，一捧粤符，糜不欢欣过望， [中略] 其人至官，未及 视事，即以掘金为事”. In: Qu, New Language, Volume 9, 303–304. 143 Xiao, “Study of Cohong System,” 39. 144 Morse, Chronicles, Volume I (1926), 135–136. 145 But in 1775 the Cohong was established again. Xiao, “Study of Cohong System,” 34. 146 A widespread campaign against corruption would not only have endangered the fiscal foundations of the empire, but also would have decimated the ranks of the civil service, alienated the bureaucracy, and challenged the legitimacy of the Dynasty in the eyes of the people. However, since the majority of civilians did not directly share in the benefits of corruption, the popular perception of corruption was far less tolerant. For more about the economic, political, and cultural “functions” of corruption in Qing society, cf.: Park, “Corruption in EighteenthCentury China,” 975–985. 147 From ca. 1760 till the end of the Canton System, the Qing government was not able to transform the administration of foreign trade, or to increase the number of personnel in order

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Merchants that bribes that they had to pay was the crucial reason they struggled with a lack of capital. Often, they accrued foreign debts with high interest and got themselves into a vicious cycle of credit.148 Often, more worrying than the debts was the Qing administration’s ways of handling the repayment of debts. While the government was quite lenient, tolerant and accommodating towards foreigners, it was extraordinarily harsh towards Chinese merchants when it came to the collection of debts.149 When a Chinese merchant failed to repay his debts, not only would he be punished, but his individual debts would be passed on to his business partners, his family, and other Hong Merchants collectively. In other words, a Hong Merchant’s debts not only caused his own ruin, but also the ruin of other Hong Merchants. Occasionally, the foreign debts were even repaid from customs revenues, because a Chinese merchant’s defaulting on debts was regarded as having brought shame on the entire Chinese body politic and exposed the government and the people to ridicule by the barbarians (“贻笑外夷”).150 Unfortunately, Hong Merchants enjoyed fewer protections from their own government than foreigners did. Chinese merchants were forbidden from going abroad, so it was unlikely that they would be able to appeal effectively in a foreign debtor’s court to collect foreign debts. In the early nineteenth century, a Hong Merchant named Conseequa (潘长耀), who had given extensive loans to Americans at Canton and who was deeply in debt to the EIC since 1801, tried desperately to recover a huge sum of credit owed him by certain Americans. Despite hiring an American lawyer and even managing to send some Chinese (illegally!) to the United Sates to represent him, he failed to retrieve any significant

to cope with the increase of trade. Therefore, the Hoppos in Canton had to secure illegal financial resources to aid their own administrative activities. Cf.: Chen, The role of Chinese merchants, 152 and 169–177. 148 In 1780, a Hong Merchant (张天球) was transported to Eli (伊利) in Northwest China as a penalty for the debts owed to foreigners. He owed his English creditor only 100, 000 taels of silver in 1760. After 20 years, the sum increased to 438, 000 taels, including interest. The emperor Qianlong decided to return not only the original sum, but also twice the amount of the interest to the English creditors. Cf.: Liang, Customs Record of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 26, 506f. 149 Van Dyke, The Canton Trade, 97. 150 See for instance an official report from the governor in Canton to the Emperor Qianlong on August 18th 1791, in Selected Imperial Documents concerning the Thirteen Hongs of Canton (清宫广州十三行档案精选), 54.

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amount.151 The Qing government saw no need to establish a systematic civil or commercial law or a forum in which foreign nationals and Chinese citizens could present civil claims against each other.152 As a result, the Chinese merchants, though authorized to trade by government, could not keep their own capital. In conclusion, the social structure gave Chinese merchants no other choice other than to place themselves under the control of government officials, while engaging in foreign trade on a massive scale, and acting as quasi-officials. The social hierarchy of the time gave Confucian bureaucrats the right to organize and infringe upon foreign trade, instead of protecting it. In fact, the apparent balance between the Chinese government, merchants, and foreign traders could exist – if at all – only before 1759, as the bureaucratization and integration of the Canton System in the Qing administration was not complete. As Cheong once commented: “the Hong Merchants paid for favors in the first half of the period and for infringements, waivers and evasion of regulations in the second half of the century”.153 Nevertheless, during this rather unfavorable state of affairs for the Hong Merchants, certain new conditions emerged in the Canton Trade after ca. 1800, as Houqua began his career. Firstly, the Americans entered the Canton Trade in late 1785 and majorly expanded their business in the early nineteenth century.154 This provided new potential partners and the possibility of more profit. However, American traders were not strongly equipped with credit, unlike the EIC. Whereas in a partnership with the EIC, Hong Merchants could receive a part of the payment in advance and the process of conducting business was transparent, doing business with the Americans meant taking more risks, since the Hong Merchants had to wait for at least one year before they could get their credit back. Probably due to the risk factors involved, some Hong Merchants

151 In 1804, he initiated action in Federal court to collect on notes made at Canton in 1801, and in 1805 he commenced several new actions based on small notes made at Canton in 1800 and 1801. Late in 1807, he handed more overdue notes to Benjamin C. Wilcocks at Canton, with instructions to bring them to America and collect the amounts due from his debtors. For more details cf.: Grant, “Hong Merchant Litigation,” 50–54. 152 Edwards, “The Old Canton System,” 368 and Grant, “Hong Merchant Litigation,” 49. 153 Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 232. 154 Actually, the Chinese-American tea trade steadily increased after 1785. Exports from Canton rose from 880,100 pounds in that year to 3,093,200 pounds in 1790 and 5,665,967 pounds in 1800. The annual average of American ships visiting Canton grew from 74 in the years from 1785 to 1800, to 236 from 1801 to 1811. Hao, “Chinese Teas to America,” 13.

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like Puankhequa had very few business dealings with the Americans.155 There were some merchants who failed in credit relations with the Americans, such as Conseequa. Houqua made use of the American newcomers successfully. Already in 1801, the EIC noted that Houqua could not provide them Nankeens under the same conditions as the previous season due to the “increased demand of the Americans”.156 Secondly, with American participation, the opium traffic flourished after ca. 1800 more than ever. The boom of the drug business facilitated the circle of cash and the replacement of specie (mostly silver) by international credit.157 For instance, if a Boston trader could establish his credit with a merchant bank in London such as the Baring Brothers & Co., he might take some kind of interestbearing instrument like bills out to Canton, where he could sell it for silver to an opium trader, who wished to remit funds to London.158 This circle of international credit facilitated by opium traffic could be visualized as follows:

Baring Brothers & Co.

cash

Boston Trader

bill

bill bill

cash

Opium Dealer

cash

It cost money to ship, store and insure specie such as silver, while transfer of bills cost only interest. Therefore, a simple paper transaction could replace an entire branch of commerce. By using Downs’ words, this circulation “was a major breakthrough for the American China trade”.159 But, it was the opium traffic which transformed the London bill into cash and made this international credit circle work smoothly. As explored later in the book, although Houqua did not directly participate in the opium traffic, his business had benefited indirectly

155 In 1801 an American trader Sullivan Dorr mentioned in his letter to his brothers that Puankhequa “never has been in the skin way or done any American business”. Cf.: Sullivan Dorr to his brothers on July 4th 1801, in: Sullivan Dorr Papers, S1 B1 F1, RIHS. 156 IOR, Volume G/12/133, Consultation on March 17th 1801, 172. 157 Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/134, Consultation on October 5th 1801, 237. 158 Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 109–110. 159 Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 109.

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from the drug business due to his close partnership with the Americans and circle of international credits nursed by opium. These new conditions for the trading environment in Canton had certainly positively contributed to Houqua’s career. But his social network was more significant for his business than these new conditions and this is explored in the following chapters.

3 Houqua in his Chinese circles 3.1 A “Merchant with a Red Cap” In Qing China, the most successful merchants were called “merchants with a red cap (红顶商人)”. This red cap with the uniform which only government officials were allowed to wear, was the most important symbol of “guan (官)” or Confucian bureaucrat – the most honorable status in imperial Chinese society. This tradition of Chinese merchants to represent the purchased affiliation to the officialdom, dominated the thoughts of the Chinese merchants long before 1840. The Hong Merchants were not alone in this. As mentioned previously, the “Mandarin Cap & peacocks feather”, i.e. the red cap, was Houqua’s only “emblem of his worldly distinction” that he took with him, when he finally left this world. Another piece of evidence could be the portraits of the Hong Merchants, which served as personal gifts for their foreign friends or business partners. Though they had let go of certain traditional rules by gifting their portraits, the image they desired to portray to the foreigners was represented in their portraits – their status as officials with red caps.1 It seems that none of them were ready to accept their “real” status or willing to be honored as a merchant – including Houqua. Nevertheless, if asymmetry was the fundamental structure of a patronage relation, the loyalty of the clients towards their patrons should be the insurance to maintain this asymmetry. Unfortunately, Houqua’s loyalty and image in the time before the Opium War and the opening of Qing China was very negative. Not only the Qing government, but also most historians in China after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, considered the Hong Merchants of Canton as traitors to the motherland. Houqua, as one of the leading merchants, was the most notorious traitor, who helped foreign imperialists invade China.2 This chapter will reevaluate this point of view and reassess Houqua as a controversial historical figure, especially regarding his performance and fulfillment of loyalty in the Chinese context in the early nineteenth century. In order to shed light on Houqua’s behavior, general reports from the time, private comments and also several events, the details of which are recorded quite precisely by the EIC, are chosen here as examples.

1 More about the role of Hong Merchants’ portraits in their intercultural relationship with foreigners using the example of Houqua see section 4.2.4. 2 Cf. Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 55–57. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-003

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3.1.1 Prestige and inferiority In Western societies, wealth was generally helpful and beneficial for a merchant’s social life. But in traditional China it was impossible to expect the same. In Houqua’s entire life, his patronage relation towards local officialdom was dominated by his carefulness, timidity, fear, and stress.3 These qualities became even more obvious with the increase of his fortune during the late 1830s. So it is no wonder that in Robert Bennet Forbes’ personal diaries from 1838 till 1840, every time when he mentioned Houqua’s confrontation with the “mandarins” – be it due to a certain Chinese comprador or opium traffic or any other incidents – the standard description of Houqua was “frightened”, “exhausted” and “distressed”.4 Once Robert Bennet Forbes was so worried that he “fear these troubles [with the mandarins] will kill him”.5 Obviously it was never pleasant for Houqua to confront his official patrons. However, the prestige given to Houqua by official patrons remained important in Houqua’s entire social network. Just like all other Chinese merchants, he never seriously attempted to remedy his vulnerable and fearful situation in patronage. In contrast, he supported his patrons through official and private donations, purchasing of official titles for himself and his sons etc. At most he would bargain with local officials about the sum he should contribute, but not about if he would contribute.6 Beside the aforementioned 1.6 million taels of official donations, there were of course additional financial contributions from Houqua in the form of bribes and fulfilling personal demands by officials which were impossible to record.7 What is rather astonishing to observe here is not only the huge sum Houqua donated, but also his willingness to remain inferior and to be extorted. On April 23rd 1833, he wrote to John P. Cushing:

3 The word “timidity” was firstly mentioned by the EIC in 1811 to describe Houqua’s personality. It soon became the standard descriptor of character regarding Houqua in foreign sources. Cf.: IOR, Volume R/10/26, 21. 4 Forbes, Letters from China, 75, 98, 112 etc. 5 Forbes, Letters from China, 98. 6 An example for Houqua’s bargaining cf.: Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 36. 7 In early 1802 as Houqua had just taken charge of his dead brother Puiqua’s business, he had urged the EIC and “pressed for an additional advance in consequence of the numerous demands he had been exposed to by the renewal of his Hong Chops.” But the sum Houqua had to pay is not recorded. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/138, 95. Due to such unrecorded small but frequent demands, it is hard to know exactly how much a Hong Merchant like Houqua had to pay to maintain his patronage.

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May I as I trust you will always feel an interest in whatever relates to me, it will afford your pleasure to know that my no.4 son, in whose name is the Hong has within a few days received from the emperor the highest evidence of his favor, namely, a peacocks feather!!! In the last serious rebellion I made, in the name of my son a voluntary donation of a lac [100,000] of Taels with which proof of loyalty the emperor was much pleased & has bestowed this public honor; the greatest a subject can receive & for which the Roys & High mandarines often sigh in vain. I esteem this the happiest circumstance of my life. You are well aware that our present emperor is not only the wisest, but the best of wise.8

Since Cushing was a close friend of Houqua, who lived in Boston during the time as this letter was written, there was no need for Houqua to praise or satisfy the Chinese emperor – the highest patron – in this case. His joy for being rewarded, which cost 100,000 taels, must come from his heart. It is clear that not only was Houqua proud of the importance of this prestige, but also accepted being inferior and maintained faith in the social hierarchy and patronage of the time. This pride and joy had hopefully accompanied Houqua during the last months of his life, as an American trader Edward Delano observed in January 1843: The old man appeared gratified [. . .] he has received from the Emperor a peacocks feather & is permitted to wear the coral button – his rank is therefore high, and advanced as he appears, quite pleased – more so perhaps he cause his two sons received feathers at the same time – it is said that the feathers cost him 3 lacks [300,000] of Taels!9

Since both his prestige and inferiority were so firmly rooted in Houqua’s thought and patronage relation, the paradox between the two marked his entire life. Moreover, as will be illustrated in the following, in his fulfillment of his role as a Hong Merchant, this paradox influenced his behaviors.

3.1.2 The dark side of patronage: The civil foreign affairs It is to be noted that Houqua always tried to avoid facing the officialdom. Moreover, he even tried to limit or prevent meetings between Chinese officialdom and foreigners, since he would be held responsible if anything was to go wrong. In early 1842, as Houqua was informed of a possible meeting between Peter Parker (伯驾 1804–1888), an American missionary and physician living in Canton, and imperial commissioner Lin Zexu (林则徐), who was sent by the

8 Houqua to Cushing on April 23rd 1833, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–5, BL. 9 Edward Delano to Warren Delano on January 10th 1843, in: Delano Papers, container 32, FDR. Both Delano brothers were members of Russell & Co. and made enormous fortunes in Canton trade and opium trade. Warren Delano was a grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), the 32nd President of the United States.

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emperor to take charge of the anti-opium campaign, Houqua was so frightened that he intervened agitatedly. He implored Parker, if he should in the future be granted an interview with the commissioner, to limit his comments to medicine or politically harmless subjects like foreign custom.10 It seems that Houqua may have maneuvered successfully to prevent Parker from meeting the commissioner personally, as the imminent interview did not take place. Six weeks after speaking with Houqua, Peter Parker recorded in his journal that Lin’s subsequent requests to him were being channeled through Houqua.11 Houqua’s concerns were not to do with the possibility of intercultural communication and understanding, but he needed the assurance that nothing would cause local officials to be dissatisfied. However, not all dissatisfaction could be prevented by Houqua’s maneuver. The first foreign affair in which Houqua failed to avoid dealing with unpleasant local officialdom occurred on the January 1st 1805, in the early phase of his career. An EIC ship secured by him was caught by Chinese officials on its way leaving Canton that day, because they found 25 Chinese on board. Since Chinese law officially forbade emigration or going abroad,12 this incident made Houqua responsible for the illegal actions of “his” foreigners. Although the affair was terminated through a “compensation” demanded by the Hoppo on the next day,13 he was so seriously alarmed that his fear, expressed in his message to Mr. Dummond, the responsible official of the EIC, “nearly deprived him of all capacity to assist” Houqua.14

10 According to Parker’s memory, Houqua urged him: “trade you not understand. Opium ships you not understand.” Originally emphasized. Quoted after Gulick, Peter Parker and the Opening of China, 88. In fact, it was only Parker’s wish to meet Lin Zexu personally. Although Lin suffered heavily because of a hernia, he refused to be treated directly by Parker. Cf.: The Chinese Repository, Vol. VIII (1839–1840), 634–636. 11 Gulick, Peter Parker and the Opening of China, 88–89. 12 Liang, Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 17, 340. 13 According to the EIC, as this ship was discovered, “the Hoppo’s Officers disappointed in extorting a handsome bribe from the [Chinese] Compradore who had resisted the demand as being altogether ignorant of transaction.” Then, they decided to report the affair officially and it became an opportunity “either to their Master or to themselves, of requiring from Puiqua [i.e. Houqua] the Security Merchant even larger sum than had been to overlook the business in the first instance.” Finally, “Puiqua was prepared & willing to submit [the compensation].” Meanwhile “he nevertheless requested that Chunqua who was the Countryman & friend of the Mandarin might be solicited to interest himself in promoting the speedy termination of the affair.” Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/148, 49–52. 14 IOR, Volume G/12/148, 48. Even after the affair was terminated, Houqua still “complained in every strong terms of the Hong Merchants being so frequently involved by the neglect & inattention of the Commanders & declare that unless some forcible measure were adopted to

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Financial means was the standard way for the Hong Merchants to terminate such an unpleasant affair. For Houqua it was much more unpleasant to dissatisfy local officials than to pay for a quick and peaceful end. Unfortunately, not all affairs which involved Houqua could be solved so easily through financial compensation. One such uneasy event was the “London” affair in 1820 when Houqua was the Senior Hong Merchant and the one responsible for all matters concerning foreigners. In this event, due to its rather amoral “nature”, the committee of the EIC in Canton decided to keep the proceedings “as secret as possible”.15 3.1.2.1 The “London” Affair In the morning of November 29th 1820, Houqua informed the committee of the EIC in Canton that two days ago some Europeans had shot a Chinese at Whampoa.16 This news seemed to surprise the English, because neither the EIC nor the Hong Merchants had received any information upon it within these two days. Moreover, the incident was already known by local officialdom before Houqua could do anything to stop the process.17 Worse than the delay of information was that “[S]ome Chinese who was present when it took place immediately followed the Boats and having traced them alongside the Hon’ble Company’s Ship London.”18 After receiving the reports from this Chinese eyewitness, the Chinese deputy issued an edict on the November 29th to the Hong Merchants requiring a report. According to EIC’s secret records, the representation suggested by Houqua was: [. . .] this unfortunate affair was entirely accidental, by which means the officers of Government might be induced to heat it as such & to waive those unpleasant descriptions which in former & similar occasions have created so much trouble & embarrassment to the Company’s trade [. . .]19

prevent the repetition of similar infractions of the laws, it would be quite impractible for him or his colleagues to become Securities for our Ships.” Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/148, 50. 15 Consultation on Nov. 29th 1820, IOR, Volume G/12/221, 21. This affair was shortly mentioned in H. B. Morse’ “Chronicles”, Volume III, 377–380. But the details were recorded in the file of “Secret Consultations of Select Committee of Supercargoes”, in IOR, Volume R/10/27 (without page number). 16 The Whampoa anchorage (黄埔) was an intermediate station between Canton and Macao. 17 IOR, Volume G/12/221, 21. 18 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, November 19th 1820. 19 Also for the information and citations in the following paragraph:IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, November 19th 1820. In the reports of the EIC it is stated that on the November 27th 1820, an EIC ship “London”, with Mr. Pigott, the 5th officer, and six men, proceeded up a branch of the river some distance from the shipping, for the purpose of procuring water. During their passage up to the watering place, as appears from the seamen, they were assaulted with stones and were subjected to a lot of abusive language from the Chinese

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Meanwhile, Houqua requested his colleague Chunqua to use his influence on the responsible Chinese deputy, entreating him to state in his next official report upon the subject that the affair “was wholly accidental & to conceal the name of the Ship it known or suspected to which the Boats belonged.” Another Hong Merchant Goqua was sent by Houqua to Whampoa to ascertain the family of the deceased, and to effect such bribes to his relations to quell their clamors altogether or induce them to attest it was mere accident. Furthermore, Houqua was “sanguine”, since he considered that if the subject took the turn as he supposed, it might be also “comfortable” for the Chinese deputy. Nevertheless, he recommended the committee of EIC to appoint a conference with Chunqua next day and endeavor to influence him who was intimate with this deputy, in order to let the matter at rest. It is important to note that Houqua made Chunqua the person who had to deal with Chinese officialdom directly, so that he did not have to trouble his patron;20 In other words, the role which Houqua performed up to then was that of an advisor who made every effort to ascertain the intention and possible reaction of the deputy who was in charge. His central aim was to wrap up the matter quickly without angering the officialdom. After Chunqua’s rather fearful reaction on the next day, Houqua talked to the Chinese deputy privately on December 1st. He informed the committee that the deputy had not yet sent his representation to the government and thus the deposition had not yet been recorded. Meanwhile, he encouraged the English to continue using Chunqua’s influence. It is interesting that in Chunqua’s

on the banks of river. A ship’s musket had been unfortunately put into the boat and Mr. Pigott, in order to intimidate the Chinese, on one occasion discharged it, loaded with peas in the direction of a party consisting of men and boys who were thus irritating him. After an interval he loaded the gun with what is supposed he believed was a blank cartridge, and on another occasion of abuse and much pelting, he discharged it a second time so loaded, intending to fire it over the heads of the insulting parties. It appears he was not aware that he had struck any of the Chinese by these shots and it is stated by the seamen in the boat that they conceived no dangerous consequences had ensued. Having completed their watering trip, they returned late at night to the “London”. Cf.: Letter from the Select Committee at Canton to the Secret Committee of the Honourable Court of Directors on December 7th 1820, in: Reports from Committees, Volume VI, Appendix to the Report on the Affairs of the East India Company, Part II, China Papers, 101. 20 To trouble the local officialdom in such an awkward situation was not only unpleasant, but also dangerous. Though Chunqua had personal connections to the officialdom, he still had much to be concerned about. As the Committee of EIC, following the suggestion of Houqua, asked Chunqua the next day to influence the Chinese official, he expressed his fears and stated that “he would be unwilling to ensure the responsibility attendency an understatement of the case.” Cf.: IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, November 30th 1820.

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confrontation with Chinese officialdom he had the difficult task of persuading the deputy. But in Houqua’s dealing with the deputy, it seemed rather like a harmless talk and his task was only to get latest information. Moreover, he suggested that the EIC pay attention to another piece of information that three children were wounded at the same time that the sailor of “London” shot a Chinese man: information of this additional misfortune had reached the offices of Government & a Boat had been dispatched for these Children & bring them to Canton. Puiqua [alias Houqua] strongly advised our endeavoring to make it appear that this accident was unconnected with the former one, & if possible to prove it was not committed by the same party, for if this fact was substantiated, the case would appear more atrocious in the eyes of the Government & the embarrassments attending it would be considerably increased.21

In other words, the fact that three children were also wounded during this incident was to be presented as unconnected or even buried, in order to reduce the level of embarrassment in the eyes of the officialdom. It shows that the satisfaction of the officialdom was central in Houqua’s dealings morality and truth were also ignored in favor of keeping officials happy. However, it did not seem that Chunqua’s influence worked. On 2nd December the next day, the committee of the EIC was informed that the Hoppo transmitting orders from the viceroy, had ordered Houqua, Mowqua and Exchin,22 to immediately surrender the member of the crew of EIC’s ship “London” who had killed a Chinese man with a musket shot.23 This announcement also indicated that the search of Chinese government for the English murderer had begun. On the same day the EIC found out that the fifth Officer of the “London”, Mr. Pigott, was the suspected murderer, who had been sent on the day of the accident to get water for the ship. There was also evidence proving that he fired his musket into the air. However, he had already disappeared by the morning of 1st December.24 On 3rd December, the committee of the EIC began their search for Mr. Pigott and “a careful & particular investigation of the circumstances” in order to have an appropriate reply to the requisitions of the Government, before they would be able “to furnish the [Hong] Merchants with any statement of the case”.25 Meanwhile, due to the pressure of Chinese government, they also determined to “direct Cap. Cameron 21 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 1st, 1820. 22 Mowqua was the second Senior Hong Merchant after Houqua. Exchin was the security merchant of the ship “London”. 23 Order from Hoppo to Houqua, Mowqua and Exchin in Chinese, dated on the 10th month 27th day of the 25th year of Jiaqing (1820), cf.: FO, 1048/20/2. 24 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 2nd 1820. 25 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 3rd 1820.

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[of the ship “London”] to order the six Seamen up to Canton who accompanied Mr. Pigott in the Boat on the 27th November, as it will be prudent to examine them as privately as possible.”26 Although the members of the English committee had not yet given any statement up to this point, and it was still difficult to ascertain whether the English would deliver Mr. Pigott themselves. It did seem like they were mostly ready to cooperate in the investigation by the Chinese government. This was indicated in the secret consultation on 2nd December, after they knew about Mr. Pigott’s escape: We extremely regret that such strong evidence should be found to exist against Mr. Pigott, the 5. Officer of the London and that so little evidence should be produced in justification of the fatal act, which has thus involved him in dangerous a situation & the Company’s Interests in so much embarrassment.27

Therefore it did not seem that the committee would sacrifice their company’s interest in Canton trade which was their source of income, to protect Mr. Pigott whose act they found difficult to justify. Houqua and other Hong Merchants did not take any clear standpoint towards the EIC, besides stating that they must cooperate in the government’s investigation. After the official announcement on 2 December about the government’s intention to search for the murderer, neither Houqua nor other Hong Merchants had contacted the EIC, until an extraordinary incident occurred that changed this frustrating and uncertain situation. Just as the six seamen were sent at late night on the same day, Captain Cameron came to the president of the committee with urgent news from Whampoa. Shortly after the search for the English murderer began on board that ship, the butcher of another English ship “the Duke of York” had cut his throat and died. Captain Cameron also reported that “[a]lthough there can be but little doubt that Insanity was the cause of his unfortunate manners [which] have committed violence upon himself, the coincidence is extremely singular.”28 After being informed by the committee about this suicide, Houqua and other Hong Merchants arrived as a group to the Council room of the committee on the early morning of 4th December. Houqua stated that he thought that the affair could now be brought to a favourable issue by making use of the singular coincidence of this suicide; he stated however that the Mandarins might not be satisfied with the bare statement of this extraordinary circumstance, and that they

26 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 3rd 1820. 27 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 2nd 1820. 28 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 4th, 1820.

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might require from us [the EIC] an assurance that the Butcher was the identical person who fired the Gun [. . .]29

This performance, which was noted in H. B. Morse’ “Chronicles of the East India Company” published in the 1920s, served as the most direct evidence of Houqua being a traitor who helped foreigners at the expense of his motherland and the Chinese people.30 Indeed, Houqua was doubtless eager to use this suicide to terminate the affair in a manner favorable both to local officials and the EIC, but at the same time, it would have been unfair to the Chinese victims. His thoughts were occupied by the reaction of the officialdom because the first concern he expressed here was the possible dissatisfaction of the “mandarins” due to the weak proof of the butcher’s identity. It is clear that he would do anything to satisfy the local officials. Nevertheless, the moral responsibility regarding the incident turned out to be a problem after Houqua’s statement about how to use the suicide. H. B. Morse ignored the following “negotiation” between Houqua and the EIC about whether to use this suicide in his “chronicles”: [Houqua] pressed us to declare whether or not this [i.e. using the suicide to terminate the “London” affair] was our belief – the same motives which delivered us from avowedly asserting such a falsehood, prompted us now to decline giving any assurance whatever upon this point; we informed Puiqua [alias Houqua] we must state the fact if this succeeds & the circumstances attending it for their information, & that the Mandarins & themselves were as capable of forming their conclusions upon it as we ever, it was unquestionably a case of strong suspicion and it rested with them to make use of it or not [. . .]31

Both Houqua and the EIC tried to transfer the moral responsibility of the incident to each other: Houqua let the committee decide whether or not to use the suicide, although he had already suggested the manner in which the suicide could be used to satisfy the Chinese officials; The committee of EIC did not want to have guilty conscience either. It is to be noted that the committee of EIC knew about the suicide first and then informed Houqua. If they had no interest in using this suicide, they could have ignored it right at the beginning. So after informing Houqua that the search for Mr. Pigott had been fruitless, the committee gave their final statement that “it remained therefore for the Government either to avail themselves of a very ready expedient to settle the affair, or to provide against those difficulties.”32

29 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 4th, 1820. 30 Cf.: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 57. 31 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 4th 1820. 32 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 4th 1820.

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Finally, after the committee assured Houqua that the murderer had disappeared, Houqua decided to communicate with the officials about the butcher’s suicide.33 Unfortunately, the details of this important communication between Houqua and local officials in Canton are documented neither in Chinese nor English sources, so it is difficult to know how Houqua behaved in front of his official patron. However, after this communication: In the early morning on the next day (5th December) Houqua and other Hong Merchants came to the committee with the result that the viceroy “expressed himself much satisfied with the reasonable disposition of the Committee.” Exactly as Houqua indicated before, the only concern of the viceroy was to prove that the butcher “was the individual who had fired the shot at the Chinese,” so that “the whole business might be speedily adjusted.”34 In order to prove this point, Houqua and the other Hong Merchants suggested that the committee sign an official form in Chinese. However, this had been refused since the English “did not feel themselves justified in complying” with the Hong Merchants. After an exhausting negotiation, Houqua had to use the private statement of the viceroy, namely he assured us [the committee] privately that the Viceroy was very glad to avail himself of the man’s suicide to settle the Affair, but in order to justify himself in the eyes of this Government and the public, it was necessary certain forms should be gone into [. . .]35

This private assurance reveals that it was the viceroy, who gave Houqua his immoral but unofficial permission to settle the affair conveniently by making use of the suicide. In other words, the real decision maker was the viceroy. Without the viceroy’s permission, this affair would have needed another type of resolution. Furthermore it is remarkable to note Houqua’s attempt to fulfill his service as a loyal client of the viceroy through his endeavor to protect the viceroy’s reputation “in the eyes of this [Chinese] Government and the public”. Although he was accused of being a traitor, he did not betray his patron. After Houqua’s statement, the English agreed to cooperate. “[W]e shall consider ourselves extremely fortunate in this object being effected without

33 The original record from the committee is as follows: “we urged the Merchants therefore to lose no time in making knowing our communication of the Butcher’s suicide to the Mandarins who under all the circumstances of the case might gladly avail themselves of that court to justify themselves & settle the business.” Cf.: IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 4th, 1820. In other words, they suggested Houqua to inform the Chinese officials about the suicide and let them decide. 34 Also for the following citations in this paragraph: IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 5th, 1820. 35 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 5th, 1820.

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any sacrifice of Character on our part,” wrote the committee on the 5th December 1820 as the conclusion of that day.36 The next day, which was the day of official investigation in Whampoa, the body of the butcher was firstly viewed by several local officials as “eye-wash”.37 Then, although the committee refused to declare that the butcher had committed suicide because he was the culprit, the English witnesses were “instructed to give such evidence as will not throw any discredit upon the facts intended to be substantiated by the Government.”38 It is recorded by the committee that day: However much we may deprecate the deception resorted to on this occasion as immoral, we conceive we were justified, knowing as we did that the Chinese Government would gladly countenance it, in assenting to a subterfuge which has thus satisfied the Chinese Forms of Justice, and relieved the Hon’ble Company’s [i.e. EIC] interests at this port from the most serious difficulties and embarrassments.39

In order to justify their part in this amoral proceedings when dealing with the Chinese victims, the EIC committee transferred the moral responsibility to the Chinese government. The most important fact, that an Englishman had killed a Chinese and was still at large, slowly faded from the spotlight. Apart from these maneuvers, another interesting point is that the Hong Merchants, especially Houqua, were totally left out in this justification. In other words, Houqua was not responsible in the eyes of the English. This standpoint of the EIC is entirely contrary to the image of Houqua as a traitor in the Chinese historiography mentioned previously. Nonetheless, shortly after the settlement of this “London” affair in the early morning of the 11th December 1820, Houqua came to the president of the English committee, urging him that the ships “London” and “Duke of York” must be dispatched as soon as possible. The remainder of these ships and their 36 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 5th 1820. 37 Morse, Chronicles, Volume III (1926), 380. 38 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 6th, 1820. Cf. also Morse, Chronicles, Volume III (1926), 380. 39 IOR, R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 6th, 1820. Actually the case was not entirely closed up to this point, since after the official examination on 6th December, Houqua and the other Hong Merchants came to the committee again, trying to persuade them to sign a testimony, which proved that the unfortunate butcher “who committed suicide really did so from fear of murder” etc. Although Houqua “assured that the relatives of the Deceased Chinese had given a signed Bond, declaring that they acquiesced as closing the proceedings,” the English refused to sign. Finally they all agreed to make the captain of the “the Duke of York”, Mr. Campell, sign a paper, only declaring that “Barrowcliff [which is the butcher’s name], a seaman on board his ship, actually committed violence upon himself” – which is only a harmless truth. Cf.: IOR, R/10/27, Secret Consultations, December 7th, 1820.

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crews in Canton would encourage “the unpleasant circumstances” and “unpleasant feelings”, i.e. the hostility against foreigners, which were “frequently carried among the Chinese generally”.40 This precautionary measure was intended to avoid any complication, which would not be favorable in the eyes of officialdom. Unfortunately, this was interpreted as evidence of Houqua’s intention to protect the “foreign barbarians”.41 Just like in this “London” affair, Houqua resolved all other foreign incidents by following the same principle of satisfying his patrons, even at others’ expense. Since the local officials, just like the viceroy in the “London” affair, preferred a quick termination without harming their own reputation with the emperor, the results of foreign incidents such as this in which Chinese civilians were involved, were usually not satisfactory for the Chinese victims. But the Chinese officialdom would never take responsibility for these negative, and even tragic results. As for the Chinese victims who were civilians without power or personal connections to those in power, it was impossible to accuse the officials of being traitors. Therefore, the Hong Merchants, especially Houqua became easy targets. When the dissatisfaction and anger of the Chinese victims became uncontrollable, endangering the reputation of local officialdom due to civil agitation, the Hong Merchants had to accept their role as traitors. 3.1.2.2 The “Topaze” Affair The most terrible civil foreign incident for Houqua to settle might have been the “Topaze” affair, which happened in December 1821. This incident was caused by a conflict between the sailors of the EIC ship “Topaze” and the Chinese natives on the island of Lintin situated midway between Macao and Canton.42 Since two Chinese were killed and 14 English wounded in this conflict, it became another 40 IOR, Volume R/10/27, Secret Consultations on 11th December 1820. 41 Cf.: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 54. 42 The conflict was because of an unfortunate accident: A pet goat, which was brought by the sailors of the “Topaze” on 14th December 1821 as they came ashore on the island Lintin, accidently dug up potatoes and damaged the potato patch. A Chinese peasant, Huang Yiming (黄奕明), owner of the patch, then called upon his wife, brothers and neighbors to attack the sailors with sticks and stones. In the fracas, two urns of wine on the side of the hut were broken. When the sailors were driven aboard their ship, they discharged the cannon to disperse the villagers who were pursuing and cursing them. During the skirmish about the potatoes, a number of British sailors were injured, but no one died. The next morning, the sailors, reinforced, went ashore again to revenge their mates. They chopped down the door of the hut of Huang Yiming, and fired a musket, killing him instantly. His son-in-law, also injured by the fusillade, died a few days later from his wounds. More details cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/226, 511. Wei, “Juan Yüan,” 159–160.

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potential predicament. As he had done before, Houqua tried to settle this incident to satisfy officialdom by negotiating with the EIC. In February 1822, after the Captain of the ship “Topaze”, Mr. Richardson, representing the EIC, gave his statement “which fully justified the conduct of the frigates people,” the Chinese local officials appeared to be satisfied. Moreover, since the ship “Topaze” was already dispatched, every endeavor by the Chinese government to search for the English murderer proved to be fruitless. Following this, the governor publicly directed the suspension of the EIC’s trade to be lifted on 22nd February 1822.43 However, this case was far from over. Houqua – in order to satisfy his patrons – had encouraged the governor to assume that the English would deliver the murderers when their ships went back to Canton in the next trading season, making the situation more complicated.44 As the EIC was strongly against cooperating, the negotiations between Houqua and the committee did not progress and so the whole case did not have a clear settlement. Although the viceroy required the Hong Merchants and the EIC to hand over the murderers at the end of 1822, the official investigation by the Chinese curiously came a halt, since the committee did not receive an official demand until 1826.45 Meanwhile, the petitions of the family of the Chinese victims was not effective since the local officials did not consider it seriously. In 1823, the governor of Canton was reported to have stated that the accusation against Houqua was false.46 However, the Chinese victims’ family was not easily satisfied, and they continued to send petitions to government. Finally, almost five years after the incident, the petition of the Chinese victims’ family arrived at the court in Peking in 1826. This alarmed the local officials in Canton. The new governor of Canton

43 IOR, Volume G/12/226A, 508. 44 A few weeks after the suspension of British trade in Canton was lifted in Feb. 1822, Houqua required the committee to confirm their acknowledgement of an official paper in Chinese sent from the viceroy, requiring the committee to inform the EIC that they must request the King of England to investigate the matter and send the men of “Topaze” back for punishment if found guilty. In order to get the confirmation of the English, Houqua assured them that this paper was of no importance but “being merely a former on the fact of the Viceroy to show the Emperor that previously to the departure of all [EIC’s] ships he had reminded [the English] of this.” But the EIC refused to sign the paper. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/226A, 578–582. 45 IOR, Volume G/12/227, 10f., 18, 49, 449f. Although there are no further details about negotiations from the English side concerning this affair during the years from late 1822 till October 1826, it is to be assumed that Houqua’s negotiations with the EIC must have been fruitless due to their determination in not complying with the Chinese. Therefore, Houqua must have to deal with the officialdom and the Chinese victims alone, by using bribes. 46 Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 54. The Chinese Repository, Volume IV (1835–1836), 268.

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reopened the case of 1822 in October 1826.47 In response to the requirement of the new governor, Houqua could not provide any additional information other than that the murderer had already escaped four years ago – according to the English.48 Without the cooperation of the EIC49 or any protection of local officialdom, Houqua became the unavoidable target of the Chinese victims. In the city of Canton, placards in Chinese were hanged everywhere that exposed Houqua’s abusive conduct in foreign affairs. The writer of one such placard – the son of the Chinese victim killed by the English crew of “Topaze” – stated that he had appealed to the Emperor & received his majesty’s commands to seize the foreigner but Howqua50 had accepted of bribes to let him go away, he bewails his distress during six years, invokes heaven! [. . .] as he does not know the slave Howqua personally, he asks any one to point him out and he will instantly up open his Bowels.51

These placards accusing Houqua of having betrayed his countrymen threatened his life and – as the English remarked – he used “every expedient to excite his apprehensions and increase his natural timidity of character.”52 After negotiating with local officialdom, probably with bribes of huge sums, he was allowed to 47 The last governor of Canton during the “Topaze” affair in 1821–22 had completed his term and was sent to serve elsewhere. For the new governor – as is a tradition for any newly arrived official in a new place – it was important for him to show his sense of “justice” for his people to set a good precedent during his term. This reopened the “Topaze” affair, which caused triggered enormous anger against Houqua and the foreign barbarians from the people and became a perfect opportunity to set the tone at the start of the new governor’s official term in Canton. 48 IOR, Volume G/13/236, 243. 49 In order to save himself and satisfy all sides, Houqua even suggested that the EIC Committee provide some dead bodies and claim that they were the executed murderers. Houqua’s suggestion was: “some [seamen] must have died on the homeward voyage and that we could find no difficulty in stating that such had been the case.” But the EIC declined this suggestion. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/236, Consultation on October 28th 1826, 252. 50 In British sources, Houqua’s name was often written as “Howqua”. Both “Houqua” and “Howqua” appear in primary sources and literatures in English from the 1770s till the twentieth century, whereby “Howqua” was used particularly often in the British sources. It seems that the two names are highly interchangeable. Also, the Americans “mistakenly” used the name “Howqua” instead of “Houqua” in their commercial records. For instance, on a receipt from Benjamine B. Carter on 30th January 1805 to Houqua, both “Howqua” and “Houqua” were used. Cf.: Carter-Danforth Papers, Box 1 Folder 3, RIHS. 51 IOR, Volume G/12/236, 244. 52 The EIC was convinced that “Theses attacks upon [Houqua] are probably encouraged by some of the officers of Government to whom he may have given umbrage or who hope to benefit themselves by such proceedings. It is well known that they only require a pretext and often avail themselves of the mere shadow of one to compel him to pay sums for the purchase of their good will and that he frequently wants both the spint & ability to resist.” Though this point of view seems very logical, it is hard to find any evidences to prove. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/236, 269.

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retire and thus relieved of the responsibility of securing the EIC’s ships after 9th November 1826.53 His official retirement cost him half a million dollars that was a token to “thank” the local officials.54 This temporary disconnection with the English made him withdraw from the spotlight. Meanwhile, towards the end of 1826, Houqua donated 100,000 taels to the imperial government as a financial aid to meet a serious rebellion in Kashgar. For this, Houqua’s son – the new Hong Merchant of the “Ewo Hong” received an honorable title from the emperor.55 Thus, this affair was terminated with Houqua’s retirement and, as always, with donations and bribes. The Chinese victims got their assertion about Houqua’s alliance with the EIC against the Chinese people wrong. While Houqua’s dealings in foreign civil affairs seemed to disregard any moral responsibility towards the Chinese victims, there was no alliance between him and the English. Instead, his dealings were always aimed at satisfying his patrons, not the Chinese victims or the English. Therefore, if there were any alliance against the Chinese people, it could be the one with the local officials, who gave Houqua directives to settle these incidents.

3.1.3 The “Napier Affair”: Resisting on the patron’s side If the “London” affair and other civil foreign affairs revealed the dark side of Houqua’s patronage and his betrayal of his own countrymen, what about conflicts between Chinese officialdom and foreigners? How did he showcase his loyalty in his negotiations with foreigners, without the involvement of Chinese civilians? Among such official affairs, the most famous one was the “Napier Affair” in 1834 – the third and the last official mission of the British to China.56 In 1834, after the withdrawal of the EIC’s monopoly in the far eastern trade and the opening of

53 His firm was then officially taken over by his 4th son (伍元华). But Houqua still remained the leading Hong Merchant in business and again responsible for foreign affairs, as we can see in the “Napier” affair in 1834. 54 IOR, Volume G/12/236, 313f. 55 Morse, Chronicles, Volume IV (1926), 130. 56 Before the Opium War in 1840, Great Britain had sent three official missions to China to improve their trade conditions there: The first one was led by Lord McCartney in 1793, who despite his problem with Kowtow, met the emperor Qianlong, but was unable to convince him to accept the proposals of new trade conditions for the British in China. A quarter of century later, in 1816, Lord Amherst came to Peking. He seems to have had even greater difficulties with Kowtow and had to leave China without even seeing the emperor. This chapter will focus on the third and final one, namely the Napier Mission in 1834, also known as the Napier Affair – this time not in Peking, but in Canton.

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trade to all British traders, William John Napier, 9th Lord Napier (1786–1834) was appointed the first Chief Superintendent of Trade at Canton. Unfortunately, this 48-year-old Scottish Lord, naval officer and sheep-farmer, had no experience in trade and had spent his entire career up to this point in the military.57 His preference to use a military solution to resolve problems is evident in his personal writings.58 His appearance also made him a culturally insensitive choice for this job: Napier was tall, thin and gangly. He also had red hair, thus fulfilling the Chinese stereotype of the “red-haired barbarian devil (红毛鬼)”.59 On 15th July 1834, his lordship landed at Macao together with his entourage and family.60 In addition to “the duty of protecting and fostering the trade of his majesty’s subject with the port of Canton,” his appointment also aimed to “ascertain, whether it may not be practicable to extend that trade to other parts of the Chinese dominions.”61 With the arrival of Lord Napier, however, this one-sided arrangement was directly challenged. Firstly, he did not follow the order of the Governor in Canton to wait at Macao for a Chinese passport – the “Red Chop (红牌)” – before coming to Canton. Instead, he went to Canton directly on the 23rd of July without any permission.62 Secondly, he sought to communicate by letter (函), instead of in the form of a petition (禀) as the English traders hitherto did, and 57 Fairbank, Late Ching 1800–1911, 175 and Hanes and Sanello, The Opium Wars, 26. 58 Greenberg, Chang and most historians in inland China assume that Napier formed his strategy to use military force after he had reached China and had talked to William Jardine. In other words, the understanding is that it was the opium smuggler Jardine who persuaded Napier to begin a military battle in Sept. 1834, so that the affair escalated. However, I agree with a more recent study by Glenn Melancon, which proves that Napier had already decided to use violence before he reached Canton. In his dairy on 26th Nov. 1833, he wrote: “[. . .] the empire of China is my own. What a glorious thing it would be to have a blockading squadron on the coast of the Celestial Empire, vessels of a light draft of water. Considering that that enormous empire of 40,000,000 hangs together by a spider’s web, how easily a gun brig would raise a revolution and cause them to open their ports to the trading world. I should like to be the medium of such a change.” In: Papers of Lord Napier and Ettrick. Quoted after: Melancon, “Peaceful Intensions,” 39. Cf. Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, 192; Chang, Commissioner Lin, 57. Furthermore, in Napier’s reports, Jardine was seldom mentioned. 59 A short description about such foreign devils can be found in a travel report published in 1738: “The red-haired devils have red hairs all over their bodies, their eyes grow inside and are blue, they look rather fierce and ugly (红毛鬼长身赤发，深目蓝睛，状尤狞恶)” Cf.: Zhang, Record of Information, 64. 60 The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 143. 61 CRC, Viscount Palmerston to Lord Napier on January 25, 1834, 4–5. 62 On the same day just after Lord Napier left Macao to Canton, two Senior Hong Merchants, Houqua and Mowqua, arrived at Macao, bringing the order of the Chinese Governor that Napier should stay at Macao and wait for permission.

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directly – without using a Hong Merchant as intermediary – with the imperial representative at Canton, the Governor Lu Kun (盧坤).63 All of this was perceived as ignorant and undignified by the Chinese government. The Governor Lu Kun “saw it inexpedient to receive it”64 and ordered Napier to return to Macao at once. The conflict escalated as Lord Napier refused to leave Canton and confer with the Hong Merchants. In August 1834, Lu Kun brought British trade to a halt. In September, he ordered all of Napier’s servants to leave and the British trading factories to be blockaded and cut off from supplies. As response, Napier ordered two British frigates to fight their way up the Pearl River. The military confrontation continued until Napier’s announcement of his retirement on 14th September. As soon as he had left, the communication between Canton and Whampoa was reopened and the trade resumed.65 On 11th October, Lord Napier died in Macao. Officially, it was a conflict between the governor Lu Kun and Lord Napier. But the two great men never met each other. All their communications and arrangements were carried and managed by Houqua. So how did he fulfil this role? How were his dealings with both sides? And more importantly, how did he serve his patron? By exploring Houqua’s performance and efforts in this case, we can also shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of early SinoWestern communications. Based on the British sources66 Houqua’s activities can be divided into to three phases: 3.1.3.1 Phase I: July 1834 During this early phase, Houqua seemed to have had direct and intensive dealings with Lord Napier, since his name appeared quite often in Napier’s writings. But Napier, who saw himself as a hereditary nobleman in England and a man of equal rank of the Chinese Governor,67 was not particularly interested in Houqua’s offer 63 Napier’s supervisor, Lord Palmerston instructed: “Your lordship will announce your arrival at Canton by letter to the Viceroy.” Cf.: Morse, The Period of Conflict, 146. But Napier took this instruction literally without any diplomatic skills. 64 Williams, The Middle Kingdom, 478. 65 Williams, The Middle Kingdom, 481–482. 66 Chinese sources do not provide us with a detailed narrative of the Napier Affair. General information based on official memorials and reports written by local officials to the emperor is what is available. The earliest one was not sent before Napier announced his determination to retire to Macao on 14th September 1834, as the most crucial phase of the affair was already over. Therefore, such reports only give a summary regarding the happenings without many details. However, British sources to do with this affair, especially those written by Lord Napier himself, were well recorded in “Correspondence Relating to China” (CRC), which serves as the main source for this chapter. 67 CRC, No.14, Memorandum, Foreign Office, February 1840, 33.

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of negotiation. In his report to his superior Viscount Palmerston, Napier described his initial encounter with Houqua on 26th July 1834 – three days after Napier’s arrival in Canton: [. . .] the Hong merchants, Howqua and Mowqua,68 arrived with the copy of an Edict, addressed by the Viceroy to themselves, for the purpose of being enjoined on the Superintendents by their body. Long experience having already proved to the servants of the East India Company the utter futility of such a medium of communication, and the compliance therewith only tending to degrade His Majesty’s Commission and the British public in general, [. . .] the Hong merchants were courteously dismissed with an intimation, That I would communicate immediately with the Viceroy in the manner befitting His Majesty’s Commission and the honour of the British nation.69

This description specifies two facts: Firstly, Napier was prejudiced against Houqua even before he met him for the first time, since he regarded a negotiation with Houqua as a diminution of the royal commission. Secondly, although Houqua was “courteously dismissed”, it would not have been difficult for him to assess Napier’s disdain towards him from the very beginning. Shortly after Houqua left, Mr. John Harvey Astell, Napier’s secretary, was instructed to deliver Napier’s letter to a Mandarin and to avoid any communication with the Hong Merchants. As Mr. Astell and his deputation arrived at the city gate of Canton, the soldier on guard was dispatched to report the circumstance to his superior. Since the document was styled as a Letter not a Petition, no one wanted to bear it to the Governor. Finally, it was Houqua who, “after a private conversation with the Kwang-Heep,70 requested to be allowed to carry the letter along with the Kwang-Heep, and ascertain whether it would be received.”71 On the next day, there was a long “desultory conversation” between the Hong Merchants and Napier. This time he was impressed by their “cunning and duplicity”. On Houqua in particular, Napier wrote: Howqua at length proposed that a new address should be affixed to my letter; in the first place substituting the word Petition for that of Letter; and, secondly, making a trifling alteration in the designation of the Viceroy: the first of these was of course firmly rejected; the second, being a matter of courtesy, was willingly complied with; and Howqua having

68 Mowqua was the second Senior Hong Merchant after Houqua. In most of the important cases, he accompanied Houqua and they represented other Hong Merchants. 69 CRC, No.6, Lord Napier to Vicount Palmerston on August 9th 1834, 8. 70 “Kwang-Heep” means here probably “Guan Xian (官宪)” in Chinese, namely the local officials in Canton. 71 CRC, No.6, Lord Napier to Vicount Palmerston on August 9th 1834, 8.

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dictated a copy of the same for the approval of the Viceroy, took his departure with a promise of returning next day with a reply.72

It is probable that Houqua went directly to the Governor after this conversation and reported the new development. On the same day, the Governor published his order to the Hong Merchants, in which he expressed his definite refusal to read Napier’s letter.73 Moreover, in his opinion, the Hong Merchants were guilty if Napier continued to be disobedient towards him.74 Due to the pressure of the Governor, Houqua wanted to have another try. The next day, on 28th July, he visited Lord Napier in the English factory. On the morning of their meeting, he sent Napier a message announcing his intention of coming at one o’clock. Unfortunately, this message caused an unexpected and unpleasant incident. Houqua used the official Chinese translation of Napier’s name “唠啤” on this message, which was – in eyes of Napier – “not of the most courtly description, expressing and signifying the sense of ‘Laboriously Vile’”.75 He thought it was Houqua’s intention to humiliate him by using this name.76 When Napier requested him to explain the reason for 72 Ibid, 9. 73 “The great ministers of the Celestial Empire are not permitted to have private intercourse by letter with outside barbarians. If the said barbarians Eye [i.e. Napier] throws in private letter, I, the Governor, will not at all receive or look at them.” Cf.: Correspondence Relating to China, Inclosure 3 in No. 7, The Governor of Canton to the Hong Merchants on July 27th 1834, 18. Since I have found none of the original Chinese writings written by Governor to the Hong Merchants, but only their English translation (e.g. published in “Correspondence Relating to China” (CRC) or “The Chinese Repository”), it is hard to say if there was any misunderstandings caused by the translation from Chinese to English. In Chinese collections I’ve found only reports or official letters between officials in Canton esp. Governor Lu Kun and the Emperor Daoguang. 74 “If there should be disobedience and opposition, it must be owing to the ban management of the said merchants, and to the instigations of the linguists.” Cf.: CRC, Inclosure 3 in No. 7, The Governor of Canton to the Hong Merchants on July 27th 1834, 18. 75 CRC, No.6, Lord Napier to Vicount Palmerston on August 9th 1834, 9. 76 There is no source which can tell us exactly how Napier’s translator, Dr. Morrison, translated the English name “Napier” into Chinese, but it was presumably he who explained to Lord Napier the Chinese translation used in Houqua’s message. In contemporary official Chinese documents, “Napier” appeared always as “唠啤”, which, regardless of the left-radical of each character, could indeed be understood as “Laboriously Vile”. Dr. Morrison’s translation, whatever it was, had never been used by the Chinese. Whether it was Morrison’s purpose to cause an unpleasant incident by explaining the name before the meeting between Napier and Houqua, cannot be proved. However, since Morrison had lived in Canton for a long time, he would have known that the outside barbarians like Napier, who didn’t belong to the Confucian cultural circle and who were obviously not willing to learn and be cultivated in a Confucian way, were surely not respected by the Confucian scholar-officials like the Governor Lu Kun, for whom the name “Laboriously Vile” was even a suitable name for a barbarian like

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“such a gratuitous insult”, Houqua “artfully avoided all explanation beyond the fact of his having been ‘so instructed by the pilot’.”77 Due to this incident, it is imaginable how difficult the meeting would have been. Houqua stated again that the letter would not be received, unless it was delivered as a Petition. This being refused, “Houqua was dismissed accordingly.”78 Napier surely had no idea, what Houqua had to face when he met the Governor – again without any new information. Two days later, on 30th July, the Governor published another order to the Hong Merchants, which includes more serious condemnations than the last one published three days before.79 Thereupon, on 31st July, Houqua and Mowqua had to pay another visit to Napier but without any success. The difficulty of the situation for the Hong Merchants – and Houqua in particular – can clearly be sensed in the next order from the Governor published on the same day, in which the Hong Merchants were accused of having “no respect of the laws before their eyes!”80 After this short visit, it seems that Houqua took a break in his direct negotiation with Napier, since there is no recorded activity by him in the following days. In summary, during the first few days after Napier’s arrival, from 26th to 31st July, Houqua met him at least five times, almost every day. But his endeavors were proved to be in vain. He could not make any progress and Napier still refused to follow the orders of Chinese Governor. Obviously, Lord Napier was much more difficult to deal with than expected. As a result of the Governor’s growing impatience at being unable to make any report to the emperor, Houqua had to change his strategy in the next phase of his mediation.

Napier. It was therefore not necessary for Houqua to humiliate Napier purposely by using this name. He might have been punished had he not followed the official Chinese translation “Laboriously Vile”. Perhaps it was also hard for him to understand, why an English nobleman like Napier cared so much about his name, whereas Houqua himself, who also had noble titles and whose wealth was even known by the Emperor, had to behave in a subservient fashion in front of the Chinese officialdom. 77 CRC, No.6, Lord Napier to Vicount Palmerston on August 9th 1834, 9. 78 CRC, No.6, Lord Napier to Vicount Palmerston on August 9th 1834, 9. 79 “The said Hong merchants (i.e. esp. Howqua) have filled the situation of seniors over the merchants for many years; how is it that they understand not the fixed laws? But, after repeated orders, indulge their own dispositions, deferring and delaying! What is it that occupies their minds? It is extremely inexplicable! It would be right to take the circumstances of the said merchants’ negligent connivance at the conduct of outside barbarians, and at once report against them.” Cf.: CRC, Inclosure 4 in No.7, The Governor of Canton to the Hong Merchants on July 30th 1834, 20. 80 CRC, Inclosure 5 in No.7, The Governor of Canton to the Hong Merchants on July 31st 1834, 21.

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3.1.3.2 Phase II: August After a short conversation on 8th August,81 Houqua does not appear in British sources so frequently. Instead, there were more interactions between Houqua and Napier’s fellow countrymen. It seems that he didn’t want to deal directly with Napier anymore, but to pressure him through other means. The primary aim was not to bring Napier to follow Chinese regulations but to make him leave. The most important indication of this change was the meeting during which Houqua called upon all the British merchants to attend at the Consoo House82 on 11th August. As Napier was informed about this development the evening before the meeting, it appeared to him “rather a novel and unprecedented measure”. He was so nervous that he immediately called a general meeting of all British inhabitants “in order to deliberate on the propriety and the consequences of attending such a meeting.”83 What Houqua actually intended by this meeting in Consoo House was to ask the British traders to reply to the orders from the Governor, which the Hong Merchants were not able to answer since Lord Napier refused to communicate with them.84 Napier suspected that the Hong Merchants aimed “evidently to create a schism among the British, in order to set up one party against the Superintendents.”85 But, since Napier was absolutely determined, the British traders could not help that much, either. When British trade was stopped on 16th August, Napier was convinced that it was the Hong Merchants alone, especially Houqua, who were pressurizing him to leave Canton, since Houqua personally had no business with the British.86 Houqua had indeed advised the Governor to stop the trade in order to put more pressure on Napier.87 However, it was not likely that he could make such a decision without permission from the Governor.

81 On 8th August, Houqua and Mowqua visited Napier again. Just like the previous times, they were polite and tried to persuade him to return to Macao. The primary reason they cited was not the order of the Governor, but that Macao was “more agreeable residence during the hot weather”. However, Napier was absolutely determined to “hold on for the purpose of forcing [the Governor] in time to receive [his] Letter, and not [his] Petition.” Cf.: CRC, No.6, Lord Napier to Vicount Palmerston on August 9th 1834, 9. 82 The “Consoo House” was the meeting hall for the Hong Merchants and foreign traders. 83 CRC, No.7, Lord Napier to Viscount Palmerston on August 14th 1834, 11. 84 CRC, Inclosure 1 in No.7, The Hong Merchants to Messrs. Jardine, Dent, and Framjee on 11th August, 16f. 85 CRC, No.7, Lord Napier to Viscount Palmerston on 14th August 1834, 11. 86 CRC, postscript by Napier on 17th August 1834, 15. 87 Houqua requested the Governor that “a stop should be put to the said nation’s commerce.” The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 236.

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One week later, on 19th August, Houqua and Mowqua came to Napier again and stated that the Governor could have no communication with him by letter. They repeated his Excellency’s orders that Napier should leave. This time, according to the report by Napier, the discussion was more heated and this is the first and the only time it is recorded that Houqua argued with Napier directly: [Houqua] arguing that, were he in England he would be obliged to conform to the laws of England, and I ought to do the same [in Canton]. On the principle of reciprocity I heartily concurred; that were he in England he would be received and treated as a gentleman; and I required no more here.88

This discussion was also not successful. In contrast, Napier even thought that Houqua stopped the British trade at Canton against the private wish of the Governor and most of the Hong Merchants and that Houqua had become a sort of dictator among them.89 Despite Napier’s noticeable hostility, Houqua still arranged a meeting between Napier and several officials of high rank in Canton on August 23rd. On the arrival of Lord Napier and his deputation, they thought it essential to alter the room layout: A writing-table was introduced and placed longitudinally across the room. A chair was placed for Lord Napier at the north end and one at the south end for Mr. Astell. The Chinese officials had their seats between them along the table. Houqua and Mowqua used every endeavor and persuasion to restore the former order but without any success.90 There is strangely no further description about the reaction of Chinese officials, who were delayed for over two hours but took their seats accordingly. The meeting began with Napier’s question to Houqua “If the Mandarins had not desired him to state their intention of waiting on the Superintendents at eleven o’clock.” After Houqua’s short answer in the affirmative, Napier began to express his extreme dissatisfaction towards him and “considering it (i.e. the delay of Chinese officials) as an insult to his Britannic Majesty” etc.91 The skill with which the interpreter Dr. Morrison translated Napier’s displeasure into Chinese can be questioned, since there is no record, either in English nor in Chinese, of the reaction of the Chinese side. The interviews or discussions following this went on without the participation of Houqua. 88 CRC, No.8, Lord Napier to Viscount Palmerston on August 21st 1834, 22. 89 “Howqua who rules, and who has no commercial dealings with the British, has all the others under his control, as his debtors, so carried the point.” Cf.: CRC, No.12, Lord Napier to Viscount Palmerston on August 27th 1834, 29. 90 CRC, No.12, Lord Napier to Viscount Palmerston on August 27th 1834, 30. 91 CRC, Inclosure in No.12, Statement of what assed in the interview between Lord Napier and certain Chinese officers, on the 23rd of August, 1834, 30.

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What is certain is that this meeting was not successful. Napier’s letter could not be received by the Governor. As Houqua came to Napier on both the 28th and 29th August to initiate another such meeting, Napier insisted on the former positions of chairs and using his own interpreter. Therefore, a second such meeting never took place.92 After that, at least in British documents, there is no record of further interactions between Houqua and Napier. 3.1.3.3 Phase III: September and October During the first two weeks of September, the whole affair was escalated by military conflict between Chinese Maritimes and two British frigates. On the 3rd and 11th of that month Houqua undertook two further attempts at negotiation. But both settlements proposed by the Hong Merchants as a compromise from British side with the agreement of Lord Napier and Mr. Jardine – including sending a petition to the Governor and the recall of the British frigates – were rejected by Chinese government.93 It seems that the Chinese government became even more obstinate than before. The crucial change was Napier’s illness during September, which caused him to withdraw from his work.94 According to Mr. Colledge, Napier’s surgeon, Lord Napier was so ill on 14th September that “he was confined to a sick bed.”95 On the same day he officially announced his retirement to Macao. For Houqua, this was a suitable time to change his partner in the negotiation. Mr. Colledge, who was more concerned about Lord Napier’s health than anybody else, was the perfect one with whom Houqua could negotiate. Moreover, due to

92 CRC, No.12, Lord Napier to Viscount Palmerston on August 28, 1834, 32. And also No.14, Memorandum, 32. 93 Of course, there were also certain settlements in this compromise which were unacceptable for Chinese government, e.g. Lord Napier insisted that he “shall have the privilege of passing and re-passing between Canton and Macao as he finds it necessary. The insulting manner of writing his name shall no more be used; and the Edict which orders the trade to be opened, shall also contain an admonition to the Chinese to treat the British and other foreigners with that respect and hospitality which is due to strangers.” Cf.: CRC, No.28, Minutes of Conversation between Howqua and Mowqua, Hong Merchants, and Mr. Jardine, 71f. 94 According to a report from Mr. Colledge, Napier’s health began to fail about the beginning of September, and “an attack of fever supervened on the 9th, a period replete with events of a most harassing description, and under circumstances the most disadvantageous to the nature of such affection.” Cf.: The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 284. 95 The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 282.

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his financial support of Mr. Colledge’s work in Macao, Houqua had a favorable advantage in his personal relationship with Colledge.96 According to Colledge’s note, he met with Houqua on 18th September “to make the requisite arrangements [. . .] Lord Napier’s continued indisposition rendering it desirable that his Lordship should not be harassed by a continuance of the negotiation now going on with the Chinese authorities, and that his departure from Canton should not be delayed.”97 On 19th September, Houqua, Mowqua and Mr. Colledge made a pact in the presence of William Jardine – a British free trader. Colledge gave his assurance that the British frigates would leave as soon as he received a chop or a permission from the Governor for his Lordship and suite to proceed to Macao. As his only condition, Colledge required that on their way to Macao, they should not submit to any ostentatious display on the part of the Chinese government. Houqua did not give any promise but replied: “Mr. Colledge, your proposition is of a most serious nature, and from my knowledge of your character I doubt not the honesty of it; shake hands with me and Mowqua, and let Mr. Jardine do so likewise.”98 It seems that Houqua could not wait to end the whole affair, which had brought him only problems thus far. After they all shook hands, Houqua and Mowqua left. That was the last recorded activity of Houqua in this affair. On 26th September, after more than one week of extremely slow and tedious sailing,99 Lord Napier and his suite arrived at Macao. According to Mr. Colledge, this long sailing time was a cause of Lord Napier’s early death on 11th October.100 On the day that Napier died, Mr. Colledge sent news of his death to Canton. It seems that neither the government, nor the Hong Merchants, including Houqua, were particularly interested. It took a full week before the Hong Merchants sent their first reply, which was signed by Houqua’s son, not even by Houqua himself.101 During the whole month of September until Napier’s death, there was no record of any direct communication between Houqua and Napier. Maybe because of Napier’s illness, negotiations were mainly conducted between Houqua and Mr. Colledge. However, even if Napier had not been ill, Houqua could have

96 A terse reference in the archives of the Commonwealth Relations Office in London indicates Colledge’s ophthalmic infirmary at Macao received $500 annually from Houqua since 13th January 1832. Cf.: Gulick, Peter Parker and the Opening of China, 221, footnote 28. 97 The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 347. 98 The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 283. 99 Normally, the distance from Whampoa to Macao took ca. one day of sailing. 100 The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 283f. 101 The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 281.

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been unwilling to negotiate with him. This conflict, which he tried to avoid facing, was not only about a petition or trade regulations, but about something intangible between two different cultural conceptions. No matter how well Houqua could perceive this profound problem, he had a focused mind in dealing with his patrons, in this case the governor Lu Kun. 3.1.3.4 Dealing with Confucian bureaucrats In most reports by Chinese officialdom, Houqua was briefly mentioned as a bearer of official orders. The probably longest official report about the Napier Affair sent on 25th September, 1834 was written by the Governor Lu Kun and two other officials of high rank in order to inform the emperor about the departure of the British ships.102 The officials or authors of this report stated that they managed to force Napier and his suite to leave Canton as he saw that he was isolated by Chinese troops and that Napier was so “timid and fearful”. This description was based on Houqua’s report: The barbarian eye,103 when he found that the passage by water was intercepted, became fearful and told the said nation’s private merchants to say for him to Houqua and other Hong Merchants, that the two frigates were to protect the trading barbarian ships, in order thus to show that he had no other purpose. As our soldiers accumulated daily, the said barbarian eye – seeing the internal and external communication cut off, and no way open to come in or to go out – became still more alarmed and fearful, and again wrote to the private merchants to speak for him to the Hong Merchants to beg that a sampan boat might be given him to leave.104

And then, according to Houqua’s report on the 16th August, 14th year of Daoguang (18th September, 1834) – the same day as Houqua’s meeting with Mr. Colledge – Lord Napier apparently acknowledged his mistake and begged for his right to leave:

102 IDT, Volume 6, 3292–3330. 103 This refers to Lord Napier. This English translation “barbarian eye”, which referred to the original Chinese term “夷目”, was not only false, but also shows the ridiculous incompetence of Napier’s informant. In Chinese context, the word “目” ought to be rendered as “principal”, not literally as “eye”. Even Sir George Staunton (1781–1859), a member of Macartney Mission in 1793 and Amherst Mission in 1816, noted that “夷目” was no ground for dispute, because the Chinese translation simply meant “foreign principal”. Cf.: Liu, “Legislating the Universal,”132. 104 Original in Chinese: “该夷目于水路堵塞以后已属胆怯，即知会该国散商向洋商伍敦元 等转言，该国散商兵船系为保护贸易夷船，以明其并无他意。迨我兵日集该夷目内外消息不 通，进出无路益形惶恐，复字知散商转告洋商求给三板船一艘一边出省”, in: IDT, Volume 6, 3294. English translation cf.: The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 340.

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Houqua and other Hong Merchants reported that the said nation’s private merchants, Colledge and others, had stated to them that Lord Napier acknowledged that, because it was his first entrance into the inner land, he was ignorant of the prohibitions, and therefore he had come at once to Canton without having obtained a permission; that the frigates were really for the purpose of protecting goods, and had entered the Bocca Tigris by mistake; that now he was himself aware of his error and begged to be graciously permitted to go down to Macao; and that the ships should immediately go out, and he therefore begged permission for them to leave the port.105

About Napier’s purpose in staying in Canton, they reported – again according to Houqua’s observation: The said barbarian merchant, Colledge, on the 18th day [Sept. 20th] again stated to Houqua and others, that Lord Napier had really come to Canton for the purpose of directing commercial affairs, and therefore considering himself an officer, is called superintendent; that what was written in the letter formerly presented was that he, being an officer of the barbarians, was not the same as a taepan [supercargo] and wished therefore to have official correspondence to and fro with the civil and military officers of the celestial empire, which is what courtesy entitles to, nothing else whatever was said in the letter.106

Since the English version of this incident has already been analyzed above, a comparison with this Chinese version indicates how easily matters could be represented differently, concealed, or altered, especially concerning the attitude of Napier. The Chinese version of events, in which the arrogant and obstinate barbarian and foreign devil – Lord Napier – acknowledged his stupid error and begged in front of the Qing authority for forgiveness and permission to leave, is the one desired not only by Chinese officialdom, including the emperor himself, but also by Houqua, who constructed this narrative. Although he had contact with the Western world for the majority of his life, his patronage to Chinese officialdom took priority over his relationship with his Western trading partners. Therefore, Houqua had to side with the government officials and help them maintain their conception of a celestial empire and he was successful in this instance. After reading this report, the emperor was so satisfied that he rewarded the Governor Lu Kun by bestowing upon him the title of honorable guardian of the heir apparent and an official hat with a double eyed

105 Original in Chinese: “据洋商伍敦元等转据，该国散商加律治等报称律嘮啤自认因初入 内地不知例禁，是以未领牌照即行进省。兵船实因护货误入虎门。今已自知错误，乞求恩准 下澳，兵船即日推出，求准出口等情”, in: IDT, Volume 6, 3295. English translation cf.: The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 341. 106 Original in Chinese: “兹于十八日据该夷商加律治等向伍敦元等覆称，律劳卑实系来粤管 理贸易事务，因自以为官，即称监督。前遣书函内所写因伊系夷官，与大班不同，欲兴天朝文 武衙门文移往来礼貌相当，并无别语” In: IDT, Volume 6, 3295. English translation cf.: The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 341.

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peacock feather.107 However, there is no record about whether the Governor rewarded Houqua or the manner in which he did. The apparent lack of knowledge about the technological deficit of the Qing military, especially the coastal defenses is another noteworthy aspect of the incident. This was particularly relevant during the military confrontation from the 7th till the 9th September when two British frigates anchored at Whampoa successfully with little damage. No matter whether or not this was really a triumph for the British side as the British reports claimed, it is true that the Qing navy was not able to stop the two British frigates despite the narrow passage and their frequent attacks.108 This small battle was totally ignored in the Chinese reports, temporarily burying knowledge about the weakness of the Qing navy, together with other deficits and sources of potential danger. But Houqua would have been acquainted with Western technology, since he already used it in his daily life.109 So was he aware of this weakness of the Qing empire and the potential danger posed by Western nations like Great Britain? Furthermore, if he did know and he was a loyal citizen, why did he bury the facts regarding the military? Why did he not warn the officials and prevent danger in order to save his country? 3.1.3.5 Houqua’s patronage and loyalty Houqua is indeed a very controversial figure. He was not part of the Confucian literati, but an “uncultivated” greedy merchant, so he could betray his country and sell his own soul for money. Meanwhile, in the decades preceding the First Opium War, and even during the war, he had personal relationships with Westerners who were perceived not only as devils but also as invaders. Equally controversial was his loyalty: As indicated, at least in the Napier Affair, Houqua never sided with the British, but helped create a perfect version of the Chinese official narrative. However, he did betray his country since he purposely ignored essential military factors that could have helped improve Chinese coastal defenses so that China could have avoided losing the opium wars.

107 IDT, Volume 6, 3350. 108 Cf. The Chinese Repository, Volume III (1834–1835), 334f. The explanation given for the fact that the two British frigates were able to anchor at Whampoa by the Governor Lu Kun was that the responsible general for the coastal defendence in Canton had ignored his duties and therefore was punished in public. Cf.: Official report from the Governor Lu Kun to the Emperor Daoguang on the 13th day of 8th month, 14th year of Daoguang (Sept. 15th 1834), in Selected Imperial Documents concerning the Thirteen Hongs of Canton (清宫广州十三行档案精选), 200–203. 109 As a fire broke out in January 1836, Houqua’s factory was saved by his five excellent engines imported from England, which kept up an incessant stream of water. Cf.: Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 205–206.

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It is significant here to make a distinction between two kinds of loyalties. The first one is the conscientious and “abstract” loyalty such as loyalty to a country or nation, and the second one is personal loyalty that could include loyalty to the emperor. In Confucianism these two types of loyalties were regarded as one and the same by identifying the emperor to be an ideal type and the only owner of everything under the heaven.110 However, over time, the distinction between the two types of loyalties in practice was never resolved. The first challenge in distinguishing between the two types of loyalties is the belief in absolute rule. Although loyalty to the country was praised as an important virtue throughout Chinese history, in practice personal loyalty came before service to the country, because absolute obedience to the ruler was a prerequisite without which loyalty in whatever form was simply inconceivable. This can be traced back to Neo-Confucianism since the twelfth century, especially during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1911), as absolutism became most effective. Therefore in a very popular political slogan used since the fourteenth century, “be loyal to the emperor and dedicate oneself to the service of the country (忠君报国)”, it is logical that loyalty to the emperor is placed first. The second challenge was that not only was loyalty to the country too abstract in the Chinese context to be perceived, even loyalty to the emperor was almost unenforceable because of how remote the emperor from his huge population. Even today, “the sky is high, the emperor is far away (天高皇帝远)” is a popular saying still in use in China. On the one hand, it indicates the massive geographical size of the Chinese empire and the fact that most of the Chinese population actually had little to no connection with the emperor in person. On the other hand, it was also the reason for an ultra-stable pyramid system of patronage-relationships based on personal bonds and personal loyalty in Chinese society. For the majority of Chinese, who were not educated at that time, it would be much more difficult to be loyal to the country or even the emperor, whom they would never meet anyway, than to be loyal to somebody they had a concrete relationship with, who could provide protection and profits immediately. In other words, loyalty in China is not connected to an abstract collective but rather tied to a person or a group of people to whom one feels close.111 This can be seen explicitly in the Napier Affair. A Hong Merchant like Houqua was firmly entrenched in his patronage-relationship with Chinese officialdom. Due to his acceptance of his own inferior status and desire for prestige, he couldn’t afford to risk his loyalty to his patron, Governor Lu Kun. Therefore, despite his

110 Liu, “Yüeh Fei,” 294. 111 Helle, China: Promise of Threat, 7.

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knowledge of Western society, he knew only too well that his statement that the great Chinese empire could be challenged by outside barbarians would be unacceptable. Even if Governor Lu Kun was ready to accept this unimaginable and unpleasant fact, it would be very risky for him to give such a warning to the emperor because it would be perceived as disobedience to the ruler and perhaps even as betrayal of the Qing empire. Therefore, Houqua chose to be silent and loyal to Governor Lu Kun, to enable him to bring the affair to a triumphant end as was represented in the Chinese sources. Beside these pragmatic considerations, it is questionable whether Houqua had a choice between these two styles of loyalties at all, because it would be too “modern” for him to be loyal towards his country or even the Chinese nation. Such conceptions did not exist yet in early nineteenth century China. Although Houqua was not a Confucian scholar and did not despise Westerners or consider them to be barbarians, he was still a Chinese man, who was born and brought up in a society where the traditional conception of the Chinese worldview, of China being the only cultured society under the heavens, was firmly rooted in everyone’s mind for two thousand years. Up until the end of the nineteenth century, there was no profound Enlightenment or revolution in the culture in China. Therefore, a concept such as “state”, “empire” or “nation” did not exist in Houqua’s mind. Moreover, such an abstract relation with an intangible entity was not realizable in Houqua’s social network. Chinese nationalism did not emerge until the defeat of China during the first Sino-Japanese War in 1895 or perhaps even the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Before then, loyalty to a country or a nation was an ideal on paper, not a reasonable demand from a merchant like Houqua, whose fortune depended primarily on his personal relationship to his patron. For the same reason, it would also be too “modern” for him to “betray” his motherland and consciously help the Western invasions. Furthermore, it was unavoidable in imperial Chinese society to categorize a Hong Merchant like Houqua as a “traitor”. Although his dealings with foreigners were indispensable to the Qing administration and state income, communication with the “foreign devils” was still regarded as being disgraceful. Several decades after 1840, when the Qing government sent its first official ambassador – Guo Songtao (郭嵩焘 1818–1891) – to Great Britain and France in 1876, the Confucian bureaucrat was mocked by his own countrymen. His diaries, which include his experience of communicating with Europeans and their civilization, were forbidden shortly after they were published.112 This bureaucrat – a Confucian literatus – was accused of being an English spy (“有二心于英国”),

112 For the following Chinese citation: Zhong, “On Guo Songtao,” 2f.

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therefore it would be only too easy to accuse a Hong Merchant like Houqua of being a traitor, who spent most of his lifetime with “foreign devils”. Houqua’s behavior in the Napier Affair displays obedience based on his fear of sanctions imposed by the local officials rather than loyalty that is voluntary. Such enforced obedience could also explain Houqua’s immoral and pragmatic dealings in other foreign affairs. Furthermore, this is also connected to the personalization of social relationships in imperial China. Houqua’s pragmatic thoughts made his personal bond to the Governor Lu Kun more important than his loyalty to the emperor. However, it cannot be denied that it is exactly this type of personal bond or pragmatic obedience that blinded someone like Houqua from really understanding the world outside, and therefore he perhaps missed an opportunity to save the country. In fact, the Napier Affair was not the only instance of China’s “missed chance” to change its fate: During the whole period of the Canton trade, i.e. from the early eighteenth century till 1840, important information about foreign ships, which could easily have presented an authentic assessment of the technological and military advances in the West, seems to have been overlooked.113 Neither the Hong Merchants nor anyone else who had access to these records acknowledged the potential danger and brought it to the notice of their supervisor or patron. They all made the pragmatic decision to be silent for their own safety and to protect their patronage relationships.114

3.1.4 The faith began to faint? By exploring his behavior during various instances, it is clear that Houqua’s position as the officials’ client often put him in an awkward situation, and it was clearly not easy to maintain his patronage relationship considering how his patrons treated him. In official writings, his name was often used with the phrase “奸商”, which means “unscrupulous merchant” and this indicates that he did

113 Cf. Van Dyke, The Canton Trade, 109–113. 114 It is also worth mentioning here is that being silent was considered an important characteristic of the “bureaucratic culture (官场文化)” in China. An “Enlightened” and “experienced” official like Li Hongzhang (李鸿章 1823–1901) was proud of his skills in hiding terrible truths from the emperor through silence, like the spread of plague in late nineteenth century. This was hidden to ensure that the emperor was not disturbed. Cf.: Lei, Splits in history, 179–180.

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not earn any respect from Confucian bureaucrats.115 After years of working in foreign affairs, his wealth and skill in business and his “timid” personality became equally famous.116 As the relationship between the Chinese officialdom and the foreigners especially the British worsened due to the illegal opium trade, Houqua’s position as the head of the Hong Merchants became more difficult. However, there was one dangerous, final incident that Houqua experienced before the First Opium War that was connected to his patronage relationship in which Houqua’s behavior was in contrast to his typical timid character. In late 1838, the imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu (林则徐 1785–1850) was sent by the emperor to Canton to deal with the problem of the illegal opium trade. As soon as the Commissioner Lin arrived at Canton in early March 1839, he began an intensified anti-opium campaign that required the cooperation of the Hong Merchants. However, Lin was not at all satisfied with the result of 1037 chests of opium submitted by foreigners on 22nd March because he was convinced that the quantity of opium that was surrendered had to be higher.117 Therefore, Lin decided to strengthen the campaign in a more efficient way. On the 23rd March 1839, Lin forced Houqua and Mowqua to wear iron chains around their necks and to be presented publicly in front of the English residence.118 Since an iron chain was usually to be put around the neck of a criminal who was sentenced to death, it was an attempt by the Commissioner Lin to show the English residents in Canton how serious his threat to the Hong Merchants was, especially the two Senior Hong Merchants Houqua and Mowqua. The message was that the Commissioner Lin “wished to see Mr. Dent to ask him some questions as head man of the foreigners and admonish him 115 Zhang Wenqin wrote a detailed account that the Commissioner Lin Zexu once allow Houqua to sit as an exception, only because of Houqua’s old age. Cf.: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 101. 116 It seems that “timid” is the most frequent word used by foreigners to describe Houqua’s personality, particularly concerning his patronage relationship to local officials. In early 1811, the EIC already observed the “timidity” of Houqua. Cf.: IOR, Volume R/10/26, “Secret Consultations” of season 1811/12, April 16th 1811, 31. Robert Bennet Forbes described Houqua as “shrewd in business, cautious and even timid in politics.” Cf.: Forbes, Robert Bennt 1882, 371. Later, Houqua’s timidity was so famous, that it was reported in an English newspaper article in 1835 that Houqua was remarkable as a “timid rich man” or “timid young lady”. Cf.: The Chinese Repository, Volume V (1836–1837), 550. 117 Lin turned out to be right. At the end of the campaign, Lin succeeded in confiscating 20,283 chests of drugs and had them burned at the Bocca Tigris (虎门) in June 1839. This victory of Lin’s anti-opium campaign was soon followed by the outbreak of the First Opium War. Cf.: “James Matheson in Canton to William Jardine in London, 1st May 1839” in: Le Pichon, China Trade and Empire, 357. 118 Forbes, Letters from China,109.

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against dealing in the drug.”119 This strategy of using Houqua to force a meeting with Dent – as Robert Bennet Forbes noted – “filled us with consternation.”120 On Houqua’s situation, he described: [. . .] I had the infinite mortification of seeing my old friend [Houqua] deprived of his official button & with an iron chain about his neck – he was calm & dignified enough – but very much degraded of course – instead of a heavy iron chain however I found that it consisted only of a mark of disgrace being a light iron chain loose over the shoulders like a necklace or rosary – he stated that the Yumchi121 wished to see Mr. Dent to inquire about the Opium trade & that he would be perfectly safe & he asked if the chamber did not think he ought to go to which it replied that it had no power or right to give any answer [. . .]

Meanwhile, the other Hong Merchants, together with officials, met Mr. Dent and told him that the commissioner Lin “must see Mr. Dent that day or the Hong Merchants would be executed.”122 The English replied that Dent would not go without “the guaranty of safe conduct under the Imperial Seal from the hands of the Yumchi alone.” As this was not guaranteed, the official actions of threatening and humiliating Houqua and Mowqua continued.123 When it was dusk on the same day, Mr. Inglis – another English trader in Canton and a friend of Mr. Dent – went into the city and reported Dent’s answer, following which the Hong Merchants including Houqua and Mowqua finally retired. At 10 pm Mr. Inglis returned to the English residence. He was made to understand that the Chinese government would take Dent by force on the next day. However, since the next day was Sunday which was consistently granted to foreigners as a day of rest, the Chinese officials agreed to see Dent on Monday. The drama of the 23rd March seemed to end temporarily.124

119 Forbes, Letters from China, 109 and “James Matheson in Canton to William Jardine in London, 1st May 1839” in: Le Pichon, China Trade and Empire, 361. Dent was one the oldest foreign residents in Canton. His firm handled more opium than any other except Jardine, Matheson & Company. 120 Forbes, Letters from China, 109. 121 “Yimchi” means Qin Chai (“钦差” in Chinese), namely the Commissioner Lin Zexu. 122 For the next citation cf.: Forbes, Letters from China, 110. 123 Forbes, Letters from China, 110 and James Matheson in Canton to William Jardine in London on May 1st 1839, in: Le Pichon, China Trade and Empire, 361. 124 On Sunday, the 24th March, the British Superintendent Elliot had arrived at Canton. Since then he took the responsibility of communicating with the Chinese officialdom and hence Mr. Dent was relieved. Due to Houqua’s repeated guarantee for Dent’s safety before, some Americans like R.B. Forbes and John Green (both from Russell & Co.) even volunteered to go with Mr. Dent. They were rather disappointed as they heard that they were not required. More details cf.: “James Matheson in Canton to William Jardine in London, 1st May 1839” in: Le Pichon, China Trade and Empire, 362f. and Forbes, Letters from China, 112f. After weeks of

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Houqua and Mowqua – as friends of the foreign devils were expected to play scared, innocent victims in order to encourage sympathy from the opium traders. This official show seemed to have a certain emotional effect on the foreigners who only heard accounts of it, but it was not as effective on those who witnessed the whole drama. Robert Bennet Forbes as one of the witnesses was threatened first. Then he observed that the iron chain, which was a symbol of serious disgrace was now rather “like a necklace or rosary”. Moreover, Houqua didn’t seem to be scared at all, but “calm & dignified”, despite being “very much degraded”.125 In other words, he did not seem to take his humiliating part in the official drama very seriously. What made the drama even less believable were the Chinese officials themselves, who at first threatened the foreigners with death to their friends, Houqua and Mowqua in order to meet Dent immediately, and then agreed to delay this apparently urgent meeting with Dent just because it was Sunday. If this meeting could be delayed anyway, what was the use of publicly threatening and humiliating Houqua and Mowqua? After being informed by Inglis that Dent would be taken into the city on Monday instead of Sunday, Forbes commented how ridiculous the case appeared to be: [. . .] the best proof in the world that the Hong Merchants had been playing upon our feelings was that the authorities admitted an excuse of Sunday & agree to wait till to day [. . .]126

Whether it was the intention of the Hong Merchants to appeal to the feelings of the foreign witnesses is not certain. But since the chains they wore and their facial expressions did not align with the role that they played, it was evident that both Houqua and Mowqua did not take the treatment seriously. Whereas some of the American witnesses like Robert Bennet Forbes, who were close to Houqua, were terrified in the beginning when Houqua’s life appeared to be in danger, the English witnesses did not seem to feel worried at all. James Matheson for instance revealed some other interesting details about the incident on 23rd March to his partner William Jardine in London: In the midst of our troubles, it was almost amusing to witness the forced gravity which Howqua and the younger Mowqua tried to assume in their chains, which however did not prevent them from occasionally chatting about business or news with any friends who

negotiation, Elliot agreed in May to give up more than 20,000 chests of opium, which were burnt in June publicly by the order of Lin. But the Opium War broke out in August 1839. 125 Forbes, Letters from China, 109. 126 Forbes, Letters from China, 110.

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happened to be near. Not a whisper of chain, loss of rank, or threatened execution have we heard since.127

These details again indicate that Houqua was not afraid at all – not of official threats or public insults. In contrast, he even seemed to be relieved: Whether Mr. Dent would follow the officials’ instructions or not was no longer his responsibility, but a matter between the officials and the English. No matter what kind of role Houqua played, it seems clear that commissioner Lin did not plan to kill him, and Houqua knew this. But what is remarkable in this situation is that he did not cooperate with the officialdom, since he did not actually try to gain sympathy from the foreigners. In fact, he even showed his ignorance and disinterest publicly. Also, the public insult of wearing iron chains did not seem to be something that bothered him. In other words, satisfying his patrons and the social prestige did not seem to be such a primary motivator for Houqua. This incident in March 1839 was not the only event displaying Houqua’s increasingly confident behavior contrary to his typical personality as a “timid lady”. Although this confidence does not change the substance of his role as a client of the officials like Lin Zexu, his behavior since 1839 concerning his patronage relationship seems to have changed slightly. Another “unusual” behavior of Houqua was recorded by another American trader William Hunter, who was also close to Houqua. In January 1840, a Chinese convert was caught on his way from Macao to Canton. In his baggage bottles of consecrated water, a missal and several earthen jars containing about 3000 dollars in treasure were discovered. With these objects and several letters, he was going to the city and continue to Cochin where he would deliver the letters to some missionaries. The foreign letters in his possession were enough to condemn this Chinese courier. Since no Chinese could read them, commissioner Lin ordered the Hong Merchants to have them translated into Chinese. Following this, William Hunter – one of the three foreigners in Canton who could speak Chinese128 – was asked by Houqua to explain the content of these letters. Hunter looked over them and saw that they were from various parts of China and written in French and Portuguese mostly. They contained reports from various missions, including accounts of persecutions to which some of the

127 James Matheson in Canton to William Jardine in London, on May 1st 1839, in: Le Pichon, China Trade and Empire, 362. 128 William C. Hunter, who came to Canton in 1829 and became a partner of Russell & co. in 1839, had studied Chinese in Malacca before his arrival in China. He was one of the only three foreigners, who were able to understand Chinese in the 1830s. Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 17.

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writers (missionaries) had been subjected. To have interpreted any of them would cause further investigations and undoubtedly lead to still further tribulation, if not capital punishment. Therefore, Hunter said to Houqua “You must excuse me, but I cannot explain any of these letter.”129 Houqua’s reaction was: he was evidently greatly disturbed. It is the Kin-Chae’s130 orders, he remarked; that he knew my name, that I understood Chinese, and if I refused to assist the Hong Merchants, they would be “too muchee trub”.131 At this moment a servant brought tea. While taking it he exclaimed, “Hae yah, Kin-Chae too muchee foolo”.132 In this I quite agreed with him, and took leave.133

Obviously Houqua still tried to use commissioner Lin’s order to force Hunter at first. But after this was unsuccessful, Houqua did not argue with Hunter anymore, but gave a rather astonishing comment that commissioner Lin, was “foolish” or “crazy”. What is also worth mentioning is that it is very probable that Houqua even made his comment on commissioner Lin while this tea servant was still present. It was well known that the commissioner Lin – unlike most of other Chinese officials – was incorrupt and intended strongly to suppress the opium traffic. Before his arrival in Canton, he had begun to gather insider information. During his stay in Canton his familiarity and singular knowledge of the subject surprised even opium dealers like James Matheson.134 His suppliers of information included not only linguists, but also servants of foreigners and the Hong Merchants. Therefore, though Hunter did not mention it in this instance in particular, it cannot

129 For more details about this incident cf.:Hunter, Bits of Old China, 52–56. 130 “Kin-Chae” means the Commissioner Lin. 131 This means “Would be very much bothered”. Cf.:Hunter, Bits of Old China, 53, footnote 2. 132 According to Hunter, this sentence means “The Commissioner Lin is very crazy”. But in my assessment “foolo” might mean “foolish”. Cf.: Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 65. 133 Hunter, Bits of Old China, 53. A few days later Hunter was called again by the Hong Merchants, this time by Mowqua, Puankhequa and others, but without Houqua. They all seemed to be very distressed since commissioner Lin demanded the letters to be translated without delay. Hunter told them that “nothing could be done”, but he also stated that “they [the Hong Merchant] could find no one in the foreign community who could or would explain them.” Then Puankhequa asked Hunter if there was any “Chinese inside the city can interpret them” (originally emphasized). Hunter answered, “not one, you may be sure of that.” The Hong Merchants were all very much relieved by this assertion. Probably they reported to commissioner Lin that the letters were not to be translated since no one was able to understand the characters. Cf.:Hunter, Bits of Old China, 54f. What is interesting to observe here is that the other Hong Merchants seemed much more under pressure by commissioner Lin than Houqua did in this case. 134 Cf.: James Matheson in Canton to William Jardine in London, on May 1st 1839, in: Le Pichon, China Trade and Empire, 359–360.

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be ruled out that this servant might be an informant of commissioner Lin’s who was supposed to get information by serving tea to Houqua and Hunter. If Houqua transmitted the message consciously through the tea servant, telling him that it was useless and even stupid to ask Hunter to translate the letters,135 it would be highly inappropriate and dangerous to make such a rude comment about commissioner Lin. This would imply that Houqua did not have any fear of Lin’s reaction. Even if Houqua did not intend to let commissioner Lin hear about the rude comment Houqua made about him, or if the tea servant was not actually present, this incident nevertheless shows Houqua’s confidence in commenting on his patron in such a direct way. Compared to Houqua’s careful demeanor and timidity earlier, this was a remarkable shift of Houqua’s behavior. Was this shift a sign of his weakening faith in traditional social hierarchy and patronage? What happened during this period? What made him behave more confidently in his position as a client? The year 1839 was relevant to Chinese history because it was the year before the First Opium War, which terminated the Canton System. At this time, Houqua was 70 years old, an old man who found himself at the end of his business career. After almost 40 years of working and struggling in the Canton trade, Houqua had earned not only an immense fortune but also recognition in international trade. His wealth and close relationship with foreigners made the local officialdom more or less dependent on him in managing foreign affairs and collecting “donations”. Consequently, his influence on the officials may also have increased, especially regarding the official titles of his family members and the personal relationship between his sons and the local gentry and officials.136 Moreover, his significant wealth kept him safe from the vicious cycle of foreign credit – the main reason for the Hong Merchants’ bankruptcy and their problems with local officials. Houqua’s actions were almost flawless when satisfying the financial and administrative needs of his official patrons. Also, his activities in the opium trade – as explored in section 4.3.3 – was kept so secret, that till today there is no clear evidence proving his direct involvement after 1821.

135 My own speculation to this point is that these letters were written in foreign languages and were not addressed to the Chinese government at all. If they were of no importance, it would make no sense to further investigate further this case. If they contained really important information concerning the Chinese government, Hunter – just like other foreigners who were mostly Christians – would not cooperate anyway. Therefore, this order from commissioner Lin, to ask foreigners to betray themselves, was bound to be ignored. 136 As will be illustrated in chapter 5.3, all of Houqua’s sons seemed to be well connected with local Confucian literati.

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However, there is another factor, which could have contributed to Houqua’s confidence in his patronage relationship – his independent plan of securing his fortunes. In January 1840, an American trader John Coolidge observed that Houqua “is shipping largely; every ship [. . .] had J. P. C. on its bxs.”137 This demonstrates that Houqua transferred his fortunes in the form of shipments to America under the name of John Perkins Cushing – his closest American friend. Though it is hard to establish when exactly Houqua began this secret financial plan, it can be ascertained that his shipments overseas managed by John P. Cushing and John Murray Forbes – a cousin of John P. Cushing and Houqua’s major agent for oversea business –increased consistently from 1837 to 1841.138 Additionally, the extent of his funds overseas must have been significant enough that Houqua put a lot of thought into its management. During the war, in June 1840, Houqua wrote to John P. Cushing in Boston, asking him to take care of large funds in America and England.139 On the same day, Houqua also wrote to his other trustees and cousins of Cushing, John M. Forbes and his brother Robert Bennet Forbes with similar requests.140 This indicates clearly that up to 1840, Houqua had already transferred large sums of money to America and England, places where his Chinese patrons in Canton would never have the authority to extort any more. Therefore, looking back to his “easy-going” cooperation in the official show on 23rd March 1839 and his comments about Lin Zexu in the presence of the tea servant in early 1840, it is now comprehensible that at these points of time, Houqua’s plan of saving his wealth must have already begun and a large portion of his fortunes might have been either on their way out of China or might have already arrived on the other side of the globe to be received by his American friends. In other words, even as his patrons extorted all the fortune that he had in China, he and his descendants would still be able to survive financially. With this in sight, though he was trapped and in a lower position to the officials in the patronage hierarchy, Houqua had secured his future, which might have allowed him to behave with a little more confidence than he did before.

137 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, Jan. 20th, 1840, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. “J. P. C.” means without doubt John Perkins Cushing. Since the shipments were under the name of John P. Cushing, they should not be stopped and questioned by the Chinese government. 138 Cf.: Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 82. 139 Houqua to John P. Cushing, Canton, June 20th 1840, in: HL, MHS. 140 Houqua to John M. Forbes, Canton, June 28th 1840 and Houqua to R.B. Forbes, Canton, June 28th 1840, both in HL, MHS. The immense fortunes of Houqua deposited in the US and England and managed by his American friends particularly John Cushing till the end of the nineteenth century, guaranteed luxurious lives to Houqua’s descendants for several generations.

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Houqua was no longer pressured by his patrons is indicated in the aforementioned incident and even his personal life seemed to be more enjoyable. According to an April 1840 entry in Robert Bennet Forbes’ journal, which was recorded after Forbes recovered from an accident on horseback, he went to see Houqua: I saw my friend Houqua this morning & find him quite well, he gave me a hearty welcome & I am persuaded that there is a great deal of friendly feeling in him – he gave me a lecture on horse riding & boat sailing & tells me to take warning by my lucky escape & refrain in future from horses & boats in toto141

This is a rather rare snippet from Houqua’s daily life in which he appears relieved and delighted. This description of Houqua in 1840, giving “a lecture on horse riding”, was quite different from that of a “timid lady” – the usual manner in which Houqua was described. Despite these positive signs, it does not necessarily mean that Houqua was willing to free himself from his patronage relationship. In 1843, John M. Forbes wrote to Houqua: If [. . .] the mandarins continue to exact money from you I do not see where it will and unless you will make up your mind to take possession of one of my ships for the conveyance of yourself and family – and come to this country where everyman is called upon to pay only his fair share of the expenses of the government [. . .]142

John Murray Forbes was fully aware how much Houqua suffered under his inferior position in the patronage relationships and suggested Houqua to come to the “new world”, where wealthy merchants could enjoy their lives in a way that was impossible in China. Since this letter was written in Boston on the 5th August, just one month before Houqua’s death, Houqua could not have received this letter. But this is not the first time that Houqua was given the suggestion to leave China. In a letter to John Murray Forbes dated in November 1841, as the war became hopeless for China,143 Houqua did express his wish to visit his best friend John Perkins Cushing and his “large place with plenty fine fruit”.144 But still, Houqua would not leave everything behind and go to a completely new world.

141 Forbes, Letters from China, 218. 142 Forbes, “Extracts,” 176. 143 In a previous letter, Houqua expressed in a very desperate way that “everyday it is becoming more complicated [. . .] I do not know when it will be settled.” Houqua to John M. Forbes, Canton October 4th 1841, in: HL, MHS. 144 Houqua to John M. Forbes, Canton November 4th 1841, in: HL, MHS.

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His letter at the end of 1842 – probably his last letter to Cushing145 – as the war was finally ended, indicates nevertheless a remarkable change of heart. Though without mentioning his patrons, he “hope[d] heartily” for the abolition of the Canton System, which was responsible for his patronage relationship.146 His last portraits which he sent as gifts to his foreign partners and friends are remarkable in this context for the information they provide. Usually, Houqua – just like all other Hong Merchants – performed his usual role in these portraits as an official, i.e. wearing his official uniform and the distinctive red cap. In two of his portraits, painted during the last years of his life, he still had his official uniform on, but his red cap was completely left out.147 It seems to indicate that though his position as the officials’ client remained the same until the end of his life, there is a slight change in his faith regarding his patronage relationship as evidenced by his behavior and last portraits.

3.2 A Senior Hong Merchant: Balance between partners and competitors One of Houqua’s roles in his Chinese circles was that of a client of the Chinese officialdom. Another role was his position as a Senior Hong Merchant, which was not easier than serving the officials, because his “Hong friends”148 were not only colleagues and partners but also competitors. The following chapter focuses on Houqua’s relationship within this group of Hong Merchants, especially illustrating the ways in which he balanced his business with that of his “Hong friends”.

3.2.1 Partnership Houqua’s family firm – the Ewo Hong (怡和行) – was re-established by his brother Puiqua in 1792. Although Puiqua was a competent trader and made his firm the third biggest partner of the EIC after the firms Puankhequa and

145 Most of Houqua’s letters from 1840 till his death in 1843 are collected in the “Houqua Letterbook” reserved in MHS. This letter is the last one to Cushing in this collection. 146 Houqua to John P. Cushing, Canton, December 23rd 1842, in: HL, MHS. 147 More details about this portrait will be explored in section 4.2.4.2. 148 In his Chinese notes to the EIC, Houqua called other Hong Merchants usually as his “行友”, which literally means “Hong friends”. See the Chinese notes by Houqua reserved in the National Archives in Kew, series FO 1048.

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Mowqua,149 his firm still had to suffer under the forced ownership of other Hong Merchants’ debts, especially those of Geowqua – a relative who failed in 1798.150 As Puiqua died in 1801, Houqua was made responsible for both Geowqua’s and Puiqua’s debts. In the year 1802 alone, Houqua paid 14,198 taels to the VOC as repayment for Puiqua.151 In other words, while several relatives of Houqua who entered the Canton Trade earlier might have given him the benefit of their experience and advice, they also gave him a very difficult financial start in 1801. Therefore, in the early stage of his career as a junior Hong Merchant, establishing good relationships with others, especially with his seniors, was essential for his survival. On the 2nd January 1801, as Houqua’s brother was seriously ill and had to withdraw from business, Houqua, as the representative, found some problems with the quality of the cotton purchased from the EIC. Thus, he requested a price reduction of one tael per picul.152 Meanwhile, since Puankhequa and Mowqua bought the same cotton also from the EIC, Houqua also requested the same reduction for these two other Hong Merchants.153 Since the EIC did not agree at first, Houqua, together with Mowqua, visited the EIC committee several times and insisted on their requests. After weeks of negotiation, the EIC finally agreed on the reduction for Puankhequa of 7,760 taels, for Mowqua of 6,359 taels and for Houqua of 5,555 taels.154 However, on the day after this agreement, the EIC committee tried to persuade Houqua to make an adjustment in the reduction. Houqua refused, explaining that “being a Junior Merchant he would not oppose any adjustment that Puankhequa and Mowqua had consented to.”155 Thus, the final settlement benefited everyone, especially Puankhequa and Mowqua. 149 In the season 1800, Puiqua took over even the same volume of contract with the EIC as Mowqua and thus the second most important partner of the EIC. Cf.: Morse, Chronicles, Volume II (1926), 348. 150 The relationship between Geowqua and Puiqua or Houqua is not very clear. In September 1792, EIC records state that Geowqua was Puiqua’s brother. See IOR, Volume G/12/103, 39. But in 1798, EIC records state that Geowqua was Puiqua’s cousin. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/119, 96. Based on Chinese sources, especially family genealogies, Geowqua would be more likely Puiqua’s and Houqua’s cousin. During the mid–1790s Geowqua was already heavily in debt. See IOR, Volume G/12/119, 96–98. Cf. also: Van Dyke, Paul A. 2010, 201. According to the records of the VOC, even after Puiqua withdrew from business in early 1801, more than 16,000 taels still remained to be paid back to the Dutchmen due to Geowqua’s debts in February 1798. Cf.: Nederlandse Factory in Canton, Volume 340, NAN. 151 Nederlandse Factory in Canton, Volume 343, NAN. 152 One picul = 100 catties = 133 1/3 Avoirdupois-pounds. 153 IOR, Volume G/12/131, 243f. 154 IOR, Volume G/12/132, Consultation on 28th January 1801, 19–21. 155 IOR, Volume G/12/133, Consultation on 29th January 1801, 26.

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Of course, the 5,555 Taels was a big sum at that time considering Houqua’s financial situation. But what is more important is that he initiated this joint action against the EIC – the biggest purchaser of the Hong Merchants’ cargoes and the most important business partner. Moreover, Houqua stayed determinedly on the side of the two senior Hong Merchants. There are no further details available regarding Puankhequa’s and Mowqua’s reactions to this gesture. Although Houqua’s position did not change overnight, considering his earlier relationships with the other Hong Merchants, this was a very good beginning for Houqua, indicating that he was aware that for a weak junior Hong Merchant fighting against a strong opponent such as the EIC, a partnership was immensely useful and effective. It is also worth mentioning here that at least in EIC records, there is no information about the compensation for other Hong Merchants who also bought EIC’s cotton, since it was usually allocated to every Hong Merchant in proportion to their tea contracts. It seems that this joint action initiated by Houqua only included Puankhequa156 and Mowqua. Both were senior Hong Merchants and had leading positions in the Cohong. The family of Puankhequa dominated the Canton trade for more than half a century until the early nineteenth century. Among all the Hong friends, Mowqua (盧观恒 1746–1812) and his family were closest to Houqua. In 1793, Mowqua became a Hong Merchant officially with Puiqua. EIC recorded that year that “Mowqua has long dealt with us under the sanction of Munqua’s Chop & is a man of substance & fair dealing.”157 During the years before Puiqua’s death, Mowqua’s business, especially with the EIC, increased rapidly. As Houqua took over Puiqua’s firm, Mowqua was the second leading Hong Merchant behind Puankhequa. Since Puankhequa did not want to continue his position as the senior Hong Merchant after 1808 and his sons were unable to bring the firm back to its former glory,158 Mowqua became the first senior Hong Merchant. In 1813, shortly after the older Mowqua’s death in 1812 and his son (盧文锦), who was also called Mowqua, took over the business,159 Houqua

156 To be specifically, Puankhequa II (潘有度), who became a Hong Merchant after his father Puankhequa I’s (潘启) death in 1788. 157 IOR, Volume G/12/103, 39. 158 For this “retirement”, Puankhequa II paid a lot including clearing up his debts with the EIC and bribing local officials. However, he could not really retire since even after his retirement, he was often requested to participate in foreign affairs and forced to make donations to the government. In 1815, Puankhequa II was forced to re-open his firm again. Cf.: Pan, et al., Tung-Wan / Tung-Fu Hong, 93–95 and 110–111. 159 Since the young Mowqua or Mowqua II (盧文锦) did not differentiate from his father in business or in relationship with Houqua’s family after 1812, there is no need to make a

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was declared to be the first senior and Mowqua the second.160 This stand of the Cohong with Houqua as the first and Mowqua the second senior remained until the end of the Canton System in 1842. The older Mowqua and his son did not seem very close to Puiqua, but after 1801, Mowqua’s family became Houqua’s closest partner until at least 1842. In the joint action against the EIC in early 1801, unlike Puankhequa, Mowqua was always there by Houqua’s side.161 Later in many affairs and joint actions, Mowqua and Houqua were often together on the same side. After Houqua became the first senior Hong Merchant and Mowqua the second, the two families remained very close with each other. As can be clearly seen in Houqua’s negotiations with Lord Napier in 1834, though Mowqua was not an active player, he accompanied Houqua in almost every negotiation. Also, during the incident regarding commissioner Lin in March 1839 that attempted to force Mr. Dent to meet him, Mowqua appeared again on Houqua’s side wearing iron chains in the public. Lastly, during the war in 1840 and 1841, when all the Hong Merchants left Canton, Houqua and Mowqua were the only two Hong Merchants who stayed in Canton.162 These, as well numerous other examples, prove the close relationship between Houqua and Mowqua. Obviously, during the 40 years of Houqua’s career he was not alone, because Mowqua remained on Houqua’s side, supported him silently and agreeing with Houqua in both political and business decisions. Furthermore, beside the joint activities in business and political affairs, Houqua also protected this partnership. For example, in 1828 as rumors began circulating against Mowqua in Canton, accusing him of being dishonest in paying his dues, in order to save Mowqua’s reputation, Houqua wrote to the EIC immediately stating that the rumors were ridiculous and groundless.163 In this letter Houqua addressed Mowqua as his “second brother of Lu (盧二兄)”,164 which is more than just a courtesy, but rather an indication of how important it was to have Mowqua’s partnership and backing.

difference between old Mowqua or Mowqua I (盧观恒) and young Mowqua everywhere in this study. Both will be mentioned as “Mowqua”. 160 IOR, Volume R/10/26, 10. 161 Records state that Houqua and Mowqua came to the EIC on January 4th 1801, without participation of Puankhequa. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/131, 249. 162 Houqua to Robert Bennet Forbes and John Murray Forbes on April 12th 1841, in: HL, MHS. 163 Houqua to Plowden on the 1st day of the 4th month, 8th year of Daoguang (1828), in: FO, 1048/28/17. 164 “Lu” is the family name of Mowqua. This young Mowqua was the second son of the old Mowqua. Due to his closeness, Houqua called him the “second brother”.

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Of course, Mowqua was not the only one who supported Houqua’s actions.165 As a lone merchant, Houqua could never have achieved a dominant position in the Canton trade. In the early stages especially, he needed not only seniors like Puankhequa and Mowqua on his side, but also as many other Hong Merchants as possible in order to build a strong front against powerful foreign companies and the EIC in particular, to protect his own interests. The usual way pragmatic partnerships among the Hong Merchants came about was through collaborations to determine prices. For instance, in 1817, as Metcalfe, the president of the EIC committee, wrote to Houqua, Mowqua and Puankhequa, urged the Hong Merchants not to collaborate with each other before offering him the price like they did last year.166 Obviously, monopolize prices took place as a joint action. During the 1810s and 1820s in order to avoid the monopoly, the EIC met each of the Hong Merchants individually asking them the offer their price for the company’s goods. But the Hong Merchants still collaborated with each other to decide on the price.167 Other than business interests, the families of Houqua and Mowqua were also bound together through marriage. Intermarriage between merchants’ families in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in mercantile networks or economic cooperation was a very important tradition. This tradition was also common in America as evidenced by some of the famous American merchant-families during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as “Perkins”, “Cushing”, “Forbes”, “Sturgis”, who were all related to each other through marriage.168 In the Chinese context, establishing relationships through marrying into the families of the local gentry or officials was the most desired way for a merchant family to advance their social position. Between rich merchants’ families like the Hong Merchants, marriage was also commonly used to cement their business ties. Unfortunately, due to the lack of Chinese sources, it is impossible to reconstruct the complete network of ties through marriage among the Hong families. There is fragmented evidence which does indicate the existence of the intermarriage. For

165 Since 1813, as Houqua was the first senior Hong Merchant, he was responsible for all the affairs in the Cohong and most of the joint actions were initiated or at least supported by him. 166 Metcalfe to Houqua, Mowqua and Puankhequa on the 25th day of the 6th month, 22nd year of Jiaqing ( 1817), in: FO, 1048/17/76. 167 In a note in 1822 sent by Houqua, Mowqua, Chungqua and Puankhequa, the Hong Merchants informed the EIC officially of their price for cotton, after their discussions. Cf.: FO, 1048/22/75. 168 See Rachel Tamar Van’s study on the Perkins’ family, esp. in: Tarmar Van, “Free Trade & Family Values,” 27.

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example, one of Houqua’s granddaughters was recorded as being married to Mowqua II (盧文锦),169 and Chunqua was Mowqua I’s brother-in-law.170 However, intermarriage was not the only form of relationship that was established. Most of the Hong Merchants were connected to each other in various types of relationships, an idea of which is shown in the following diagram. Table 1: Relationships between the Hong Merchants.* Name

Time as an active Hong Merchant

Relation to other Hong Merchant

Seequa

–

Puankhequa I’s clerk

Geowqua

–

Yngshaw’s purser

Houqua’s father

–

Puankhequa I’s clerk

Yanqua

–

Puankhequa II’s clerk

Puiqua

–

Geowqua’s cousin

Ponqua

–

Chouqua’s clerk

Conseequa

–

Puankhequa I’s nephew

Fatqua I

–

Relative of Mowqua

*Sources providing the information of this table: Ch’en, The Insolvency, 13–18 and 154.

Besides kinship relations which were common in business networks in Europe and America during eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the “clerk – master” relationship was also very common. Unlike in Europe, the Hong Merchants did not seem to find it problematic to face their former clerks as their new colleagues or even competitors now.171 In contrast, since junior Hong Merchants 169 In the official local chronicles of Nanhai County of Canton (南海县志), it is recorded that Mowqua (盧文锦) was the husband of Wu Chongyao’s (伍崇曜 the fifth son of Houqua) niece. In other words, one of Houqua’s granddaughters married Mowqua. Cf.: Chronicles of Nanhai County of Guangdong (南海县志), 1835, Volume14, 48. 170 IOR, Volume G/12/148, 154. 171 A German study on trust in pre-industrial long-distance trade reveals a serious problem in the relationship between a master and his clerk, if the clerk betrayed his master and worked for someone else after finishing his apprenticeship. Cf.: Gorißen, “Der Preis des Vertrauens,” 90–118. Due to the lack of Chinese sources, it is unclear how Hong Merchants dealt with their former clerks, who became their new colleagues while still having access to insider information about his Hong superior. So far, I have neither found any cases indicating a Hong Merchant betrayed his former master, nor any Hong Merchant during Houqua’s time, who used to be Houqua’s clerk.

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were unlikely to be a serious danger to the seniors or compete with others independently, they were often in need of a strong partnership or cooperation with their former masters or a senior Hong Merchant, just like Houqua’s partnership with Mowqua in the beginning. However, as illustrated in section 3.2.3, a serious side effect of such partnership was that one might have to repay the debts of his insolvent partner.

3.2.2 The “Hong friends” as competitors The pragmatic partnership was one aspect of Houqua’s relation with his Hong friends. Another aspect of the relationship was that they were also competitors. It took only thirteen years for Houqua to obtain the leading position among the merchants and he maintained that position for the three decades before the end of the Canton System. Therefore, it is understandable that other Hong Merchants, especially those who had to struggle to survive, could not witness Houqua’s success without any jealousy. Records by the EIC in August 1813 about Houqua’s actual position in the Cohong, state that “his immense wealth given him a decided superiority over the other Merchants in every commercial transaction whilst they from their embarrassed circumstances cannot enter into any speculation.”172 Therefore, as a Senior Hong Merchant with a singularly successful career in business, it became extremely important for Houqua to keep his personal relations with others as harmonious as possible. Considering Houqua’s role in numerous awkward and unpleasant situations, how did he still achieve his business goal without “hurting” others? Firstly, since it is rare to find a primary source for Houqua’s direct accusations against other Hong Merchants, it can be assumed that it was generally not his style to act against his competitors directly. This is illustrated in the cases discussed below. In 1813, it was suspected that one of the Hong Merchants, Poonequa, had privately offered the EIC a higher price for the Indian cotton than the price that everyone had agreed on. The quantity of cotton accepted by a Hong Merchant was directly connected to the quantity of tea he could sell to the EIC and the cash that he could obtain in advance. So, by offering a higher price than the others, Poonequa could obtain a better position in making tea contracts with the EIC. And more importantly, the other Hong Merchants including Houqua

172 IOR, Volume R/10/26, Secret Consultations, Season 1813/14, 61.

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would be forced to offer the same price as Poonequa did. Hence Houqua and Mowqua reported this to the Hoppo immediately:173 商等二人总理洋行事物 率领众商公平整顿 [. . .] 商等当即遵谕 率领众商集合会馆 将该船 进口棉花按照时值公平定义 [. . .] 嗣据同泰行啇麦观廷承保该船认受棉花 商等风闻该商内 有加价 承买之事正在确查 [. . .] 商等当即亲向查询 在该行坚以照议十二两二钱承受 并无 加价 询之该夷商 据称夷与别商交易 货价不便对商等说之等语 商等无从确查 [. . .] 伏候仁 宪裁夺 [. . .] We [Houqua and Mowqua]，the two Senior Hong Merchants, are in charge of the Hong affairs and keeping the fair trade [. . .] As you [always] order, we gathered all the Hong Merchants at the Cohong, in order to determine together the fair price according to the market offered to the cotton [. . .] then Poonequa was willing to secure this ship with cottons. We have heard that this merchant has increased his price for cotton. We are still investigating this case [. . .] We then went to his hong in person and this merchant insisted on his statement that he offered the fixed price of 12,2 taels just like others, without any increase. As we asked the foreign dealer, he asserted that since he also dealt with other [Chinese] merchants, he could not tell us the price. Therefore we could not get any further with our investigation [. . .] Now we are waiting humbly for your judgment and decision.

Houqua, together with Mowqua, described their difficulties in investigating the case against Poonequa in this petition. Unfortunately, neither Poonequa himself nor the EIC were cooperative. So, before Houqua went further in investigating this case and unpleasant confrontations occurred, he decided to let Chinese officials pressurize Poonequa on the grounds that Poonequa’s uncooperative behavior was against Houqua’s orders to maintain fair trade. Following this, two days later, the Hoppo reprimanded Poonequa and forced him to cooperate with Houqua and Mowqua.174 In this way, Houqua maintained the balance in business and also protected his own interests – indirectly – against possible sabotage caused by another Hong Merchant. In business and other unpleasant cases, Houqua tried to find a third person to solve the problem. In 1828, he wrote to Plowden, the president of the EIC committee, complaining that Puankhequa and Goqua often missed the Cohong meetings:175

173 Original Chinese version cf.: Petition from Houqua and Mowqua to Hoppo on the 5th day of the 7th month, 18th year of Jiaqing (1813), in: FO, 1048/13/6. My English translation. 174 The answer of the Hoppo see Hoppo to the Hong Merchants on 7th day of the 7th month, 18th year of Jiaqing (1813), in: FO, 1048/13/6. 175 The following letter in original Chinese version cf.: Houqua to Plowden on the 19th day of the 6th month, 8th year of Daoguang (1828), in: FO, 1048/28/31. My English translation.

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近日遇有公司公事 [. . .] 同孚行之正商或到或不到 而东裕行之正商永不到 弟屡次相劝置 之不理 将来各相效尤安逸 公事谁人办理 本故附信通知此言 仁兄作为闻知 以免弟受人见 怪 恳为便中附信于各行 在后不可将公事视为儿戏 Recently while being called due to Company’s affairs [. . .] the head of Tongfu Hong [Puankhequa] is not present every time, and the head of the Dongyu Hong [Goqua] is never present. I talked to them many times, but they did not pay any attention. If everyone follows [these two merchants] in the future, who should take care of [Company’s] affairs? Therefore I write this letter informing you this subject. In order to prevent others’ accusation against me, please write to other Hong Merchants and they should take the [Company’s] affairs more seriously in the future.

Houqua was understandably upset with Puankhequa’s and Goqua’s behavior. Compared to his petition to the Hoppo, Houqua was quite direct in this letter176: He asked Plowden to write to the other Hong Merchants, requiring them to come to the meetings. So again, before his relation to Puankhequa and Goqua became worse, Houqua let Plowden deal with his Hong friends. A few days later, Plowden sent notes to both Puankhequa and Goqua, informing them that if they continued ignoring company’s affairs, their business would suffer.177 Since the business with the EIC was essential to the survival of the Hong Merchants alongside Houqua,178 Plowden’s pressure would have worked well. As Plowden did not mention a single word about Houqua,179 Houqua himself was not the focus of this conflict. Thus, Puankhequa and Goqua could not accuse Houqua directly. Avoiding a direct confrontation helped Houqua’s awkward position towards other merchants for a while but could not really resolve the dissatisfaction and jealousy towards him. Among the Hong Merchants, Conseequa (潘长耀1759–1823), a cousin of Puankhequa II (潘有度), seemed particularly inimical to Houqua. Conseequa entered the Canton trade as one of the outside shop men in 1794. His firm “Liquan Hong (丽泉行)” enjoyed apparent initial success but began to decline after 1807. From then on until the death of Conseequa in 1823, the firm suffered due to his large loans to foreigners, especially the Americans, which he could not claim back.180 In 1824 Conseequa’s firm Liquan Hong had to officially close. 176 It is worth recalling that the Hoppo was Houqua’s patron, whereas Plowden as Houqua’s business partner did not have a higher position. 177 Plowden’s notes to Puankhequa and Goqua in Chinese cf.: FO, 1048/28/33. 178 As previously mentioned, Houqua had increased business with the Americans after he entered the Canton trade. 179 Plowden was probably the only British merchant with whom Houqua had a good personal relationship. The fact that Plowden let Houqua withdraw from the conflict might also be an act of kindness towards Houqua. 180 In February of 1814, in order to claim back his credits, Conseequa even sent his petition to the American president Madison. Unfortunately, this did not help. For more details about

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3 Houqua in his Chinese circles

As Houqua’s business continued to increase and surpassed that of all the Hongs during the 1810s, Conseequa’s firm was deeply involved in a hopeless credit conflict with the Americans and was on the way to insolvency. In June and July 1814, Elphinstone, the president of the committee asked Conseequa repeatedly about the kind of teas he could supply to the EIC.181 A few weeks later Conseequa wrote to Elphinstone, regretting his delayed response.182 In the same letter, after reporting what kind of tea he could supply, Conseequa complained about his difficult situation in purchasing teas due to Houqua’s activities:183 怡和行今年正二三月之间不论好坏茶盖行收买 [. . .] 俱现银收买或用锡抵数 因此各茶皆被 怡和行收买 其意欲希囤奇货可居 以为彼时公司要茶用 必欲向他商办 [. . .] 但仁兄断不可 向他商办之事 中他之计[. . .] The Ewo Hong [Houqua’s firm] began to buy off the teas since this February and March, no matter of good or bad quality [. . .] he [i.e. Houqua] paid either with cash or tin. So now the teas of all kinds are brought by the Ewo Hong. He [Houqua] hoards the goods, so that once the Company needs teas, you must turn to him. [. . .] But you, my kind brother, should not consult with him and fall into his trap.

Obviously, Conseequa’s warning to Elphinstone was aimed directly at Houqua. But the committee did not take it seriously. In his response to Conseequa, Elphinstone just gave details about Company’s requirements of tea and said nothing about Houqua.184 The claim that Houqua hoarded all the tea in Canton could not be true. In the same year (1814), although Houqua was the biggest supplier of tea for the EIC, all the other Hong Merchants also sold large amounts of tea in keeping with their proportion of woolens.185 Conseequa was the third biggest supplier behind Houqua and Mowqua, and he was the only one who provided the Bohea tea. Although monopolizing the market by hoarding goods was indeed one

Conseequa’s credit relations with the Americans cf.: Grant, “The Failure of the Li-ch’uan Hong,” 252–257. 181 There are at least two letters sent by Elphinstone to Conseequa about this issue, one was on 27th day of the 6th month, 19th year of Jiaqing (1814), another one on 11th day of the 7th month in the same year. The second one was quite urgent. Cf.: FO, 1048/14/32 and 1048/14/35. 182 Conseequa’s earliest answer was on 15th day of the 7th month in 1814. Cf.: FO, 1048/14/38. 183 The following letter in original Chinese version see Conseequa to Elphinstone on 15th day of the 7th month, 19th year of Jiaqing (1814), in: FO, 1048/14/38. My English translation. 184 Elphinstone to Conseequa on August 30th 1814, in: FO, 1048/14/39. 185 About the results of tea contracts with the Hong Merchants for the season 1814/15, cf.: Morse, Chronicles, Volume III (1926), 207.

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of Houqua’s business strategies,186 this time it seems that it was Conseequa who hoarded Bohea tea. But Conseequa’s dissatisfaction with Houqua did not stop. In 1816, Conseequa complained again about the junior Hong Merchants’ difficult situation due to lack of credit. He could not get the same convenient conditions in his contract with the Chinese tea dealers as Houqua did, because he could not provide so much cash in advance.187 The last attack from Conseequa against Houqua came shortly after Conseequa’s death, as Conseequa’s son wanted to claim the shares of his father’s firm from Houqua which he held.188 In the same year, one of Conseequa’s creditors accused Houqua of having illegally sold some of Conseequa’s real estates to the foreigners, which should have been given to this creditor as compensation.189 Due to the lack of Chinese sources, it is difficult to prove the authenticity of these accusations and remark on Houqua’s reactions to them.190 What is certain is that Houqua, as the first senior Hong Merchant and the only one who was financially independent, was in charge of managing Conseequa’s debts affairs. From 1823 to 1826, Conseequa’s real estates were sold at auctions in order to pay back the debts. And the most famous one among Conseequa’s estates, his grandiose garden, was sold in 1824 to one of Houqua’s sons (伍元芝) and thus became indeed one of Houqua’s estates.191 186 In 1820, as a large amount of pepper was imported from America to Canton, the price “went down to $9¾” as the Americans closed their sales. However, “after it was pretty well ascertained that no more of this article [pepper] would arrive, Houqua went into the market and bought the whole of it up & the price is now up to $13 or $14 per picul.” Cf.: Russell & Co. to Edward Carrington & Co. & Cysus Butler on October 22nd 1820, in: Russell & Co. Records, Oversize, LC. 187 See Conseequa’s letter to the committee on May 8th 1816 in: IOR, Volume R/10/26, Secret Consultations, Season 1816/17, 44. 188 In December 1823, Conseequa’s son and succession petitioned the Hoppo, stating that in 1820 Houqua took charge of three shares of Conseequa’s business, so that he could help Conseequa pay back the debts of 270,000 taels, which were owed to the EIC and should be paid back in five years’ instalments. After Conseequa died in June 1823, his son required Houqua to give him back the three shares. But still Houqua hadn’t turned them back. Moreover, since Conseequa’s Hong still owed the Company 210,000 taels, according to Conseequa’s son, Houqua must have used the 3 shares for his own interest, instead of paying back Conseequa’s debts. Cf.: Order from Hoppo to Houqua in 1823 (without concrete date) in: FO, 1048/23/17. 189 Order from Hoppo to Houqua and Mowqua in 1823 (without concrete date), in: FO, 1048/ 23/19. 190 In a recent study by Frederic D. Grant, Jr. about Conseequa’s debts, the failure of Conseequa was his own miscalculation. It does not seem that Houqua had anything to do with it. Cf.: Grant, “The April 1820 Debt Settlement,” 74–78. 191 Yang, Studies of the relics of commercial culture, 75.

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Taking Conseequa’s complaints and dissatisfaction against Houqua into consideration, it was obviously not always harmonious between Houqua and his Hong friends. In fact, the quality of the relationships between the Hong Merchants was diverse: There were long term partnerships like the one between Houqua and Mowqua as well as short time co-operation in business like settling prices. There were also a lot of acrimonious relations due to dissatisfaction between merchants. In order to keep his relations with other Hong Merchants peaceful as far as possible, Houqua tried to avoid being directly involved in conflicts. However, as the financially strongest member in the group, he was unavoidably cast as the person responsible for solving problems to do with debts. In most cases, Houqua had to help or rather “nurse” his weaker Hong friends, who were still active in Houqua’s network of relationships.

3.2.3 Nursing the weaker Hong Merchants Particularly after the second half of the eighteenth century, the Hong Merchants often got into a vicious debt cycle. In order to meet their financial needs despite the lack of cash, there were usually two outcomes: a Hong Merchant in debt might try to repay the debt by borrowing from other creditors, or the most serious consequence of the lack of credit was bankruptcy. In the former case, the Hong Merchant often got sucked into the vicious cycle of debt because of high interest rates, sometimes more than 40 percent per year.192 Often it was only a matter of time before a merchant in debt had to declare bankruptcy. But in this case, if the subject was reported officially to the Emperor, the Hong Merchant would be punished severely, such as an exile to Eli (伊利) – a solitary place in northwestern China with extremely hard living conditions.193 All of his properties must be confiscated as repayment of the debts. In addition to this, the other Hong Merchants must repay the rest of the debts collectively in instalments over a certain number of years.194 192 Morse, Chronicles, Volume III (1926), 197. 193 Sometimes the local officials were not willing to report such cases to Peking, in order to protect their image and good impression. Then the foreign creditors would still be satisfied but the bankrupt Hong Merchants obtained less severe or no punishment. The debts were settled privately between the Hong Merchants. Usually the relatives of partners were forced to take over the largest part. Just like Puiqua took over the debts of his cousin Geowqua in 1798. Sometimes, it was also possible to persuade the creditors to give up certain part to the debts. Cf.: Ch’en, The Insolvency, 213–218. 194 As mentioned in section 2.3, the Qing rulers tended to show their “benevolence” towards the “foreign barbarians” in case of settling Hong Merchants’ debts. For instance in 1790, as

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At first it was the EIC, who nursed the weaker Hong Merchants to prevent their insolvency. If a Hong Merchant declared bankruptcy, the foreign creditors would often be guaranteed repayment. But insolvency cases also had several unfavorable side effects. Firstly, in case of bankruptcy, the number of Hong Merchants would be reduced. The fewer the Hong Merchants were in operation, the more likely the EIC had to deal with a monopoly.195 In 1802 it is recorded by the EIC that [. . .] it might subject the Company’s concerns to serious inconvenience by throwing them into the Hands of a few who might at some future period either by Combination or Intrigue attempt to shackle the Trade by regulations similar to those of the Cohong [. . .]196

The “Combination” and “Intrigue” indicate the business co-operation or partnership among the Hong Merchants. As Houqua became the leading Hong Merchant, the EIC became concerned about Houqua’s influence. It is recorded in early 1824, that: [. . .] we see so many difficulties from the peculiar situation of the merchants, the only possessor of capital being Puiqua [Houqua], and whose influence & opposition could not be counteracted but by advances cash enabling some other merchant to become his competitor [. . .]197

Secondly, after an official proclamation of a Hong Merchant’s bankruptcy, his creditors, often the EIC, had to wait for a long period of the repayment – usually from three to ten years – with the loss of interest throughout that period.198 Thirdly, since the repayments were paid off by the additional imposition of business by the Hong Merchants, trade as a whole was affected.199 Meanwhile the financial burden for other Hong Merchants could lead to more insolvencies. Lastly, if the number of the Hong Merchants got too small, the government had to create new junior Hong Merchants, who were neither trustworthy nor financially strong one of the Hong Merchants – Eequa – got bankrupt, his debts, mostly foreign ones, were paid – following the order of the Emperor Qianlong – in full from the provincial treasury of Guangdong at once, and the other Hong Merchants, in turn, were required to reimburse the same amount in installments to the treasury. In other words, the emperor preferred to settle this bankruptcy so generously instead of letting the foreigners wait for the installments from the Hong Merchants. Ch’en, The Insolvency, 209f. Cf. an official report from the governor in Canton to the Emperor Qianlong on August 18th 1791, in: Selected Imperial Documents concerning the Thirteen Hongs of Canton (清宫广州十三行档案精选), 54. 195 Ch’en, The Insolvency, 220–221. 196 Quoted after: Ch’en, The Insolvency, 222. 197 IOR, Volume G/12/285, consultation on February 2nd 1824, 47. 198 Inglis, Robert Harry 1838, 17 and 21. Cf. also: Ch’en, The Insolvency, 220–221 and 96. 199 Cf. Ch’en, The Insolvency, 220f.

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enough to keep themselves away from the same vicious circle of credit as the insolvent ones. Hence the EIC would have to face the same problem again. Due to these facts, the EIC had to admit that “more would be lost by allowing [the weak Hong Merchants] to fail” than to let them survive.200 Before Houqua entered the financial aid programs, there were generally two ways for EIC to nurse the Hong Merchants in debt: providing them loans directly or giving them more shares of EIC’s business so that they could have more profits to repay the debts. With the increasing importance of Houqua’s position in trade, financial aid for the financially weak junior merchants became a topic of common interest for both Houqua and the EIC. As the richest merchant, Houqua had to take over the largest share of the debts.201 The difference is that whereas the EIC lost the interest due to them during the long period of repayment, Houqua and other merchants would not get back any part of the sum they paid. In 1805, as the junior Hong Merchant Ponqua’s firm was still in an unstable state, the Hoppo announced his intention in November that year of letting Ponqua going bankrupt, “unless he immediately discharged the amount of his debt to Government, amounting 145,000 Taels.”202 Houqua and Mowqua offered their personal security for a loan to Ponqua of 144,000 Taels, so that the committee of the EIC agreed to advance the money. Houqua and Mowqua repaid the loan next year. It is, however, not recorded whether Ponqua paid Houqua and Mowqua back. Unfortunately, Ponqua’s firm still went bankrupt in 1810.203 During the 1810s and 1820s, as the EIC was not able to provide enough credit to aid all weak Hong Merchants, the committee had to work together with Houqua in managing the juniors’ debts. As indicated before, Houqua’s endeavor to prevent others’ bankruptcy was motivated by his pragmatic considerations to protect his own business rather than his intention to help as a friend. Therefore, Houqua’s financial aid must be seen in a commercial context. The most obvious form of Houqua’s financial aid was providing credit through the EIC to his Hong friends. The following diagram shows only a part of his loans advanced to juniors:204

200 Morse, Chronicles, Volume III (1926), 197. 201 Cf. for instance Morse, Chronicles, Volume III (1926), 309. 202 Morse, Chronicles Volume III (1926), 5. 203 Morse, Chronicles Volume III (1926), 5. 204 There must be other loans that Houqua gave in order to aid junior merchants which are not recorded here. In many cases, though it is noted that Houqua had advanced a loan, nothing was mentioned about its exact sum and interest. However, Houqua’s loans were normally with “Company’s guarantee”.

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Table 2: Houqua’s financial aids.* Time Purpose and Sum

Conditions

 (together with Mowqua) , dollars in aid of juniors

% p.a.

 (together with Mowqua each) , taels for Exchin and Poonequa

unclear

 , taels in aid of juniors

% p.a. on EIC’s guarantee

 , taels in aid of juniors

% p.a.

 , taels for Kinqua

% p.a. on EIC’s guarantee

 Debts to Houqua: Manhop , taels; Fatqua: , taels

unclear

 Loan for Poonequa , taels

unclear

 Loan for Goqua , Taels

unclear

 Loan for Chunqua , Dollars

% p.a.

*Sources providing the information of this table: Morse, Chronicles Volume III (1926), 160 and 309; FO, 1048/11/33; IOR, Volume G/12/206, 19; G/12/214, 110–111; G/12/223, 32–33 and 39; G/12/284, to Secret Committee on January 31st 1823, paragraph 35; G/12/285, to Secret Committee on February 2nd 1824, paragraph 35; G/12/286, to Secret Committee on March 9th 1826, paragraph 27 of the comments; R/10/56, 145; G/12/240, Part I, 31–32.

Though the information is not complete, the amounts mentioned above still show Houqua’s “generosity” in aiding his poorer colleagues. However, there are two points worth mentioning. Firstly, in his loans to other Hong Merchants he often demanded the EIC’s guarantee, which kept his money safe.205 Secondly, as Morse pointed out, as soon as Houqua had sufficient credit, he began to act as a banker, gaining profits through interest of his loans.206 So the demand of interest

205 Houqua’s standard style of giving loans was that he needed security or an assurance in order to claim his money back. See Houqua’s notes in English to secure his loans during the 1810s, in: Cabot Papers, Box 1, Folder 11, MHS. 206 Houqua also made loans to foreign traders. For instance, in 1813 Houqua lent 200,000 Dollars to the EIC due to demands of Spanish factories, with one percent interest per month. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/189, 13. According to Morse, during the Napoleonic Wars in Europe in the early 1810s, Houqua acted as a banker for the EIC. Cf.: Morse, Chronicles, Volume III (1926), 245.

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on his loans to his Hong friends – usually at 12% p.a. or less – was nothing new. His aiding weaker merchants by providing loans with EIC’s guarantee continued well into the 1820s. In case of EIC’s guarantee, if the debtor was not able to pay, the EIC had to pay Houqua the loan with interest.207 In other words, Houqua’s financial aid for his poor colleagues was often not “free”. And he tried to limit his losses as far as possible. For the British, the interest paid to Houqua was an extra financial burden.208 Nevertheless, considering that the Chinese creditors at that time could easily get 40 percent interest or more per annum with their loans,209 Houqua’s demand of ten to twelve percent did not actually make his loan an extraordinary lucrative business, but it was enough to secure his fortunes. Houqua’s attitude towards financial aid was revealed in particular during the period when the regulation regarding the Hong Merchants’ debts was no longer valid. In 1829, based on the Hoppo’s report about the difficulties faced by the junior Hong Merchants in paying the old debts of the bankrupt merchants, the emperor Daoguang abolished this regulation. Since then, every Hong Merchant was only answerable for his own debts. But in 1837, the new Hoppo reported that the abolishment of this regulation did not help strengthen the financial status of the junior Hong Merchants at all. As a result, the old regulation was re-established.210 In other words, during the years from 1829 to 1837, Houqua was “free” from his responsibility towards his Hong friends’ debts. Therefore, during the financial crisis in the early 1830s, Houqua’s was clear that he did not intend to nurse his Hong friends or to “please the Chinese creditors”.211 Mowqua was the only one Houqua saved. Eventually, Houqua gained the position as creditor to the weak Hong Merchants. Especially after mid–1810, Houqua was the only one, who was constantly able to influence the EIC and other foreign creditors, in order to advance credit to the poor juniors. Already in 1812, when the British creditor Magniac

207 In January 1823 for instance, it is recorded that the EIC paid “the debt of Conseequa to Puiqua [Houqua] with one year’s interest at 8 per cent.” IOR, Volume G/12/284, letters of the Committee in Canton to the “secret Committee of the Honble the Court of Directors”, Jan. 31st 1823, paragraph 35. 208 The EIC complained more than once about the interest they had to pay for Houqua’s loan. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/284, reply of the letter to the Secret Committee on April 18th 1821, paragraph 14, and R/10/58, 24–25. 209 In EIC’s records it is noted in 1813 the junior merchants had borrowed money “at nearly 40 per cent per annum”. Cf.: Morse, Chronicles Volume III (1926), 197. The American trader, William Hunter noted that a Hong Merchant Manhop had to pay five percent per month for his loan – i.e. 60% p.a.! Cf.: Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 3940. 210 Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 25, 499–502. 211 See A. Heard’s diary on May 14th 1832, in: Heard Records, BP–1, BL.

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refused to hand over clocks and watches costing $24,000 to Goqua, Houqua and Mowqua had guaranteed Magniac that Goqua would pay later in the year using tea revenue received from the EIC.212 Another example is in April 1822: After the EIC refused the requests of Poonequa, Exchin, and Fatqua to provide them credit in advance, they turned to Houqua. It is then recorded by the EIC, that: In consequence of the subsequent letter from Puiqua [alias Houqua], accompanying one from Poonequa, Exchin and Fatqua, representing that these three merchants very urgently require a portion of their duties to be paid now, we are willing to advance the money for that purpose, but as there is reason to believe that the sums last year advanced to these merchants for the payment of their duties were in one instance misappropriated, we deem it advisable to advance the sum now required thro’ the hands of Puiqua, as well as the amount of the duties on the woolens lately purchased by Kinqua. The amount of 90,000 Dollars now in the treasury at Canton, will forthwith be paid to Puiqua, another following reply will inform him to that effect [. . .]213

In other words, without Houqua’s letter, the juniors were not able to gain credit from the EIC and pay their duties. Based on his influence, even without providing credit himself, Houqua’s role as the Hong Merchant with most financial means was indispensable for the juniors. This made his relationship to other Hong Merchants unequal, bearing the characteristics of a patronage relation. The EIC’s suspicious attitude towards the juniors and confidence in trusting Houqua’s management and judgment can be more clearly observed in another example. In June of 1823, Poonequa was again in need of credit to pay the tea merchants with whom he made contracts. But the EIC required Houqua to examine Poonequa’s tea contracts before advancing any credit. After Houqua did this, he wrote to Plowden, the president of the committee, confirming the necessity of advancing Poonequa cash, the EIC decided to pay Poonequa.214 Since it was of central importance to pay the tea merchants in advance, in order to carry forward the contracts, it is clear that Poonequa owed a lot to Houqua. Through his financial aid and by playing the role of creditor and decision maker, Houqua’s increased influence on others, especially on the weak juniors, made his relationship with them easier to handle in cases where pragmatic partnerships or cooperation was needed. This was in contrast to the period before ca.

212 These clocks and watches were urgently demanded by the Hoppo as a contribution from Goqua to tribute for the emperor. Cf.: Goqua to Elphinstone in 1812 (without concrete date) in: FO, 1048/12/67. 213 IOR, Volume G/12/231, Consultation on April 22nd 1822, 28. 214 Poonqua to Select Committee on 8th day of the 5th month, 3rd year of Daoguang (1823), in: FO, 1048/23/5. Houqua to Select Committee on 9th day of the 5th month, 3rd year of Daoguang (1823), in: FO, 1048/23/6.

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1810, when the EIC was the only body that managed and manipulated the Hong Merchants to repay debts. In early 1824, it was noted by the committee of the EIC that Houqua’s leading position among his Hong friends was stable because he acted “with a considerable degree of liberality to them,” and that he did not even need to “attempt that monopoly which might be within his reach”: He enables Exchin to provide his Teas, and affords material assistance to Goqua, Poonqua, and Kinqua, in their contracts with the tea men. The Company having withdrawn their capital before employed in advances it is only thro’ Puiqua’s [i.e. Houqua’s] assistance, and the advance of cash from the mercantile houses at Canton, when they know the Money will be appropriated under Puiqua’s management [. . .]215

The asymmetric nature of Houqua’s relationship towards his Hong friends due to the fact that they owed Houqua a lot is again illustrated here. For these weak juniors, who were deeply in Houqua’s debt due to credits and favors, Houqua played the role of their patron. Houqua’s patronage towards the juniors differed greatly from his relation towards local officialdom since the fundamental character of these two patronages were totally different: The patronage towards Chinese officialdom was marked by an asymmetry of administrative power, pragmatism, and ideology. This means that the asymmetry in this patronage was rooted in and guaranteed by social hierarchy and administrative roles, which – though often (mis)used for personal purposes – could not be changed. But the patronage between Houqua and the juniors he nursed was a business one. The asymmetry in this relationship lies in personal ability in trade and could be altered based on the individual’s financial strength. Before Houqua’s time, the position of the patron of the weak juniors was taken by Puankhequa I and II (潘启，潘有度) during the eighteenth century. Moreover, Houqua performed the role as client or follower differently from the juniors. Whereas Houqua’s service or obedience towards his official patrons was almost unlimited due to his pragmatic thoughts and fear of sanctions in case of disobedience, he could not expect the same from his Hong friends. It was pragmatic partnership or cooperation from the side of juniors, which Houqua could gain as their patron. In this sense, the patronage between Houqua and the juniors he aided was less constrained compared to his relationship with officialdom. The sanctions Houqua could bring about on the juniors, including refusing any financial favors, could cause serious difficulties in their businesses. But the most severe sanctions, such as withdrawing from business or being banished to Eli (伊利), were in the hands of officials. It is also to be noted that not every Hong Merchant accepted Houqua as his patron. Conseequa for instance did not seem to cooperate 215 IOR, Volume G/12/285, Consultation on Feb. 2nd 1824, 49–50.

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with Houqua. Though heavily in debt during the 1810s, Conseequa turned to foreign creditors and other Chinese creditors who demanded steep interests instead of asking Houqua for help. The intensity of asymmetry is observed differently in these two patronages. In the patronage to officialdom, the consequence of sanctions guaranteed Houqua’s fulfillment of his patrons’ demands and obedience under the demands of “loyalty”. But in his patronage towards the juniors, his power and confidence were limited, since the sanctions Houqua could effect was not severe enough to guarantee their obedience. Despite the differences mentioned above, there was one fundamental common factor in both Houqua’s relation to the juniors and to officialdom, which was his pragmatism, especially in the form of self-protection. As indicated in several foreign affairs, Houqua could sacrifice a lot including his morals and even his Hong friends to satisfy his official patrons. Another example of this occurred in 1811: One of the Junior Hong Merchants found out that the Hoppo used the official funds for private purposes and so he refused to pay his duties. Thereupon Houqua and Mowqua forced and even threatened this Hong friend to fulfill his duties to the Hoppo.216 This shows that in conflict between the other Hong Merchants and the officialdom, Houqua clearly stood on the side of his official patron. This was because satisfying his patrons ensured that he was protected. This is the same pragmatism which can be observed in his relationship to other Hong Merchants. His financial aid was not voluntary help offered by a friend, but can be seen in the context of two factors. In the economic perspective, it helped to minimize his loss and in the perspective of relationships, it was a performance of his identity as a senior Hong Merchant and a patron of weak juniors. Both perspectives are characterized by his pragmatism. Therefore, Houqua’s financial support was one of his pragmatic strategies to deal with his Hong friends. His conditions for providing loans, including the interest of ten to twelve percent per annum, allowed the juniors to survive but were also financial burdens which prevented them from advancing to become his competitors. Besides, Houqua was selective in deciding whom he should rescue, when and how his loan would be invested safely. For instance, in September 1813, in order to pay the Hoppo, one of the juniors Fatqua asked Houqua for finan-

216 Original in Chinese “弟因海关大人徇私 要将贤官房屋给还私债[. . .]弟见道理不合 至今不 肯 [. . .] 而茂官浩官等 帮着海关要杀众行” In: Kuan Wan-ho to Select Committee on 11th day of the 8th month, 16th year of Jiaqing (1811), FO, 1048/11/72.

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cial help. Houqua refused this favor by criticizing the “lifelessness” of Fatqua’s business.217 In other words, Houqua was not convinced by Fatqua’s ability in business and doubted the possibility of repayment. This was despite the fact that Houqua was already the leading Hong Merchant in 1813 with sufficient cash. Only a few months later he made a loan of 200,000 Dollars to the EIC with 12 percent interest per year.218 Surely it was more secure to lend money to the EIC with interest of twelve percent per year than to Fatqua. How Fatqua survived in the following years is not clear. If the EIC refused to provide him cash, he must have had to turn to private creditors and pay high interests for the loans. Anyway, ten years later, probably due to the fire in 1822 in Canton, which destroyed more than 2,423 shops and storerooms of the Hong Merchants,219 Fatqua again had financial difficulties due to the Hoppo’s demand of 90,000 Taels for the renewal of his Hong Chop. Curiously, although Houqua was ready to provide a loan for Fatqua, the EIC refused to give their guarantee.220 After weeks of discussions,221 Houqua finally succeeded in persuading the EIC to procure enough cash for Fatqua, so that Fatqua’s firm was saved this time.222 Nevertheless, during the next financial crisis in the early 1830s, Fatqua’s firm could not be saved. When he declared bankruptcy in 1833 and all his properties were confiscated to pay his duties and debts, the local government found nothing of value in his house.223 Fatqua was not the only merchant who got into serious financial difficulty in the early 1830s; the second senior Hong Merchant Mowqua also suffered under his insufficiency of credit. In his diary in 1832, an American trader and member of Russell & Co., Augustin Heard described how hesitant Houqua was when Mowqua asked him for financial help. When other Hong friends also 217 Original in Chinese: “伍浩官云 [. . .] 你万源毫无生气” In: Fatqua to Elphinstone on 5th day of the 8th month, 18th year of Jiaqing (1813), FO, 1048/13/10. 218 This loan for the EIC was in favor of some Spanish merchants. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/189, 19. 219 Wei, “Juan Yüan,” 163. 220 IOR, Volume G/12/227, Consultation on May 9th 1822, 22f. Also: FO, 1048/22/4 and 1048/ 22/6. 221 In the summer of 1822 two juniors, Fatqua and Exchin, had serious problems with credit due to the demands of the Hoppo. At first it seems that Houqua was focused on rescuing Exchin. After the committee made it clear to Houqua many times that they would not advance any cash for Exchin, Houqua asserted that he “would endeavor to adopt some other plan to relieving Exchin.” At the same time, Houqua seemed not to be very sure whether it was worth it to assist Fatqua or whether he should repay his debts after letting him go bankrupt. Once he even claimed to the EIC that “he could hold out no reasonable hope that he should be able to assist [Fatqua].” But after extended calculations and despite his hesitation, Houqua decided to help Fatqua. Cf.: IOR, Volume G/12/227, Consultation on June 22nd 1822, 83. 222 IOR, Volume G/12/227, Consultation on June 24th 1822, 95. 223 Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 14, 305.

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asked for help, Houqua refused to lend them anything. After hesitating for a long while, Houqua did not offer money directly to Mowqua, but decided to buy some of his real estate. Although this financial aid was not generous, Mowqua’s firm was saved and Mowqua was very satisfied.224

3.3 Patriarchy, patrimonialism and patronage The analysis of Houqua’s roles and behavior in his Chinese circles indicates the importance of social hierarchies in social relations in imperial Chinese society. As a Hong Merchant with a red cap, Houqua had to fulfil duties as a client of local officials. Among the Hong Merchants, whether he was a junior or a senior Hong Merchant, Houqua’s place was still trapped in a hierarchy. His main purpose when dealing with the Chinese was to keep his role intact in a certain hierarchy. Equality was not on his mind. This strong domination of hierarchy in social life was a profound consequence of Confucian ideology. As illustrated in section 2.1.4, social hierarchy was strengthened from the Song Dynasty (960–1279) till the nineteenth century – particularly through absolute obedience anchored in the Three Bonds (三纲). Compared to the processes of liberalization in Western Europe such as the Enlightenment, the timeline and the development of ideas in imperial China seem to be reversed. Based on various forms of hierarchy and its effect on social relationships, Western sociologists noted various forms of asymmetric social relations in China. From the last century, some of them also tried to understand and describe Chinese social relationships using Western sociological terminologies. Among them, Max Weber was one of the most famous and earliest sociologists who made concepts such as “patriarchy” and “patrimonialism” indispensable in analyzing Chinese society. Both these concepts are connected with filial piety or “xiao (孝)”. The term patrimonialism was used to describe the form of Chinese governance based on imperial family households, since the emperor was to govern the empire in the same way that a father governs his family.225 As Weber reminds us, patrimonial domination is a special type of patriarchal domination. This occurs when domestic authority is decentralized through

224 A. Heard’s diary from 14th until 16th May 1832, in: Heard Records, BP–1, BL. 225 Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 232–233 and 1097–1099. Cf. also: Hamilton, “Patriarchy, patrimonialism, and filial piety,” 77. Adams, “The Rule of the Father,” 238.

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assignment of land and sometimes, assignment of equipment to the sons of the house or other dependents.226 Therefore, on the one hand, as Julia Adams comments, “patriarchy is the historical seed of patrimonialism.”227 On the other, patrimonialism is a genetic extension of the patterns of governance in a ruler’s or superordinate’s family-household. In one of his masterworks “Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft” Max Weber defined the Chinese society as a patrimonial one with the emperor as the patriarch: Wie der Patrimonialismus genetisch aus den Pietätsbeziehungen der Hauskinder gegenüber der hausväterlichen Autorität entstanden ist, so gründet der Konfuzianismus die Subordinationsverhältnisse der Beamte zum Fürsten, der niederen zu den höheren Beamten, vor allem auch der Untertanen zu den Beamten und zu dem Fürsten auf die Kardinaltugend der Kindespietät. Der spezifisch mittel- und osteuropäische patrimoniale Begriff des Landesvaters und etwa die Role, welche die Kindespietät als Grundlage aller politischen Tugenden in dem Streng patriarchalischen Luthertum spielt, ist die entsprechende, nur im Konfuzianismus weit konsequenter durchgeführte Gedankenreihe.228

In Weber’s understanding, the asymmetric relationship in imperial China between prince and officials, between officials of higher rank and those of lower rank, worked according to the same principle that governed children’s piety towards their father. Through Confucian ideology, the patriarchal role of ruler was executed far more strictly in imperial China than in Europe. Moreover, due to the strengthening of hierarchies, family patriarchy and state patrimonialism consequently were intensified.229 However, not all sociologists agree with Weber’s theories about China. Gary G. Hamilton for instance is against viewing imperial Chinese society as a patriarchal or patrimonial one.230 He also refuses to apply Weber’s or Western sociological terminologies in order to analyze Chinese society. The most serious incompatibility, Hamilton argues, is the patriarchal role: Western patriarchy “accents the personal power of the superordinate (the paterfamilias), gives him the right of command [. . .] By contrast, Chinese patriarchy places the stress on the subordinate’s duty to obey, assigns role obligations that signify his or her submission to duty and restricts legitimate acts of power

226 Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1096–1097. 227 Adams, “The Rule of the Father,” 239. 228 Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1142. 229 Beside this extension of piety, some other features such as wife’s obedience towards husband conform totally to the patriarchal character. 230 There are several important Sinology arguments against Weber’s interpretation about Chinese society, e.g. Yu Yingshi (余英时), David Faure etc. But among them, Gary Hamilton specialized in the patriarchy in Chinese society.

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and obedience to behavior in role sets (e.g. father/son, emperor/subjects, husband/wife).”231 Based on this difference, Hamilton believes that the patriarchy in imperial China became depersonalized, because patriarchy in Chinese family did not rest upon the personal power of the father, but rather on the identification of necessary family roles and each member’s submission to his or her own justified role.232 As a result, not only did the duties of sons, but duties of all roles became so well defined in Chinese law, that “even fathers did not have the right to say what constituted a dutiful son.”233 Therefore, the strengthening of social hierarchy and the consequent limitations of the scope of living for the Chinese did not lead to a strong patriarchy or patrimonialism in imperial China, but rather its decline. Beside this decline in the power of patriarchs indicated in Chinese law, the declining economy since the Ming Dynasty is another reason according to Hamilton that worked against patriarchy and patrimonialism in China: Due to the rise of the market system after the sixteenth century, the oikos economy 234 – one of the basis for patriarchal power in a family or household according to Weber 235 – began to decrease, because the dependents of patriarchy like the bondservants or other kinds of slaves became fewer, whereas the number of relatively free tenants increased.236 Hence, without strong economic oikos as basis, the family patriarchy declined consequently. Although both of the factors mentioned are partly true, they did not – in my assessment – lead to a decline of patriarchy or patrimonialism in imperial China. Firstly, the different accentuation of patriarchy power, as Hamilton correctly pointed out, does not indicate a personalized patriarchy in the West and an abstract depersonalized patriarchy in China, but rather points to two different ways of perceiving social hierarchy. As already revealed by George Jamieson (1843–1920), a sinologist and Weber’s contemporary, there is no word in Chinese which correspondents to “Patria Potestas”:237 Filial piety or “xiao” – the closest

231 Hamilton, “Patriarchy, patrimonialism, and filial piety,” 93. 232 Hamilton, “Patriarchy, patrimonialism, and filial piety,” 94. 233 Hamilton, “Patriarchalism,” 417. 234 Max Weber defined “oikos” as “der autoritär geleitete Großhaushalt eines Fürsten, Grundherrn, Patriziers, dessen letztes Leitmotiv [. . .] organisierte naturale Deckung des Bedarfs des Herrn ist.” Cf.: Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 358. What is important for “oikos” is not only the leitmotifs of such “Naturalleitungswirtschaft”, but also the dependence of the members within an oikos-household on the patriarch. Cf. also: Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1100. 235 According to Weber, the patriarchal rule emerged on the ground of oikos and thus on the ground of structured house authority. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1097. 236 Hamilton, “Patriarchy, patrimonialism, and filial piety,” 89–90. 237 Jamieson, Chinese family and commercial law, 4–5.

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Chinese translation – means obedience in the Chinese context, but its Western counterpart “patria potestas” means power. Both are different sides of the same coin. This coin is social hierarchy realized in the form of patriarchy: The Western side refers to the active power of the superordinate, whereas the Chinese side refers to the passive obedience of the subordinate. Instead of claiming individual rights or power actively like in Western cultures, the Chinese perceived and realized social hierarchy in a rather passive way through the limitation of subordinates’ behavior.238 But no matter which side of this coin turns up, the aim remains the same, which is patriarchal hierarchy. Moreover, as indicated in section 2.1 and Houqua’s relations in Chinese circles, even though social roles were well defined in Chinese law, this did not mean a depersonalization of patriarchal relations, since the execution of law in imperial China was strongly personalized. In contrast, as it is observed in Houqua’s immoral and illegal behavior as a middleman in foreign affairs, the social relationship in imperial China tended to be personalized and oriented towards pragmatization. The second point argued by Hamilton refers to the weakening of oikos and the accordingly the decline of family patriarchy. Even if the number of dependents of a family patriarch decreased and tenants became more common after the sixteenth century, this did not necessarily lead to a decline of patriarchal power. Firstly, Hamilton overestimated the development of free market economy in the Qing Dynasty. As Wang Liping and Julia Adams prove in their study, the Qing emperor “wielded patrimonial force through the cooperation of the collegial princely powers and loyal imperial bondservants.”239 These imperial bondservants, or the emperor’s intimate dependents were not whole-heartedly subordinate to bureaucratic control, but obliged to directly report income to the emperor – their patriarch – by sending private palace memorials.240 In other words, they functioned as an extension of the patriarchal power of the royal family and held patrimonial control over the markets: They were not only in charge of the Department of Imperial Household and imperial revenues, but were also appointed to relevant positions to control the most important economic branches such as textiles and the salt industry.241 Hence it is no wonder that the Hoppo in the Canton System was usually a

238 Individualism was never developed in Chinese history under the influence of Confucianism. In contrast, “individualism (个人主义)” is often conflated with egoism. Since the development of individualism in Chinese society and its various effects are beyond the scope of this study, it is not necessary to go deeper. More about individualism in China and the passive way of thinking and behavior cf.: Sun, The deep structure, 267–284. 239 Wang and Adams, “Interlocking Patrimonialisms,” 178. 240 Wang and Adams, “Interlocking Patrimonialisms,” 170. 241 Wang and Adams, “Interlocking Patrimonialisms,” 170–171.

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bondservant. Contrary to the apparently laissez-faire approach regarding the markets, the emperor never lost his hold of the economy de facto. Moreover, in Houqua’s case, especially considering his fear of Chinese officialdom, it is indicated that he – as an extremely wealthy merchant in international trade – was still under the control of local officials and indirectly the emperor. Secondly, besides the patriarchy of the royal family, Hamilton ignored the strong kin-based family bonds in Chinese households. According to Fukuyama, Chinese society even today belongs to the category of low trust societies due to the domination of familism – the essence of Confucianism.242 As will be explored later, this domination of familism and “low” trust had some fatal consequences in social relationships especially business relations. It is noteworthy that the dependence on the family patriarch, an indispensable aspect of patriarchy households, is based in the Chinese context on family bonds like blood-ties and affiliation connections, not on the number of slaves. In other words, only the relatives were central, whereas the “outside” dependents, be it slaves or tenants, were rather irrelevant to Chinese patriarchy. Fukuyama makes this feature of Chinese family bond more clearly through a comparison to Japan: In traditional Chinese economic life, there is no figure comparable in social importance to the Japanese banto, the professional manager brought in from the outside to run the affairs of the family business. Even small family business in Chinese societies frequently need the labor of non-family employees, but the relationship of these employees to the family-owners/managers is quite distant. The Japanese sense of the enterprise or company as a surrogate family does not exist.243

In Houqua’s household, besides his four wives, seven sons and other relatives, there were still hundreds of members without any blood-ties or affiliation connections. None of these members, including slaves and tenants, could impact Houqua’s household, since none of them would be given the power of managing the family business.244 It was Houqua’s duty to leave his commercial empire to one of his sons after his death, even though none of his surviving sons had a talent for business. For patriarchy, the number of slaves or tenants was not relevant, but the number of sons was important. Houqua’s brother Puiqua did not have sons, but it was out of the question to adopt someone without family blood.

242 Fukuyama, Trust, 56. 243 Fukuyama, Trust, 75. 244 In this sense, it is important to point out how exceptional Houqua’s intercultural relationship to his American friends was and this will be explored in chapter 4.

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In order to keep his household in his hands, Houqua let his brother adopt one of his own sons.245 Therefore, in the Chinese context the quantitative decrease of dependents in oiko-households could not lead to a qualitative weakening of patriarchy, so long as the family bond or blood-ties were regarded as fundamental. Based on this evidence, I am of the opinion that, despite some peculiar features of social hierarchy in Chinese society like different accentuations of patriarchal power and the decline in dependent labor of oikos-household, patriarchy as well as its extension patrimonialism, never declined in quality, as Hamilton noted. In contrast, with the strengthening of social hierarchies during the last centuries of imperial rule, patriarchy even seemed to be more effective in determining the social lives of the Chinese. Hierarchy could be perceived and realized in various forms of asymmetric social relationships. As Max Weber indicated, patriarchy and patrimonialism were doubtless an indispensable part of the social hierarchy in imperial China. Although Weber did note the co-existence of patrimonial hierarchy and Confucian bureaucracy, he viewed patriarchy and patrimonialism as the dominant forms of Chinese social hierarchy.246 But based on the study on Houqua, both Weber and Hamilton ignored certain features or tendencies that indicated asymmetrical social relationships in the Chinese context. These features were responsible for the development of patronage relationships, which was no less important than patriarchy and patrimonialism, especially in the last few centuries as social hierarchy became more efficiently integrated into social lives. The first feature that is important is personalization, which played a remarkable role in Houqua’s dealings in his Chinese circles, especially in his patronage relations with Chinese officials. Hamilton assumes that the social roles tended to be abstract in the last centuries of imperial rule in China.247 But Houqua’s case proves otherwise. Indeed, absolute obedience and duties defined in Chinese law or in the Qing Code, as Hamilton pointed out, referred to abstract social roles. But, the enforcement of an abstract social role in real life could only be perceived through real people. In other words, the social hierarchy was realized through

245 The second son of Houqua, Wu Yuanlan (伍元兰), was adopted by Puiqua. Cf.: Genealogy of Wu Family, branch of those involved in the Thirteen Hongs (广州十三行支脉族引谱), 47. This kind of adoption within a family (过继) was the most common one. In many areas of imperial China like Canton, it was even prohibited to adopt a male child from a non-agnate. Wolf and Huang, Marriage and Adoption in China, 108–109. 246 Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1142–1145. 247 Hamilton, “Patriarchalism,” 418–419.

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personalized relations.248 As the Napier affair shows, Houqua’s loyalty, or rather, his obedience was in relation to the Governor – his direct superior and patron in person, not to the abstract position of the governor. Furthermore, this personal loyalty was not based on Houqua’s ideological conviction that a Confucian official like the Governor was educated and morally incredibly qualified and so he earned Houqua’s unconditional loyalty. Rather, Houqua was forced to be obedient since the Governor had the power of imposing sanctions. As illustrated in sections 2.2 and 2.3, the social position of merchants was not strong enough to get rid of their dependence on the officialdom. In the Canton System for instance, due to the decisive power of officials, such as the Governor and Hoppo, the Hong Merchants were very fearful of sanctions being imposed on them, so they were forced to be loyal and to satisfy the personal needs of their patrons through any means, including bribery. Thus, this fear of sanctions contributed immensely to the second feature of asymmetric social relations in China, pragmatization. Compared to personalization, pragmatization was more “suitable” to describe and differentiate patronage from patriarchal and patrimonial relations. Both patriarchy and patrimonialism were strongly connected with ideological convictions, which legitimizes superiority in the social hierarchy. In imperial China, this ideology was the Confucian social value and order, which not only legitimized the patriarchal superiority of a family head and the emperor as the “son of the heaven”, but also the hierarchy of bureaucracy and social classes. As analyzed in section 2.1.4, there were several parallel systems that developed over the course of time. The most important ones are the Yin-Yang-School introduced by Dong Zhongshu (董仲舒 179–104 BC) during the Han Dynasty, which legitimized the emperor as the absolute ruler; the Three Bonds by Neo-Confucianism since the Song Dynasty which guaranteed the power of emperor and father; and the “Four Categories of people” (四民) which determined the lowest social position of the merchants. Beside these, the Confucian bureaucratic hierarchy based on the imperial examination (科举) was also a fundamental one, through which the pragmatization could be observed clearly: The rank of an official’s position in bureaucratic

248 An example can be found in Qing Law. Despite the strict regulations and serious sanctions to protect patriarchal power in the family and clan, it is also clearly stated that the younger members would only be punished when their disobedience was reported by the parents or other elders in the family. This indicates a remarkable latitude in the execution of law. And therefore the personal relationship toward the elders was made de facto more important than Confucian morals and patriarchal hierarchy. Moreover, the punishments the younger members would receive depended totally on the report of the family-elders. The younger members did not have any right to defend themselves. Cf.: Zhang, Customs, Law, Society, 91–94.

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hierarchy was firstly decided by the result of the imperial examination.249 In other words, the better he did in this examination, the higher a position might be bestowed on him. However, exactly as Weber noted, unlike modern bureaucracy, the Chinese imperial examination did not aim at professional competencies or skills, but purely theories and knowledge on Confucian moral philosophy.250 It is assumed that the more knowledge the individual acquired on Confucian morality, the more “moral” this person would become. Therefore, originally bureaucratic hierarchy was based on the belief that the rank of position in officialdom corresponded not with the person’s ability to govern, but with the person’s level of morality and the willingness to take care of his people as if there were his own children. That’s why the local officials or magistrates were also called “fathermother-officials” (父母官). Meanwhile, “xiao” – the patriarchal loyalty or obedience in Chinese family was extended as the patrimonial loyalty of people towards their “father-mother-officials” and the emperor.251 Consequently, bureaucratic hierarchy in imperial China was theoretically a patrimonial one, which legitimized the voluntary loyalty of the ruled and was accomplished by the imperial examination. However, this ideological basis declined in the course of pragmatization. The position began corresponding with the power of imposing sanctions and, in case of official titles purchased by rich merchants, with social reputation.252 Houqua 249 After a scholar entered the system of bureaucracy through the imperial examination, his promotion and career depended mostly on his personal relations with superiors. Among the roughly nine ranks, officials of the third rank and above could recommend lesser officials for promotion. Since every official was subject to being promoted or demoted triennially, the pressure for favorable recommendation was never ending. It became a form of bureaucratic patronage that was necessary to employ if one were to build up a following. Therefore, the loyalty to the emperor as the patriarch, which was hardly beneficial for promotion, was usually an ideal on paper. What dominated de facto was personal and pragmatic patronage. Cf. Herson, “China’s Imperial Bureaucracy,” 47. 250 This is also the reason Weber believes that imperial China was not dominated by bureaucracy, but was still a patrimonial society. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1140–1142. 251 Zhao, A dream of the home, 73–74. 252 It might be important to point out that purchased titles gave the Hong Merchants not only social status as pseudo Confucian literati or bureaucrats, but also sometimes provided a buffer in the event legal charges were filed against them. Cf.: Van Dyke, Merchants of Canton and Macao, 13–14. One such event involving Houqua occurred in 1821, as the Governor Ruan Yuan (阮元) accused him for his non-cooperation in government’s anti-opium campaign. The result was Houqua’s loss of his purchased title. Cf.: Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 18, 360. It is not clear when exactly Houqua could purchase such a title again. But it is recorded that in early 1843, just a few months before his death, Houqua had purchased himself a title again. Cf.: Edward Delano to Warren Delano on January 10th 1843, in: Delano Papers, Container 32, FDR. But without this purchased title, Houqua’s punishment in 1821 would have been more serious.

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never regarded local officials, like Governor Lu Kun or Commissioner Lin Zexu, as being more morally developed than those in the officialdom. Instead, pragmatic concerns and strategies regarding self-protection or promotion ensured that the bureaucratic hierarchy was maintained. In Houqua’s case, it was his fear of sanctions that forced him to satisfy the personal needs of the officials and to be “loyal” like a timid lady, and not Confucian patrimonial ideology. This strongly pragmatic perspective was the decisive characteristic, which differentiates patronage from other asymmetric hierarchical relations based on ideology.253 Thus, as Polachek precisely noted, rather than commonalities of political ideology, class program, or religious faith, “it was instead shared ideals of how personal patronage should be offered and accepted that tended to draw the lettered elite into durable units of political cooperation.”254 Moreover, patriarchy, patrimonialism and patronage coexisted and represented Chinese social hierarchy in various areas. Theoretically, patriarchy and patrimonialism were the dominant concepts upon which families and the entire society – understood as an extended family – were constituted. However, in Houqua’s Chinese network outside his family bond, there is hardly any evidence proving a patrimonial relation, except in case of his gratitude to the emperor.255 In his daily life outside the family sphere, it was obviously the patronage relationship that played a dominant role. As his behavior in the events connected to foreign affairs indicates, Houqua’s interest in maintaining a good patronage relationship to local officialdom seemed even more relevant than his business relationship. Furthermore, as the previous section illustrates, Houqua’s relation to his patrons and to his “Hong friends” was strongly characterized by pragmatic strategy, seen in actions such as the cooperation against powerful foreign companies. Even when dealing with his closest colleague Mowqua, Houqua took a careful

253 This pragmatic patronage in Chinese culture differs greatly from that in the West. In the Roman Empire the concepts of trust as “fides” and “fiducio” were particularly important for patronage relations. The rank was a symbol that displayed that a person was trustworthy in the sense one could rely on their word and represented stable and secure social relationships. This produced a reliable order for the present and the future and was thus a sign of high status. The stabilization was thus mutual. The status of a patron was predominantly based on his reputation and dignity. Cf.: Morgner, “Trust and Confidence,” 512–513. 254 Polachek, The Inner Opium War, 24. 255 As mentioned in section 3.1.1, Houqua praised the emperor Daoguang as “not only the wisest, but also the best of wise.” Cf.: Houqua to John P. Cushing on April 23rd 1833, in Forbes Records, Volume F–5, BL. Houqua’s gratitude was because the emperor bestowed Houqua’s son with an honorable title, which cost Houqua half a million taels of silver. Cf.: The Chinese Repository, Volume IV (1835–1836), 200.

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and clearly pragmatic approach, such as when dealing with the issue of credit in 1832. Under these circumstances, “true” friendship as understood in the Western sense would be difficult to find in imperial Chinese society, especially in the sensible business context of the Canton trade. Whereas the boundary between patronage and friendship is fluid in the West,256 the strengthened hierarchy with pragmatic thought in Chinese context would make a friendship based on equality that is free from utility very difficult to survive. However, Houqua’s network included not only Chinese circles, but also foreign acquaintances, business partners and friends, who – as mentioned in section 2.1.1 – had another understanding about social relationships. How did Houqua integrate these foreigners into his network?

256 In European history patronage and friendship were closely connected with each other. When instrumental friendship reaches a maximum point of imbalance so that one partner is clearly superior to the other in his capacity to grant goods and services, we approach the critical point where friendship gives way to the patronage. Wolf, “Kinship, Friendship, and Patron-Client,” 16.

4 Houqua with his foreign friends and acquaintances This chapter explores Houqua’s relationships in foreign circles. Due to the specific position of foreign traders in Qing China and the intercultural communication in the early nineteenth century, it is significant to understand the foreigners’ experiences of living in Canton at that time and how they lived as an ethnic minority with different cultural backgrounds.

4.1 Living as a foreign devil in Canton As described in chapter 2.3, foreign traders in Canton were only allowed to live in the so-called factories or the “Thirteen Factories” in the southwestern suburbs of the city (see Figs. 3 and 4).1 Each factory was a house, which belonged to a certain Hong Merchant and was normally rented by a group of foreign traders of the same nationality or the same commercial house. These factories or houses functioned not only as offices but also as private residences. The number of foreigners living in these factories increased constantly, which reached 300 at the end of the 1830s.2 Together with Chinese and foreign servants, the whole number of people dwelt in these houses might be easily over 1000 in the years before 1840.3 However, despite the big number of people who lived there and their multiple nationalities, the lives of the foreigners was very monotonous and restricted. Firstly, according to the Chinese law, no women were permitted to enter the factories. Also, guns, muskets, powder or any other military weapons were not allowed in the factories. In the early years of the nineteenth century, the foreigners were only allowed to sightsee in the city twice a month. After 1816, they could visit Hong Merchants’ gardens three times a month. But it was

1 No foreigner was allowed to own a house or land. Cf.:Hunter, Bits of Old China, 220. 2 Malcom, Travels in Hindustan and China, 45. 3 On March 29th 1839, Robert Bennet Forbes wrote to his wife about his “family” in Canton, namely five employees of the house Russell & Co. and “two Portuguese lads – each has a servant – we have two cooks, a cowsman, two English cows, a Comprador [. . .], four coolies or porter.” Therefore, the number of servants should be much larger than the foreign traders. Cf.: Forbes, Letters from China, 143. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-004

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Fig. 3: The Foreign Factories at Guangzhou (Canton), about 1805. Artists in Guangzhou, China. Reverse painting on glass, 19 3/4 x 27 3/4. Peabody Essex Museum, Gift of the Misses Rosamond and Aimee Lamb. E78680. Courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum.

strictly forbidden for the foreigners to stay overnight any place other than their “factories”.4 Secondly, besides such bureaucratic regulations, the foreigners, especially Western traders from Europe and America, had to face difficulties due to the weather as well as other dangers in Canton. In a memorandum of an American trader William Hunter, who lived in Canton from 1829 to the end of 1842,5 he described how uncomfortable and hazardous the life in those factories was: In the southwest monsoon we were pestered with flies, mosquitoes, lizards, centipedes, and rats. The bite of the centipede was extremely painful, as I know to my cost on two occasions, on one of which I was disabled for two days. They would be seen crawling up the wall of the room or running across the floor, as well as inside of the mosquito curtains of one’s bed, or found under the pillow. [. . .] We rather favored the lizard, and even conceded to it a cheap sort of gratitude, from its acting as an auxiliary in catching mosquitoes and flies, at which it

4 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, between page 24 and 25, without page number. 5 Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 26, 514. Also cf. Morrison, Notices concerning China, 34.

6 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 20.

Fig. 4: Layout of the Thirteen Factories in Canton.6

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was uncommonly expert. [. . .] These were trifling annoyances, however, compared with a very venomous snake, with black and white or yellow transverse bands, which, being washed into the river by heavy rains, would be carried by the water to the Square. [. . .]7

Since the Westerners were not familiar with the Cantonese climate and animals, sometimes even a “trifling annoyance” could hinder their normal lives. And a serious annoyance like a snake could even cost them their lives.8 Under such circumstances, and also due to the pressure of doing an enormous amount of work in a very short time during the busy seasons and the stress of business, instances of a foreigner getting sick or even dying at a very young age was rather common.9 John Murray Forbes had to go back home to Boston in 1833 after approximately three years of staying in Canton due to his illness.10 During his second stay in Canton from 1834 till 1836, he often got ill and stayed in Macao for months to recover.11 When he finally returned home at the age of 24, he was nearly bald.12 Nevertheless, compared to his elder brother Thomas Tunno Forbes, who died in a typhoon in the South China Sea in 1829 at the age of 26, John Murray Forbes was rather a lucky one. His cousin, Handasyd Cabot, died in Macao after months of suffering.13 Also the British Superintendent Lord Napier fell seriously ill and died just three months after his arrival in Canton. It is no wonder that William Hunter described Canton as an “unhealthy place”.14 Beside the bureaucratic regulations and difficulties related to the climate, what made the lives of foreigners in Canton hard was also that they could hardly get used to the living style of the Chinese. In fact, foreign traders did not understand the simple or normal Chinese way of living. An American trader Edward King wrote in his diaries in 1835 how “simple” the life of a Chinese

7 Hunter, Bits of Old China, 16. 8 In the same memorandum Hunter wrote about a serious accident in which several servants in the factories died after being bitten by a snake. Cf.: Hunter, Bits of Old China, 16. 9 Cf.: Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 225. 10 W.H. Low to S. Russell on January 12th 1833, and on January 20th 1833, in: Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. 11 More about John Murray Forbes’ illness see for instance: John Murray Forbes to A. Heard on January 3rd 1835, in: Heard Records, BM–8–2, BL. W.H. Low to S. Russell on December 29th 1832, in: Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. Forbes and Hughes, Letters and Recollections, Vol.1 (1899), 64. Most of the other members of Russell & Co. also became seriously ill. Cf.: W.H. Low to S. Russell on February 28th 1832, in: Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. 12 Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 237. 13 Early in 1835, Handasyd Cabot, a cousin of John Murray Forbes, contracted smallpox and died in April 1835. Cf.: Forbes and Hughes, Letters and Recollections, Vol.1 (1899), 72. 14 W.C. Hunter to S. Russell on March 13th 1833, in: Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC.

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was: “The expenses of a Chinaman’s living are very trifling; he required for a dress only a garment of Nankeen, of which the coarse kinds are very cheap, and for food, a little rice answered all his wants.”15 Moreover, the range of leisure activities they could enjoy was rather poor.16 During the busy trading season, they had to work throughout the day and night. But during the rest of time, life could be quite boring. In early 1835, an American trader in Canton wrote to his father several times about how boring his daily life was and that he had hardly anything to do to kill time.17 About his leisure activity he wrote: we almost every afternoon make up a party for a pull in the whole boat upon the river or a walk of a couple of hours in the square, which is the sum total of all the amusement we have in the course of the day except eating18

The most exciting amusement for the foreigners might be the boat racing on the Pearl River, which became even an “international” game as John Murray Forbes – who usually complained about his hard life in Canton – wrote to his wife in 1836: My boat started last and came in far ahead of all the seven. [. . .] By the by my race with the English wherry [sic!] was challenged by the same person who rode against me at Macao in the race last summer.19

However, such leisure activities could not be shared and understood by the Chinese especially the Hong Merchants, whose behavior was careful and fearful. Houqua, who wrote a letter to the foreigners trying to prevent the game, went to one of the initiators, William Hunter, before the game, “begging” him not to “fight boats on the river”, since “if an accident occurred”, said Houqua, “Man-te-le

15 Edward King Diaries on October 23rd 1835, in: King Papers, MHS. 16 This poor range of leisure activities of Chinese was seen by William Lockhard – a British surgeon and missionary in China during the 1840s and 1850s – as an important reason for the huge consumption of opium by the Chinese. After 20 years of observation, he concluded in 1861: “The most common cause of Chinese resorting to the use of the opium-pipe is their not knowing how to employ their leisure hours. When the business of the day is over, there is no periodical literature to engage their attention, their families do not present sufficient attractions to keep them at home; and sauntering about of an evening, with nothing to employ the mind, they are easily tempted into the opium shops.” Cf.: Lockhard, The medical missionary in China, 392. 17 T.H. Cabot to his father on January 7th and January 22nd 1835, in: Cabot Papers, Box 2, Folder 7, MHS. 18 T.H. Cabot to his mother on October 13th 1834, in: Cabot Papers, Box 2, Folder 6, MHS. 19 John Murray Forbes to his wife on March 25th 1836, in: Forbes Records, Box 4, Folder 29, BL. Also William Hunter was quite excited about the boat racing. Cf.: Hunter, Bits of Old China, 176–177.

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bobbery mee too muchee.”20 Although some other “harmless” amusement like dinner parties given at the foreign factories were occasionally attended by some Hong Merchants, the cultural lives of the foreigners, especially the Europeans and Americans were among themselves.21 In case of a foreign controversy, intercultural activities would be even more strictly controlled, since the factories would be blocked for months, such as what happened during the Napier Affair in 1834 and the opium affair in 1839. During such blockages, the foreigners were kept as prisoners. On 24th April 1839 Robert Bennet Forbes wrote to his wife: Time drags on heavily & reading, whist, playing ball & walking in our prison yard are the only occupations – Now & then a smuggled letters gets up from Macao folded up about the size of a dose of jalap.22

Beside these restrictions and difficulties, living with Chinese servants under the same roof was not always pleasant for the foreign residents, either. The most difficult problem did not seem to be the language of communication, but the “dishonesty” of Chinese, about which John Murray Forbes complained quite often towards his fellow countrymen.23 Also his brother Robert Bennet Forbes had a problem trusting his Chinese servants. Once he wrote to his wife: when these China men want to go home very much they generally say their father or mother is just dead & this boy [one of the Chinese servants] having buried both several times has perhaps got up a new excuse24

The same problem due to the dishonesty could be found in dealing with Chinese merchants. In 1820, the agents of Russell & Co. in Canton found out that “the Chinese [tea dealers] endeavor every season to make foreigners believe that their crops of teas are short, even when they are abundant.”25 Sometimes, even the Hong Merchants – though they were often valued by the foreign traders26 – did

20 Hunter, Bits of Old China, 277–278. “Man-te-le” means the local officials. 21 Cf.: Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 81. 22 Forbes, Letters from China, 120. 23 Once his Chinese servant “V” was even caught by John Murray Forbes reading Forbes’ private letters. From then on, he could not trust his servant “V” and required his American friend Augustin Heard to mark all the letters for him with “private.” Cf.: John Murray Forbes to Augustin Heard on January 27th 1836, in: Heard Records, Volume BM–8–2, BL. 24 Originally emphasized, cf.: Forbes, Letters from China, 142. 25 Russell & Co. (Canton) to a business partner in Amsterdam on December 4th 1820, in: Russell & Co. Records, Oversize Letterbook 1819–1820, LC. 26 Most positive personal experiences with the Hong Merchants were recorded by the American traders. In 1784, Samuel Shaw wrote in his journal that the Hong Merchants “are intelligent, exact accountants, punctual to their engagements, and, though not the worse for

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not seem to be always trustworthy, since they could not always keep their promises in business.27 Therefore, the foreign traders, especially the private traders like the Americans who had no protection from their homeland as the servants of the EIC did, experienced a paradox. On the one hand, they were unavoidably distanced from the Chinese including the Hong Merchants – with Houqua being an exception; on the other hand, they were forced to depend on the Hong Merchants since they often were the most important and sometimes the only channel of information and legal business. In summary, the living conditions for a foreign devil in early nineteenth century Canton was hard. Western traders with a completely different cultural background had to face bureaucratic, political and climatic difficulties, as well as deal with the Chinese whose behavior toward them was often dishonest. It was hard to get used to the Chinese way of life, especially the lack of leisure activities of the hard-working Chinese laborers. The foreigners did not have much to share with the Chinese around them. Since their wives or children were not allowed to live with them, the only family was their working community. Thus homesickness was very common.28 In addition to these factors and difficulties, native Chinese hostilities also discouraged intercultural communication, as Chinese people were not willing to engage with foreign devils except to benefit their business.29 Under such

being well looked after, value themselves much upon maintaining a fair character. The concurrent testimony of all Europeans justifies this remark.” Cf.: Shaw, The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, 183. Also, William Hunter remarked decades after the end of the Canton System that the Hong Merchants were “honourable and reliable in all their dealings, faithful to their contracts, and large minded.” Cf.: Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 40. However, such personal experiences strongly depended on the Hong Merchant with whom the foreign trader had dealings with. William Hunter for example dealt mainly with Houqua. 27 During early 1820 for example, Russell & Co. remarked that “Business with Youqua proved to be disappointed, since Youqua couldn’t keep his promise in providing certain quantity of Bohea teas.” Also, business with Puankhequa was difficult, since he did not provide enough credit for Russell & Co. as he had promised. Cf.: Russell & Co. (Canton) to Edward Carrington & Co. & Cysus Butler on March 3rd 1823, in: Russell & Co. Records, Oversize Letterbook 1822 and 1823, LC. Instances of problems in trusting the Hong Merchants can be found quite frequently in the records of the EIC. For example, as illustrated in chapter 1.1, the EIC was often not satisfied with the quality of teas delivered by Houqua’s father. 28 See for instance John Murray Forbes to A. Heard on January 3rd 1835, in: Heard Records, BM–8–2, BL. 29 As Edward King noticed, the native Chinese in Canton “scarcely notice foreigners without the latter wishes to purchase some of their wares.” But on the other side, there were “idlers, throng around you and can only be got rid of by the flourish of cane.” Edward King to his brother on November 14th 1835, in: King Papers, MHS.

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circumstances, most of the Western traders preferred to stay in Canton for just a few years.30 To make fortunes fast and retire early was the most important motivation, especially for young American free traders, to sacrifice their lives at Canton.31 As long as they had made a fortune big enough to enjoy the rest of their lives, they would sail back home without hesitation. The most famous exception was John Perkins Cushing, who lived in Canton for more than two decades. As he left China and got back in Boston, he was rather like a “stranger”.32 But it was his long term and solid friendship with Houqua that made the partnership between Russell & Co. and Houqua so successful.

4.2 Houqua’s intercultural communication: A reconstruction John Perkins Cushing was not the only “foreign devil”, with whom Houqua had a close relationship. The foreign traders, particularly the American traders, played an indispensable role in Houqua’s commercial network, which reflects intercultural communication in early nineteenth century. Based on the fragmentary descriptions reserved in English records, the following part aims at a reconstruction of early Sino-Western communications.

4.2.1 Pidgin English The most important technical element for intercultural communication was the language, especially in oral communication. In the Chinese context during the early nineteenth century, language was the first barrier a Hong Merchant and his Western partners had to deal with.

30 Most of the American traders amassed fortunes in Canton in less than five years. According to Downs’ study, the average stay for Russell & Co. partners was 4,94 years. Cf.: Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 84. 31 Most of them, particularly the members of Russell & Co., were indeed successful: J.C. Green retires in 1839 with $300,000 after ca. 4 years in Canton; John Murray Forbes and J. Coolidge left Canton with at least $120,000 for ca. 3 years of work. Robert Bennet Forbes earned at least $40,000 a year. Cf.: Robert Bennet Forbes to his wife on January 6th 1838, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 84. Cushing finally got back to Boston with a fortune of $600,000. Cf.: Larson, “A China Trader Turns Investor,” 350. 32 On December 31st 1828, as Cushing left Canton for the first time, his American friend W. Sturgis wrote to Joshua Bates that Cushing “has returned, very rich, but finds himself almost a stranger in his native land” (originally underlined) In: Baring Archives, HC–5–1–5.

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In Qing China, it was hardly possible for a Chinese merchant like Houqua to learn English – the native language of his most important partners. This is due to several historical facts: Firstly, for the Hong Merchants, considering the general hostility against foreign barbarians and their cultures, it would have been harmful for one’s public perception if he learned a barbarian language. Moreover, Houqua, as well as other native Chinese, were not allowed to go abroad according to Chinese law.33 Secondly, there was no school or institution in China for Chinese to learn Western languages. The first institution for foreign languages and translation – “Ethic House (四夷馆)” – was established in China during the Ming Dynasty in 1407. But since the Chinese government professed no need to contact Westerners, Western languages like English were not a priority.34 During the Qing Dynasty, this institution was taken over by the Manchus and continued to function as a communication organization towards the vassal states and to protect the authority of the Qing government. But Western languages, especially English language and culture never interested the Qing government.35 The first institution in China which assisted in intercultural communication with the Western world was the “School for combined learning (同文馆)”, established in 1862 in Peking. Before that, a Chinese man like Houqua had no opportunity or way of learning English.36 In fact, Houqua never used or understood English. According to Robert Bennet Forbes, Houqua “did not read English nor write it beyond his signature.”37 Also William Hunter noted that “not a single Chinese then existed at Canton who could read or write English.”38 In other words, from the Chinese side, the Hong

33 Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 17, 340. 34 The foreign languages taught and translated in this institution were mainly the ones used in the vassal states under the Chinese authority. Cf.: Mu, “A study about the Si Yi Guang,” 64. 35 There were “dictionaries” for several Western languages including English, edited probably by both Chinese and western missionaries and financed by the Qing government during the late 1740s. However, due to the low quality of such “dictionaries” with regard to the language and their very limited readership (only used by the Qing court in diplomatic cases), they could not be useful for intercultural communication in Canton. Cf.: Huang, “The compilation,” 152–156. In fact, many vocabularies in the “English Dictionary (英吉利国译语)” came from Canton. 36 Some Hong Merchants did have some knowledge of certain western languages, since some of them had the chance to go abroad during the eighteenth century. e.g. Conseequa could speak French. But Houqua was not one of them. Cf.: Grant, “The Failure of the Li-ch’uan Hong,” 245. 37 Forbes, Remarks on China and the China Trade, 370. Also the British confirmed that Houqua did not or could not read English. However, he took the English newspaper regularly and communicated the content with the Chinese Viceroy whenever the Viceroy wanted it. Cf.: Report from the Select Committee on the Trade with China 1840, 52. 38 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 44.

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Merchants had serious problems in communicating with their Western trading partners. The foreign traders too faced this problem in communications. In contrast to present day language studies, it was extremely difficult for foreigners to learn Chinese in China, since the Chinese government forbade it. If a Chinese person was found to have given language lessons to foreign barbarians, he would be sentenced to death, just like William Hunter once noted in his memorandum: The local government also placed serious obstacles in the way of learning it, to the length of beheading a Chinese teacher for giving lessons. This is on the authority of Dr. Morrison, who related to me an instance that took place before I arrived, and he further informed me that for years after his own arrival in 1807 he was obliged, as a protection to his own teacher, to study at night in a room with lights carefully screened.39

Due to this danger, very few Westerners could use Chinese. According to William Hunter, there were only three “Chinese scholars” in Canton during the 1830s. The first one was the English missionary Doctor John Morrison (1782–1834), who also worked for the EIC and Lord Napier as translator. The second one was Sir John Francis Davis, who used to be the chief of the EIC in Canton. The last one was an American, William Hunter himself.40 The level of risk involved in having Chinese lessons in Canton is indicated in Dr. Morrison’s experience above. William Hunter had learnt Chinese from 1826 to 1829 in an institution in Malacca before he worked for Russell & Co. in Canton.41 In other words, for the rest of Western traders it was hardly possible to communicate with their Chinese partners in English or in Chinese. The difficulties in language surely made intercultural communication hard. But what made it even more challenging was the lack of self-confidence on both sides. Despite the positive impact of China on the Enlightenment, there was also negative prejudice, especially after the second half of the eighteenth century, as the Sinophile turned to be a Sinophobe. As Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) noted, China was perceived as a “balsamierte Mumie” and the Chinese language considered to be backward. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) for example hypothesized in his “Essay on the Origin of Language” that “the depicting of objects is appropriate to a savage people; signs of words and of propositions to a barbaric people; and the alphabet to civilized people.”42 Following this logic, the Chinese people must have been considered partly savage, partly barbaric. Samuel Johnson

39 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 60–61. 40 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 60. 41 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 17. 42 Liu, “Scripts in Motion,” 380.

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(1729–1784) called the Chinese “barbarians”, placing them low on a sliding scale of progress, because “they have not an alphabet.” The alphabet was compared and contrasted with primitive representations of objects (“pictographs”) or ideas (“ideographs”).43 Moreover, there was similar disdain from the Chinese, especially from the Chinese officialdom towards foreigners. As the Napier affair shows, the problematic Chinese translation of Napier’s name, “唠啤”, which literally means “laboriously vile”, caused unpleasantness and made Houqua’s position as a mediator quite difficult. In the incident, the Chinese word “夷(yi)”, “barbarian” disturbed the British the most.44 The British had repeatedly protested against the Chinese use of the word “夷” and was determined to ban the expression from diplomatic intercourse.45 Therefore, as Lydia Liu once commented, bilingual communication was a regularly contested space in diplomatic intercourse between China and the West and “never went well and seemed to frustrate both sides.”46 The question arises: Since there were several hundreds of foreign traders from Europe and America living in Canton, how did they communicate with their Chinese partners? How did Houqua deal with foreigners in his daily life? In order to solve this problem, just like the other Chinese involved in the Canton trade, Houqua used Pidgin English for his intercultural oral communication in his daily life. Pidgin English – a mixture of Portuguese, English, Mandarin, and Cantonese – was first defined in an Anglo-Indian glossary in 1886 as “the means of communication at the Chinese ports between Englishmen who do not speak Chinese, and those Chinese with whom they are in the habit of communicating.”47 It is a language, invented by pragmatic Chinese businessmen, and used only in 43 Liu, “Scripts in Motion,” 380. 44 According to research by Lydia Liu, the term “夷” had been equated with “foreigner” or “stranger” in English, not “barbarian” as the European translators insisted. Cf.: Liu, “Legislating the Universal,” 132–133. The Chinese word “夷” referred indeed to the “foreigners” or “strangers” outside China. However, since foreign civilisations were in general despised by Chinese Literati, the word “夷” was unavoidably perceived negatively. That’s why foreigners in Canton were called “foreign devils”. Another example is the Chinese term “红夷炮”, the Chinese name for European styl muzzleloading culverins, which was introduced to China in the early seventeenth century. At first, the term “红夷炮”, which literally meant “red barbarian cannon”, derived from the weapons’ supposed Dutch origins, as the Dutch were called “red haired barbarians” in southern China. But since this weapon helped the Mandschus conquer China, and entered their arsenal, it was renamed as “红衣炮”, namely “red coat cannon”, because the word “夷” was insulting. Thus, the Chinese word “夷” should not be interpreted as a neutral term for foreigners. 45 Liu, “Legislating the Universal,” 132–133. 46 Liu, “Legislating the Universal,” 132. 47 Selby, “China Coast Pidgin English,” 113.

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the Old Canton Trade since the seventeenth century – by using Hunter’s words – “deprived of syntax, without the logic of speech, and reduced to its most simple elements.”48 But how “close” was Pidgin English to the language English? Despite its Portuguese-Cantonese origin,49 during the course of the eighteenth century, Pidgin English had mainly a Cantonese-English style during Houqua’s time. This was because the British dominated Canton trade at the time and the Americans had also entered Canton, increasing their trade significantly during the early nineteenth century. Some examples of Pidgin English phrases used in daily life can be found in diaries and letters of Western traders in Canton. William Hunter specifically noted many examples of daily uses of Pidgin English. The following conversation could be as close to an authentic recreation of a daily chat between Houqua and a foreign trader like Hunter: Hunter: Well, Houqua, hav got news today? Houqua: Hav got too muchee bad news. Hwang Ho hav spilum too muchee. Hunter: Man-ta-le50 hav come see you? Houqua: He no come see my, he sendee come one piece ‘chop’. He come tomollo. He wantchee my two-lac dollar. Hunter: You pay he how muchee? Houqua: My pay he fitty, sikky thousand so. Hunter: But s’pose he no contentee? Houqua: S’pose he, number one, no contentee, my pay he one lac.51

The subject discussed here is that the government in Canton required every Hong Merchant to “contribute” 200,000 dollars due to the flooding by the Yellow River. Houqua made the officials a counter offer of 50,000 to 60,000, but he was prepared to pay 100,000 if necessary. This dialogue indicates that the oral daily communication between the Chinese and Western traders must be short and succinct, because the very simple “structure” of the Pidgin English made it hard to

48 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 61. 49 Wu, “The Canton English,” 175–176. 50 “Man-ta-le” meant “Mandarin”, Chinese officials. 51 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 36. “one lac” means 100,000.

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express or describe complicated ideas using long sentences. In fact, based on the examples of Houqua recorded by William Hunter, most of the expressions in Pidgin English were short sentences and, more often, relatively simple phrases:

Table 3: Phrases in Pidgin English.* Pidgin English

Ordinary English

too muchee foolo

(the man) is crazy

My chin-chin you

My compliments to you

No.  olo flen

best old friend(s)

just now hav settee counter, alla finishee, you go you please

Our accounts are not all settled, you can leave when you like

Ba-Blo

Baring Brother & Company

*Sources providing the information of this table: Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 43–44, 46, 52, 65.

Some of the idioms in Pidgin English became so popular that they were also used in communication between Westerners themselves. For instance, the term “lac”, which meant one hundred thousand, was often used to describe amounts related to credit. The relatively simple structure made Pidgin English suitable for business, as in the following daily dialogues between a Western trader and native Chinese in Canton during the 1830s show. In the first conversation, an American wanted to have a few books repaired. So, he came to a Chinese bookbinder: On seeing them, he [the Chinese bookbinder] inquired, “how fashion you wanchee bindee?” “My wanchee take go away all this cover, puttee nother piece,” said I. “I savy; you wanchee lever, wanchee sileek cofuh?” he asked. “Alla same just now have got; you can do number one proper?” replied I. “Can do, ca- -an,” answered he, lengthening out the last syllable with a special emphatic earnestness. “I can secure my no got all same lever for this; this have Eulop lever.” “Maskee, spose you no got lever, puttee sileek, you please: my wanchee make finish one moon so, no mistake; you can do, true?” inquired I. “Can see, can savy; I secure one moon half so can bindee alla proper,” he replied. “You can call-um one coolie sendee go my shop.” “Velly well,” said I: where upon he raised himself up and moved off, bidding me “good bye,” as he went.52

52 “Jargon Spoken at Canton” in: Chinese Repository, Volume IV, 433.

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In the second conversation, the author wanted to buy some “ginger sweetmeat” and began a small talk with the Chinese shopman: “Chin-chin”, said a man behind the counter, as I entered, “how you do; long time my no hab see you.” “I can secure hab long time,” said I; “before time my no have come this shop” “Hi-ya, so, eh!” said he. “What thing wantchee?” “Oh, some litty chowchow53 thing,” answered I. “You have got some ginger sweetmeat.” “Just now no got,” he replied; “I think Canton hab got velly few that sutemeet.” Upon this, I bid him adieu, and walked into another shop; and after saluting the shopman, asked him if he had any news. “Velly few,” said he; “You have hear that gov’nor hab catchee die? last day he die!” “Yes, my hab hear; just now which si your partner have go? Two time before my come, no hab see he,” I inquired.54

For someone who understands both English and Chinese, the structure of the Pidgin English might appear to be quite “Chinese”. There is neither any declension, nor difference between a question and a statement when it comes to the order of words. For a Chinese native speaker in Canton in early nineteenth century, it was still a completely new language due to the vocabulary. Similarly, it was not easy for an English native speaker without any knowledge on the Canton trade to understand the content of Pidgin English. But for both sides, Pidgin English was a convenient compromise to solve the language problem in daily oral communication. As a British individual observed in 1817: A peculiar dialect of English is spoken by the tradesmen and merchants at Canton, in which the idiom of the Chinese language is preserved, combined with the peculiarities of Chinese pronunciation.55

Obviously, such “peculiar dialect of English” was widely spread and practiced in early nineteenth century Canton. In a business negotiation with a Hong Merchant, where the standard terms might be routine and already discussed in every season, Pidgin English could indeed fulfill its communicative function. Not only the Hong Merchants like Houqua, but also the Chinese “translator” served in the Canton trade, namely the so-called “linguists (通事)”, could only use the Pidgin English in their intercultural communications.56 However, this

53 “chowchow” meant “different things”. 54 “Jargon Spoken at Canton” in: Chinese Repository, Volume IV, 434. 55 Ellis, Journal of the Proceedings, 409. 56 According to an English observer in Canton in 1837, the English knowledge of the Chinese linguists was so poor that none of them could read English or understand conversations between two foreigners. Therefore their “translations” in Pidgin English must be translated again into ordinary English by the servants of the EIC. Cf.: Si, “On the Transformation,” 47.

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pragmatic and strongly business-oriented language was obviously not enough in other situations. In case of official communication between the EIC and the Chinese government, Pidgin English was not reliable for the British. This is evident in the “Topaze” Affair in 1822, when Houqua brought the Chinese document to the Committee of the EIC. Although he explained – in Pidgin English – to the British the content of this document and the requirement of the Chinese Viceroy, the EIC refused to make any decision due to the absence of their translator Morrison.57 This was not only due to EIC’s mistrust to Houqua,58 but also because of the language barrier. For the same reason, as illustrated in section 3.1.1, Lord Napier who just arrived at Canton in 1834 and had no experience with Pidgin English, insisted on using his own interpreter, again Dr. Morrison, instead of the Chinese “linguists” in his negotiation with the Chinese. In this sense, the Americans – mostly private traders in Canton – were more tolerant and pragmatic than their British colleagues, most of whom identified as loyal servants of the EIC until 1834. Whereas the British EIC relied on their own translator like Morrison as long as possible, there was no such official translator among the Americans in Canton.59 Both in business and private life, Pidgin English was Houqua’s only medium to communicate with his American friends and partners like Cushing and the Forbes brothers. It seems that the very limited usage of Pidgin English60 was not a real problem in Houqua’s intercultural relationship. How “good” was Houqua’s Pidgin English? The records of the EIC do not mention Houqua ever bringing a translator with him in his meetings with the British. Therefore, it can be assumed that he

57 IOR, Volume G/12/226A, Consultation March 19th 1822, 578. 58 Houqua was regarded as generally not being reliable in political affairs. Cf.: Report from the Select Committee on the Trade with China, 142. 59 Dr. Robert Morrison (马礼逊 1782–1834) worked for the EIC as translator for decades. After his death his son John Robert Morrison (马儒翰 1814–1843) continued to work for the British as translator. But there was no such professional translator for Chinese in American community. The only well-known American, who learnt Chinese, William Hunter worked for Russell & Co. as a partner. He was not the official translator for Americans in Canton. Moreover, as shown in his dialogue with Houqua, he himself used Pidgin English in his intercultural communication. 60 According to a Chinese study on Pidgin English used in the first half of the nineteenth century in Canton, the vocabulary of Pidgin English included ca. 400 words, more than one third of which were nouns. There were very few adjectives and nearly no adverbs or prepositions. All the words were connected to business and not really suitable for a private conversation. Cf.: Wu, “The Canton English,” 180f.

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negotiated alone. From the very beginning, Houqua seemed to be able to use Pidgin English to deal with Westerners in business.61 Since none of Houqua’s conversations were documented during the initial years of his career or earlier, it is difficult to judge the level of his Pidgin English or how useful it was in his personal intercultural conversations. It was during the early years of his career that Houqua got to know the American trader and later his best friend, John Perkins Cushing, a partner of Perkins & Co., who came to Canton in 1803 and left for home as an extraordinary wealthy man in 1831. In other words, the friendship between the two traders emerged in a rather awkward situation. None of them could understand the other’s native language and both of them must have communicated with each other using Pidgin English with limited vocabulary and function. In the 1810s, Houqua already trusted Cushing to be his agent and deal with huge sums of money – connected to his loans for other Americans.62 Although these loans or Cushing’s service was secured and formalized in a contract in English, which Houqua could neither read nor write, the trust Houqua accorded Cushing was obviously not based on their shared language skills. Houqua engaged in the Canton trade for a significantly long period of over four decades during which his knowledge of Pidgin English and probably English could have improved. At the end of his career, in early 1843 shortly before Paul Siemen Forbes – a cousin of the Forbes brothers and John P. Cushing – went to Canton to join the house of Russell & Co., Robert Bennet Forbes wrote two letters to Houqua in order to ask for help, which Paul Siemen Forbes brought to Houqua personally. The first one was in English so Paul Siemen Forbes could know the subject matter of the letter. The other one was in Pidgin English, which Paul was asked to read it out loud to Houqua himself.63 It is clear from the excerpt below that the letter in Pidgin English, which Houqua was able to comprehend, was written in a rather “English” style: I hope this come to you by the hand of my Cousin Mr. Paul Forbes, he go out in that new ship, belong to my Brother John, & he want to do some good business in China, my have write to R & Co. chin chin them to take him & cut me, let me go, Russ & Co. have now put me down to 1/16, all same four price new young man, I hope my no worth any more, more better they let me go, take my cousin, he understand work & by & by after a little

61 Since Houqua’s brother Puiqua became a Hong Merchant in 1793 and dealt a lot with the EIC, Houqua must have had enough opportunities to learn Pidgin English before 1801. 62 See Houqua’s notes with Cushing’s signature in 1814, in: Cabot Papers, Box 1, Folder 11, MHS. 63 Forbes, Robert Bennet to “Sim” (Paul Siemen Forbes) on January 2nd 1843, in: Forbes Records, Box 4, Folder 6, BL.

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time he can unstand that Canton business very well, He have got plenty friend here & spose he go into Russ & Co house, or not, I hope you give him our opinion. My chin chin you & your family now begin new year. My have put on board this ship two small bundle of Provisions & two R & C Flour counter no. 1 thing – my chin chin you accept. yr friend R.B.Forbes.64

The translation in ordinary English, also written by Robert Bennet Forbes was as follows: I trust this will be handed you by my cousin, Mr. P.S. Forbes, who goes out in the Paul Jones to endeavor to obtain some good employment in China and I have written to Russell & Co. requesting them to receive Mr. Forbes in my place, they have seen fit to cut down my interest in the new term, commenting this year, to one sixteenth and as they have appreciated me so low I think they had better let me go entirely and receive my cousin who is a good working man and after a little experience of the Canton trade he will no doubt be a very useful member. He has many personal friends in this country and whether he goes into the house or not I ask him your valuable advice and assistance. With my best wishes on the occasion of a new year to yourself and family, I remain, dear Sir, Truly, R.B. Forbes. I have put on board the Paul Jones some good Beef and Pork and some fine Flour for you.65

Although – compared to the translation – the structure and grammar in the first letter is obviously simplified, the language style is much closer to English and the sentences are longer than Pidgin English used in the earlier conversation noted by William Hunter.66 The letter in Pidgin English contains many English expressions that were almost grammatically correct that a native English speaker without knowledge of Pidgin English or Chinese could easily understand it. Moreover, since it was the first time that Paul Siemen Forbes traveled to Canton, he had no experience in Pidgin English. All he could do

64 Forbes, Robert Bennet to Houqua (brought by Paul Siemen Forbes) on January 2nd 1843, in: Forbes Records, Box 4, Folder 6, BL 65 Forbes, Robert Bennet to Houqua (brought by Paul Siemen Forbes) on January 2nd 1843, in: Forbes Records, Box 4, Folder 6, BL. Almost at the same time John Murray Forbes wrote a letter to Houqua in two versions as well – both were brought and read to Houqua by Paul Siemen Forbes. In the version of Pidgin English, John Murray Forbes described his brother Bennet as “My brother, long one”. Probably Bennet Forbes was older than John Murray Forbes. So, the difference of the height was important for Houqua to differentiate the two Forbes. Cf.: John Murray Forbes to Houqua (brought by Paul Siemen Forbes) on 31st December 1842, in: Forbes Records, Box 4, Folder 6, BL. 66 Cf. the previously cited dialogue between Houqua and William Hunter.

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was to read the letter to Houqua. The fact that Houqua was able to understand the first letter indicates that he must have gained some English knowledge beyond Pidgin English during his 40 years in trade.

4.2.2 Letters, notes and other written communication Normally Pidgin English was a spoken language, not used in the written form. The letter written by Robert Bennet Forbes to Houqua in Pidgin English was an exception, and it was meant to be “heard” by Houqua, not “read” by him. In other words, Houqua was not able to read English, though the written communication between the Hong Merchants and Western traders was in English through formal letters, contracts and the like. For the EIC for instance there usually was a professional translator like Morrison, who was able to translate Chinese documents into formal English.67 But for a Hong Merchant like Houqua, who could not read English and whose “linguists” could not read English, either, how did he communicate with his Western partners in written English? Based on Houqua’s business records available today, it can be observed that his written communication with the EIC had a different procedure and was more indirect in style compared to that with private traders especially the American traders.68 Houqua’s interactions with the British EIC in Canton took place through formal letters or notes in Chinese. The following image is of notes reserved in the collection of the FO. Such business notes were written in formal Chinese, which only a professional Chinese scholar like Morrison was able to understand and translate into English. What is remarkable in this note is that Houqua signed his English name “Houqua” himself. This signature was the only word which

67 According to Dr. Morrison’s translations both in English and Chinese, which are reserved in the collection of FO in NAK, his Chinese knowledge was indeed sufficient for translating documents in complicated official Chinese. 68 According to my research till now, the main business partners of Houqua were the EIC and the American traders. During the early stage of his career, due to unfinished business and debts of his brother Puiqua with the VOC, Houqua also had some business with the Dutch. Cf.: the collection of “Nederlandse Factory in Canton” reserved in NAN. But beside this, there are few records about his business with other private traders except the Americans. His business with the Baring Brothers & Co. in London was carried out through his American agents or Russell & Co.

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Fig. 5: Houqua to Plowden in 1828, note with envelope, FO 1048/28/7, NAK. My photograph.69

Fig. 6: A detailed part of Fig. 5. Houqua’s signature, written with brush.70 In: Houqua to Plowden in 1828, note with envelope, FO 1048/28/7, NAK. My photograph.

Houqua could write in English. Often Houqua used his English signature to indicate or emphasize his personal will, as we will see later in the “Coolidge Affair”. The notes sent by Houqua as well as the notes received from the EIC were in very formal Chinese, like the following one: Since the Chinese characters in this note were written by pen, not using a brush unlike the letter sent by Houqua, it is possible that Morrison wrote it himself. Except for the skill of being able to write Chinese characters, nothing else could indicate that the author was a Westerner. His ability to formulate

69 In this note the subject is about Jardine’s Bengal bills and payments made by Houqua to Jardine and Hong Merchants on the EIC’s behalf. 70 Later in this chapter we shall encounter the same signature again in Fig. 9.

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Fig. 7: A note from Urmston to Houqua in 1822. In: FO 1048/22/68, NAK. My photograph.71

Chinese sentences is very close to that of a Chinese native. Even the salutation “伍三兄” – third brother Wu72 – is very Chinese. Therefore, by using a professional translator like Morrison, the written communication between Houqua and the EIC was secured and protected against linguistic misunderstandings. This manner of written communication continued until the end of the EIC in Canton in 1834. After the EIC was dissolved in Canton trade, the American traders, especially the house of Russell & Co., were doubtless the most important business partners of Houqua. In fact, Houqua never stopped doing business with Americans during his whole career. The written communication with the Americans and possibly

71 In this note the present season’s quantities of broad cloth, long ells, camlets, iron, lead and tin are listed, and it is stated that the quantity of Bengal and Madras cotton is not yet known and asking the price for cotton. 72 This is a very conventional salutation in traditional Chinese. Houqua’s surname was “Wu (伍)”, and he was the third son of his father, thus the “third brother (三兄)”. Moreover, the term “brother (兄)” indicates a friendly relationship to Houqua.

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other private traders had a completely different style due to the fact that there was no such professional translator hired by the Americans.73 The fact that there were enough foreign traders in Canton who could “translate” formal English documents into Pidgin English orally, made it possible for Houqua to understand the communication and letters that he received. But how did he manage to send out post and business agreements in English? During the first years of Houqua’s career, his business documents like contracts or receipts with the Americans were written in both English and Chinese, as indicated by one of Houqua’s receipts from 1805.74 The English text on this receipt is: 1805 Canton January 30th Received of Benjamin B Carter three hundred and eighty three dollars & twelve cents, also his note for One thousand and one hundred and fifty dollars, which note when paid will be in full of all demands of Howqua75 against the said Benj(amin) Carter.

cash note

,,  ,, ,, 

The English version includes details about the credit received by Houqua or his firm (Ewo Hong) both in words and Arabic numerals. The Chinese version is: 九年十二月三十日怡和行收到医生加大货付艮叁百八十三员余艮未收立回欠单艮〡-〥O 千元 76 On the 30th day of the 12th month, 9th year [Jiaqing] Ewo Hong received from Dr. Carter 383 dollars, the rest [12 cents] was not accepted, the note of 1150 Dollars was paid.77

73 Though William Hunter, the only Chinese scholar from the United States during his years in Canton, might be able to translate, he was not hired as a translator like Dr. Morrison, but as a partner in Russell & Co. Sometimes he was called by Houqua and other Hong Merchants to translate certain foreign documents, but mostly in cases of emergencies. His own communication with Houqua, as indicated in section 5.2.1, was in Pidgin English. 74 See Houqua’s confirmation of having received altogether 1533,12 Dollars from Benjamine B. Carter on January 30th 1805, Carter-Danforth Papers, Box 1 Folder 3, RIHS. 75 In this receipt “Howqua” appears on the first page, whereas “Houqua” was used on the second page. Both “Howqua” and “Houqua” referred to the same person. 76 The symbols “〥”, “〡” and “O” mean “5”, “1” and “0”. They are the Suzhou numerals (苏 州码子), used since the Song Dynasty till even today especially in south China. 77 My English translation.

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It is not clear why Benjamin Carter had a title of “Dr. (医生)” in the Chinese version whereas it did not appear in the English version. But this is not the only difference between the two versions. The English version includes more details and was written in a more formal style of contract, while the Chinese version seems to be more like a note and includes only the most relevant information. It is noted only in the Chinese version that Houqua let Carter keep the remaining 12 cents from the sum of 383,12 Dollars. Although these differences might not be relevant in business, they indicate that the two versions in two languages were written up in parallel and seemed to be written by Carter and Houqua or his secretary separately. In other words, the Chinese version was not the exact translation of the English version, but rather an extra notice for Houqua himself, reminding him of the content of the note. This form of bilingual receipts or notes can also be found in other Hong Merchants’ business records, particularly with the Americans.78 Beside this, another way of written communication, though quite rarely, was Pidgin English. But unlike the letters in Pidgin English written by Forbes to Houqua in 1843, these notes were the Pidgin English versions of notes in formal Chinese, and used if Pidgin English was comprehensible by both Chinese and Americans.79 But in the case of the bilingual notes, since neither the Chinese linguists nor the Hong Merchants could read ordinary English, it is questionable whether Houqua understood the English version at all. Therefore, in contrast to the EIC, who could afford to employ professional translators, the function of the Chinese version when conducting business with Americans was primarily not to secure and protect written communication against linguistic misunderstandings, but rather as a memorandum for the Chinese partner like Houqua, whose English skills did not allow him to understand the content. In the records after 1805, Houqua’s business documents for his foreign partners including letters, receipts, contracts or notes were no more bilingual, but mostly in formal English. In 1807, Houqua communicated with his American partner Oliver Jr. Wolcott in letters written in formal English, which were penned

78 See for instance the agreement between Ponqua and Sullivan Dorr on April 18th 1801, in: Sullivan Dorr Papers, S1 B1 F8, RIHS. 79 For instance a “bilingual” letter in both formal Chinese and Pidgin English sent by “Fuekee Chunqua” probably to Carrington in 1814, in: Carrington Papers, Box 12 Folder 1, RIHS. It is not clear whether this letter was written by a Chinese or rather an American “linguist” who understood Pidgin English, since normally neither the Hong Merchants, nor the Chinese linguists could write English letters. Up to now I have not found such a letter in Pidgin English written by Houqua or his linguist.

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by one of Wolcott’s business partners in Canton,80 who read out Wolcott’s writings in Pidgin English to Houqua and wrote replies to Wolcott based on Houqua’s Pidgin English. At the end of a letter written in English, there is a short remark in Chinese by Houqua, identifiable thanks to his signature and the use of the Chinese brush – “(此系)书信”, which means “(This is a) letter”, or “问候信”, which means “(This is a) letter of greetings.”81 These notes indicate clearly that Houqua was not able to understand the English content and needed to write notes in Chinese to remind him what the letter was about. After ca. 1812, Houqua’s written communication with Americans was only in simple English without any additional Chinese notes.82 Despite the language barriers between Houqua and his American partners, a mutual trust developed and became indispensable on both sides. However, Houqua did not have blind trust when dealing with the Americans. At least during the decade beginning from 1810, he also took certain measures to protect his interests in business. The first measure he employed was using legal means, such as using his American friend John P. Cushing as his “security”, like the following note shows: John P. Cushing’s confirmation as a “consular agent” with an official seal is remarkable in this note, ensuring that Thomas Bryant’s note promising Houqua to pay back the debt owed to him, was approved by the “American Consulate” in Canton. But obviously due to the war in Europe, Thomas Bryant was unable to repay Houqua the debt within twelve months, i.e. before Feb. 11th 1813.83 Therefore in February 1814, he had to pay Houqua the principal sum of 5882,46 Dollars, along with twelve percent interest. Consequently, Houqua ordered Thomas Bryant to send the money to “James & Thomas H. Perkins”, who were 80 See the letters sent by Houqua to Oliver Jr. Wolcott reserved in Wolcott Papers, Folder 36.4, CHS. 81 See the letters sent by Houqua to Oliver Jr. Wolcott reserved in Wolcott Papers, Folders 36.4, 36.5, 36.13 and 36.15, CHS. 82 In his letters to Wolcott after 1812, Houqua did not make any Chinese notes. Cf. for instance a letter sent by Houqua to Oliver Jr. Wolcott on March 17th 1812, in Wolcott Papers, Folder 37.3, CHS. Houqua’s letters reserved in this collection after this date were all written in formal English without Chinese notes. Also, the letters sent by Houqua to the US dated 1814 or later reserved in Cabot Papers, Box 1 Folder 11, MHS, were without any Chinese characters. The same can be observed in all his English letters reserved in the Forbes Records, BL. Exceptions can be only found in English letters received by Houqua. For instance on an envelope of a letter sent to Houqua in 1828 by an Indian merchant, Houqua wrote in Chinese “问候信无要紧” (This is a letter of greetings, nothing important). It seems that Houqua needed to write some Chinese words to remind himself what the document was about. Cf.: Horinwjee Dorabjee to Houqua on May 25th 1828, in: Cabot Papers, Box 2, Folder 3, MHS. 83 Cf.: Houqua to Thomas Byrant on January 28th 1814, in: Cabot Papers, Box 1, Folder 11, MHS.

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Fig. 8: A note of Thos. Bryant for Houqua on Feb. 11th 1812 with a notarial confirmation of John Cushing on Feb. 7th 1814, in: Cabot Papers, Box 1, Folder 11, Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

uncles of John Perkins Cushing and Houqua’s “general agents” in America.84 This order by Houqua was issued in writing on the back of the note and likewise approved by Cushing85: Since the notarial confirmation of Cushing was dated one day after Houqua’s order, this confirmation served as the completion of a credit relationship between Houqua and Thomas Bryant regarding the 5882,46 Dollars protected by legal

84 This whole document, except Houqua’s signature, was written by John P. Cushing due to his handwriting. Cf.: Houqua to Thomas Byrant on January 28th 1814, in: Cabot Papers, Box 1, Folder 11, MHS. 85 On the note of Fig. 8 Cushing approved the authenticity “also [of] the statement on the back of the same”, namely Houqua’s order concerning his credit repaid by Thomas Byrant.

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Fig. 9: The back page of Fig. 8. Confirmation with Houqua’s signature on Feb. 6th 1814, in: Cabot Papers, Box 1 Folder 11, Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

sanctions. In this case, it is also worth mentioning that due to Cushing’s role as an American consular, Houqua transferred the responsibility of the protection of his credit owed by Thomas Bryant to Cushing. Besides, it was not only Cushing’s identity that protected Houqua’s interest. Though Houqua might not be able to understand a single word of these notes he signed, he trusted Cushing who managed Houqua’s written communication to protect his credit. Besides the legal mean, sometimes Houqua had to protect his written communication by using Pidgin English. According to an American trader, Tilden’s notes, the Hong Merchants usually employed English native speakers as their secretaries for writing letters.86 One of the secretaries would translate the Hong Merchant’s Pidgin English into English, while the other would read this letter in English and then translate it back into Pidgin English. Finally, the Hong Merchant would compare these two versions of his letter. This was also the process that Houqua followed to write his letters until the early 1820s. But over the course of time, Houqua might not have needed to double-check his letters. Augustine Heard, a member of Russell & Co. and an American agent for Houqua’s business during the early 1830s, described his daily life in diaries in Canton including his habit of writing letters for Houqua. However, he never mentioned that another agent who checked the letters or that Heard himself ever checked the English letters written by someone else.87 Also in the memorandum by John Murray Forbes, who worked for Russell & Co. and Houqua in Canton in the 1830s, there is no mention of a double-check when writing English letters for Houqua:

86 Cf.: “Father’s Journals” I: 374–375 (following 3rd voyage, “Boston, 1821”). Quoted from: Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 369, footnote 52. 87 On August 12th 1833, Augustine Heard wrote that he “lost a good deal of time with Houqua, talking & writing announces & translations to chops & letters.” Cf.: Heard Records, BP–2, BL. It does not seem that there was a translator or a “double-check”.

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All his foreign letters, some of which were of almost national importance, were handed to me to read, and to prepare such answers as he indicated, which, after being read to him, were usually signed and sent without alteration.88

It seems that by the 1830s, Houqua had already constructed a reliable relationship with his foreign agents, so he could trust them in written communication without protection by legal sanctions. Since he didn’t need to double-check the letters, he saved a great deal of time and effort. As Robert Bennet Forbes, another former member of Russell & Co. noted in his memoirs, even when “very large transactions were constantly made” between Houqua and his American partners esp. Russell & Co., no writing ever passed, each entering their bargains in his own book, and there had never been a single word of dispute or misunderstanding between them.89

In summary, compared to his written communication with the British EIC, Houqua had to take more risks while dealing with the Americans due to language barriers. Despite certain measures instituted to prevent linguistic misunderstandings, trust played an important role, because an abuse of these language problems in business communication could not be completely avoided. This trust might have been blind at first. But in the course of time, John C. Cushing became Houqua’s trustee. Although it is not clear when exactly the well-established friendship between Houqua and Cushing began, the notes between Houqua and Thomas Bryant in 1812 and 1814, with Cushing as Houqua’s security, indicate that in 1814, there was a close relationship. Besides the language barrier, there was another problem Houqua had to face in his intercultural written communication and that was geographical distance between Canton and Boston or London. In contrast to the present day technology, a Chinese merchant involved in international trade like Houqua had no access to the internet, telephone, or even the telegraph. Thus, his intercultural oral communication was limited to Westerners living in Canton, while written communication was the only possibility to maintain his long-distance relationship outside Qing China. With the British EIC there was no need to maintain a long-distance relationship, since Houqua dealt with the committee of the EIC directly in Canton or Macao. But with the Americans, some of whom later became not only his oversea agents but also friends and trustees, maintaining a long-distance relationship was immensely important.

88 Forbes, Letters and Recollections, Vol.1 (1899), 62–63. 89 Forbes, Remarks on China and the China Trade, 371.

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Despite the challenges of communicating with the “outside world” in Qing China during the early nineteenth century, some of Houqua’s letters still show an international network with a surprisingly wide reach that extended to three continents: Besides acquaintances like Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy in India90 and agents like Baring Brothers & Co. in London, his letters travelled to almost all important cities on the east coast of America, particularly Boston where his best friends Cushing and the Forbes brothers resided. Since there was no established international postal system anywhere in Qing China in the early nineteenth century, a letter was usually brought by a mercantile ship that sailed in the same direction. Just as William Hunter noted, every consignee of such a ship was his own “post office” for all letters brought out by her, and “he delivered them to suit his own convenience.” As such, “sometimes, especially if the letters were from the rival house, they might be delayed.”91 In best cases, mail between Canton and Boston or London, which was brought by a ship of the same house instead of a rival house, took usually half a year. Thus, a merchant in Canton like Houqua could only get payments for his shipments that he had sent one year ago. In other words, both parties involved in the business transaction – especially Houqua in Canton, who was not allowed to leave China at all – were left in the dark. Under such circumstances, the business transaction was based heavily on the trust. Besides this, written communication in long-distance trade also depended on other conditions such as weather, the political situation in Europe and America, pirates at sea, etc. Furthermore, beside almost blind trust, the manner in which a good personal relationship was established was also relevant to secure business.

4.2.3 Beyond business: Social entertainments in an intercultural context Dealing with the foreign “devils” did not always mean problems like language and distance. Even though the relationship between the Hong Merchants and their foreign trading partners was assuredly dominated by their business partnership, there were other activities that they engaged in beyond business.

90 Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy (1783–1859) was a Parsi-Indian merchant and opium dealer who had a personal relationship with Houqua for decades. See for instance Houqua to Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy on July 14th 1834, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–5, BL. In 1841, Houqua asked Jeejeebhoy to procure a large sum of pearls worth of 7000 Rupiens. Cf.: Houqua to Jeejeebhoy on April 24th 1841, in: HL, MHS. 91 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 97–98.

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Since the foreign traders were complete strangers, it would be difficult for Chinese merchants to start a partnership. Thus, many Hong Merchants during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries also tried to entertain their foreign guests besides engaging in business relations and attempted to transform a connection between strangers into an acquaintanceship. Among the various engagements organized by the Hong Merchants, the usual activities included dinner parties and “sightseeing” in their own luxurious mansions, especially in their magnificent private gardens. This section will focus on these entertainments in an intercultural context, especially during Houqua’s time. Moreover, since Houqua’s success in business was in a large part due to his firm personal relationships with his foreign partners, I will also explore the manner in which Houqua entertained the foreigners. 4.2.3.1 Dinner parties As mentioned previously, living as a Westerner in Canton in the early nineteenth century was very hard. According to an American missionary, Howard Malcom who visited Canton in 1840, there were about 300 foreigners, who permanently resided in Canton and were “kept so under, that they may neither bring their wives nor take native ladies, nor build, buy, ride, row, or walk, without restrictions; [and were] wholly forbidden to enter the gates of the city.”92 Considering such a strict and monotonous lifestyle, any entertainment must be truly welcome by the foreigners. Also, till today, dining together is still a common way for Chinese to get to know each other. In this way, strangers could become acquaintances, which is much more convenient for a business relationship.93 Hence, the Hong Merchants entertained them on a grand scale, typically with dinner parties and banquets of up to thirty courses, sometimes spread over two days.94 The highlight of a program like this was the dinner. Among contemporary sources written by foreign traders at Canton, there are plenty of records available about these interesting dinner parties. For instance, shortly after the Americans officially entered the Canton trade in late 1785, the first American consul at Canton, Major Samuel Shaw wrote in early 1787 that:

92 Malcom, Travels in Hindustan and China, 45. 93 At the end of the nineteenth century, the Qing government still used this way, i.e. to invite foreign ambassadors to dine together as preparation for the discussion around the diplomatic dispute that was to follow the dinner. This was not, however, well-received by the Westerners. Cf.: Sun, The deep structure, 44. 94 Garrett, Heaven is High, 115.

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We dined with four of the cohoang,95 at separate times, two of whom entertained the French gentlemen and us at their country-houses. On these occasions, the guests generally contribute largely to the bill of fare. Both at Chowqua's and Pankekoa's, the French supplied the table furniture, wine, and a large portion of the victuals.96

What is worth mentioning here is that the Americans were invited by so many Hong Merchants already in their first year in the Canton Trade. It even seems to be a kind of unofficial competition to win foreign partners through providing dinner parties. Moreover, dinners at least by two of the Hong Merchants, Chowqua and Puankhequa were served in a Western style, so that the foreign guests could feel at home. The question arises: How Western or how Chinese were the dinner parties hosted by the Hong Merchants? Another American trader, Bryant Parrot Tilden provided probably the most detailed record about a dinner party in 1819 by Puankhequa II (潘有度), namely the son and heir of Puankhequa I (潘启). This time, Puankhequa II intended to perform a “genuine Chinese chop stick dinner”, which was “not often given by the Hong Merchants to foreigners” according to Tilden.97 About the procedure Tilden wrote: The usual Chinese ceremony, perhaps borrowed from us barbarians, of a chin chin glass of wine all round, having been drank, each guest, following the example of our host, shewed the bottom of his emptied glass, or goblet. Soon after, a train of servants came in bringing a most splendid service of fancy colored, painted and gilt large tureens & bowls, containing soups, among them the celebrated bird nest soup, as also a variety of stewed messes, and plenty of boiled rice, & same style of smaller bowls, but alas! no plates and knives and forks. Paunkeiqua now began discussing the merits and kinds of each mess – naming of what they consisted, etc., and then politely requested us to help ourselves – and here began the fun for our host, as we exposed our awkwardness, having only the chop sticks and spout like crescent shaped spoons to do it with. Having tried a while under the teaching of our much amused friend, we soon had to give it up [. . .] Thus, in attempting to bail our soup with the confounded spoons, some of us filled the sleeves of our white jackets, which fortunately had been substituted for our dress cloth coats in which we came; when finally the old gentleman seeing our distress, ordered plates & English knives, forks, and spoons.98 (originally emphasized)

Even this dinner in a Chinese style, though very amusing was not quite successful with the chopsticks. Therefore, Puankequa II changed this “chopstick dinner” into a Western dinner, so that his guests would not be embarrassed. After all, dinner should be fun instead of being a stressful learning attempt. In general, it

95 96 97 98

Namely the “Cohong”, which means here simply the Hong Merchants. Shaw, The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, 179. Tilden, At a Chinese Dinner Party, 17–18. Tilden, At a Chinese Dinner Party, 20–21.

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can be assumed that the dinners by the Hong Merchants were served in the Western style. A completely Chinese dinner would hardly be acceptable. Beside food, a dinner party by a Hong Merchant during the early nineteenth century might also include other entertainments, such as musicals or theatrical performances. However, such “extra” entertainments were usually performed in an official dinner party, i.e. for the official foreign guests of the Chinese government like a foreign embassy. Though these dinners still took place at a Hong Merchant’s residence, the Chinese hosts were then not Hong Merchants but local officials at Canton like the governor. On January 16th 1817, there was one such official dinner party for the British embassy of Lord Amherst, held in the Hong Merchant, Chunqua’s garden. One of the British members, Sir Henry Ellis, remembered it well: A dinner and sing-song, or dramatic representation, were given this evening to the Embassador by Chun-qua, one of the principal Hong merchants. The dinner was chiefly in the English style, and only a few Chinese dishes were served up, apparently well dressed. It is not easy to describe the annoyance of a sing-song, the noise of the actors and instruments (musical I will not call them) is infernal; and the whole constitutes a mass of suffering which I trust I shall not again be called upon to undergo. [. . .] With such different feelings on my part, it was almost annoying to observe the satisfaction thus derived by the old gentleman from the stage. Crowds of players were in attendance occasionally taking an active part, and at other times mixed with the spectators – we had both tragedy and comedy. In the former, Emperors, Kings, and Mandarins strutted and roared to horrible perfection, while the comic point of the latter seemed to consist in the streak of paint upon the buffoon’s nose – the female parts were performed by boys.99

According to this description, the “sing-song, or dramatic representation” could have been a performance of traditional Cantonese theater (传统粤剧). Besides exhibiting certain curiosity, this performance was incredibly “annoying” to Sir Henry Ellis. It entertained the Chinese hosts, who were the Chinese officials more than the British guests. Obviously, a “pure” traditional Chinese Cantonese performance that suited the tastes of Chinese local officials would barely be enjoyable for the British and other foreign guests. This is probably why such a “sing-song” program was usually left out in a Hong Merchants’ private dinner party.100

99 Ellis, Journal of the Proceedings, 418–419. 100 What made such official intercultural communication so unenjoyable for foreigners was also the attitude of Confucian bureaucrats. According to Henry Ellis, the Viceroy who received the British guests was “cold, haughty and hostile. He was evidently performing a disagreeable duty, and had great apparent difficulty in resisting the expression of his feelings at conduct, which he must have considered the unwarrantable arrogance of barbarians towards the greatest sovereign of the universe.” Cf.: Ellis, Journal of the Proceedings, 412.

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Compared to such “sing-song” dinner parties, how successful were Hong Merchants’ private dinner parties? Firstly, as mentioned before, for the foreign traders who rarely had a chance to “touch” Chinese culture before this and who had to live in such a monotonous and restricted life in Canton, any entertainment must have been exotic and interesting to them – except maybe the official dinner parties hosted by Chinese local officials. Generally, the foreign guests were very satisfied with the food. However, the admiration was more for the luxury porcelain and cutlery, as stated in various foreign records.101 The marathon dining experience bothered the guests the most, and these often included 20 different courses. Once an American trader Edward King wrote in his letter to his brother in 1835 about a dinner hosted by the Hong Merchant Tingqua: [. . .] about 1/2 past 5 o’clock we set down to dinner with Tingqua five of us in all, and did not rise till 9 o’clock, this time was passed principally in eating of the various dishes brought on the table, the considerable chatting was kept up during the repast. When he first sat down to the table, we thought we could soon finish what it contained, but this that was on the table (which were little dishes of fish dried, eat up fine) we found to be only put them to keep us employed when nothing else was on the table and as an occasional relish – we were seated but a moment, when they brought on a small dish of fish, cooked in chowder style, of this we all ate a little, this was followed by the production of others of fish cooked in a great variety of forms and before the time of rising arrived 20 different courses had come on the table, though but a little of a kind was brought on, we found it impossible to manage any of the last dishes. [. . .] I was glad when the hour of departure arrived as I was quite tired of sitting at Tingqua’s table – though their dishes are very good yet I think I should not like to change the mode to which I have been accustomed. The eating of the rich Chinese consumed too much time for Americans.102

It seems that Edward King was impressed by the long dining process, not by how delicious the dishes were. Anyway, no matter how successful such dinner parties really were in the Westerners’ perception, the Hong Merchants took great pains to make their entertainment enjoyable, especially compared to the entertainment such as annoying annoying Cantonese theater performances hosted by the Chinese officials for their foreign guests. According to research by Ching May-bo on the Hong Merchants’ dinners for foreigners, not only the foods,103 but also the dining practices including that of serving dishes course by course, were Westernized consciously by the Cantonese Chinese hosts.104 This is clearly evident in Tilden’s

101 Cf.: Ching, “Chopsticks or Cutlery,” 107–108. 102 Edward King to George King on 11th November 1835, in: King Papers, MHS. 103 This can be especially found in using Madeira and European wines between the courses. Cf.: Tilden, At a Chinese Dinner Party, 21. Cf. also Ching, “Chopsticks or Cutlery,” 107–108. 104 Cf.: Ching, “Chopsticks or Cutlery,” 103–109.

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and other contemporary writings. Therefore, the Hong Merchants could be considered pioneers not only in blending Cantonese and European cuisines and dining etiquette,105 but also in entertaining Westerners. As illustrated above, till the early nineteenth century, dinner parties were one of the standard programs for the Hong Merchants to entertain foreigners in Canton. But how about the most extraordinary figure among the Hong Merchants, Houqua? How did he entertain his foreign guests, especially the partners of the American trading firm Russell & Co.? Due to his success in business, Houqua’s ability to entertain his foreign guests must have been as successful as his skills in business. However, it does not seem that Houqua could entertain Westerners better than his Hong friends. Among the records available today, though there are plenty of sources providing a comprehensive idea of the state of intercultural entertainment in Canton and various Hong Merchants’ names were mentioned frequently, Houqua’s name rarely appeared in this context. Even partners at Russell & Co. like Edward King, who was fond of writing about his private adventures in China, didn’t mention any experience of dining with Houqua.106 Neither could we find any information of Houqua’s dinner party in William Hunter’s records, who left behind such a rich collection of primary sources about the Hong Merchants and about Houqua in particular.107 Therefore it does not seem that hosting dinner parties such as the ones hosted by other Hong Merchants was a standard practice for Houqua. In a rare account about Houqua’s dinner party,108 found in Edward Delano’s diaries of 20th January 1842, Delano gave a very brief description: Today we dined luxuriously at about 4 o’clock. Our dinner furnished by Houqua, the Senior Hong Merchant, [in] Chinese style. About 15 courses – bugs & nut soup – sharkfins – pigeon eggs – quail etc. etc. – sturgeon’s lip etc. We were 3 hours getting thro’ with it. It is many years since Houqua has given a Chinese dinner at his own house & perhaps never before did he give to a friend the like of this – an unexampled mark of respect to Warren.109 Roast pig & boiled mutton did not look at all inviting after the Chinese dishes were removed.110

105 Cf.: Ching, “Chopsticks or Cutlery,” 114. 106 At least in the collection of King Papers in MHS there are no records about a dinner at Houqua’s, but at other Hong Merchants’ like Chunqua. 107 Although Hunter gave many details about Houqua in his famous works, “Bits of Old China” and “The Fan-Kwae at Canton”, there is no word about Houqua’s dinner parties. Therefore, it is questionable whether Houqua ever hosted dinner parties during the 1830s. 108 This is the only record about a dinner party hosted by Houqua that I’ve found till now. 109 Warren Delano was Edward Delano’s brother. Both the Delanos used to work for Russell & Co. in Canton, especially in opium trade. 110 Edward Delano Diaries 1842, in: Roosevelt Papers, FDR.

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Comparing the descriptions on the dinner parties thrown by other Hong Merchants, this one was rather simple and short. It seems that Houqua didn’t have much experience in giving a grandiose dinner. Delano even assumed that Houqua “perhaps never before” gave such a dinner party. Furthermore, Houqua gave this dinner party in early 1842, namely ca. one year and seven months before his death. At this time, the opium war had not yet ended, and Houqua was busy transferring his large properties to his trustees and Russell & Co. in the United States since he was clueless about the future of the Canton trade. Therefore, given the unclear situation and his own age, this dinner hosted for the partners at Russell & Co. was more likely to be farewell dinner for Houqua than for entertainment. Even though Houqua did not seem to be too interested in hosting dinner parties, it doesn’t mean that his residences were not suitable for grandiose entertainment. The following section goes into detail regarding Houqua’s home and entertainments. 4.2.3.2 Mansions and gardens The Hong Merchants did not only intend to entertain both prospective and current business partners by hosting a dinner party. As Ching May-bo points out, it was also a good opportunity to show off their luxurious lifestyle.111 This exercise was about far more than only showing off, it was also a way of indicating a guarantee for credit. It is well known that from the second half of the eighteenth century, the Hong Merchants were frequently in debt and became dependent on foreign creditors. Therefore, showcasing their ability to maintain a luxurious lifestyle and their financial ability to repay debts would be helpful in convincing the foreigners to provide more credit. This motive is evident as the merchants organized various forms of entertainment such as “sightseeing” in their private gardens. For the foreigners, a one-day trip would be a great pleasure, especially during the hot and humid summers in Canton. Besides, there was also an official decree by the Qing government allowing foreigners to visit the Hai Zhuang Temple (海幢寺), located in the Honam (河南), and the Hua Di (花地) district, on the 8th, 18th and 28th day of each month.112 Both places were outside the

111 Ching, “Chopsticks or Cutlery,” 107. 112 Peng, “History of Houqua’s Gardens,” 92. “Hai Zhuang Temple” often written as “Hoi Tung Monastery” or “Pagoda” in foreign records, located on the Honam, on the southern side of the Pearl River. “Hua Di”, often also written as “Fa-ti” or “Fatee” in foreign records, was a district in Southwest Canton.

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city of Canton. Furthermore, most of the famous Hong Merchants’ private gardens or mansions were in these two areas. Houqua’s family owned a significant portion of real estate in Canton. But most of these properties were not purchased in Houqua’s name but that of his elder brother or his sons, who were all well connected with local literati. Among these estates, there were three particularly famous ones with gardens, which were purchased – often from other Hong Merchants’ families – at different times under different names. Houqua’s main residence is located directly next to the Hai Zhuang Temple. This residence, which included the “Wu Ancestral Hall (伍氏宗祠)”113 was established in 1803 by Houqua himself and completely finished around 1835.114 Due to its location next to the Hai Zhuang Temple, it must have previously been the garden of “Lopqua”, which served as the residence for the British embassy under Lord Macartney in 1793 and for the Dutch embassy in 1794, where official entertainments or ceremonies also took place.115 However, since the name of Puiqua, namely Houqua’s elder brother, who was in charge of the Ewo Hong from 1793 till 1801, is not mentioned at all, it is still unclear, if this garden of Lopqua already belonged to Puiqua in 1793.116

113 To recall, that the family name of Houqua was “Wu”. 114 Peng, “History of Houqua’s Gardens,” 92. Cf. also: “Record on Wan Song Yuan (Garden of ten thousands of pines) of Family Wu in Honam (河南安海伍氏万松园记)”, in: Genealogy of Wu Family’s entering in Guangdong Province (安海伍氏入粤族谱). 115 Andre Everard Braam, the second ambassador of the Dutch embassy, wrote on 13th October 1794 that they were firstly escorted to the Pagoda, Hauy-stong-tsi (This is the same in which the English Ambassador Lord Macartney was received by the Tsong-tou [i.e. the viceroy], and the other principal Mandarins, on his return from Pe-king). And then, after the imperial dinner, they were conducted by two Mandarins “to the garden of Lopqua, separated from the Temple, or Pagoda [i.e. the Hai Zhuang Temple], only by a wall.” Next, on 20th November 1794, they had another official ceremony in “the garden of Lopqua”. Cf.: Von Braam, Authentic Account of the Embassy, Vol.1 (1798), 20–22 and 35. Since there was no other gardens close to the Hai Zhuang Temple, the garden of Lopqua must be – geographically – the garden of Houqua’s family. 116 In Chinese studies till now, it is assumed that it was Wu family or Puiqua’s garden, where official ceremonies including imperials dinners and other entertainments for foreigners in 1793 and 1794 took place. Cf.: Gao, “Diplomatic activities in Hong Merchants’ gardens,” 24. Lin and Li, The Hauzhuang Temple, 78–80. But I am skeptical that this is true. Firstly, as mentioned, Puiqua’s name was not mentioned at all, neither in Macartney’s record, nor in Braam’s writings. Secondly, since Puiqua was just established the Ewo Hong in 1793 and became a Hong Merchant, he would not be able to afford such a luxurious residence to entertain local officials and foreign guests.

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Shortly after Houqua took charge of his family business in 1801, he began to set up his main residence with one of the most famous private gardens at Canton – Wan Song Yuan (万松园), which literally means the “garden of ten thousands of pines” due to the various pines in this place. However, since this garden – just like other Hong Merchants’ gardens – was completely destroyed during the early twentieth century, we can only imagine some beautiful scenes through some paintings, old photos or postcards.117

Fig. 10: Houqua’s Garden, 1830–1836, Studio of Guan Lianchang, also known as Tingqua, Gouache on paper, 10 7/16 x 13 3/4 inches (26.5 x 35 cm). Museum purchase, Augustine Heard Collection, 1931. E83532.16. Courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum. Photo by Mark Sexton.

The second garden or residence belonging to Houqua’s family was the Fu Yin Yuan (馥荫园), which was located on the southwestern side of the Pearl River, right in the famous district “Fa-ti” or “Hua Di”, which literally means “land of flowers (花地)”. This garden was built by another famous Hong Merchant named Pan Youwei (潘有为), the brother of Puankhequa II (潘有度), and it used to be called “Liu Song Yuan (六松园)” or the “Garden of Six Pines”. Later, after this garden was sold to Houqua’s family, its name was changed to Fu Yin Yuan, which literally means the “Garden of Fragrance and Shades”.118 This new name was probably inspired by the fragrance of the flowers and the shade

117 See for example: https://nttreasurehunt.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/do-chinesewallpapers-show-the-gardens-of-guangzhou/ (28. 03. 2019). 118 Liang, The local Chronicles of Panyu County of Canton (民国版番禺县续志), Volume 40, 19.

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provided by the trees, which, considering the long and humid summer in Canton, must have been a very relaxing place for foreigners. However, among all the gardens of the Hong Merchants during the early nineteenth century, the garden of another Hong Merchant Conseequa (潘长耀), was the most famous one. Due to its extraordinary beauty, its image was printed on one of the Chinese banknotes during the 1930s. Unlike the gardens of Houqua’s and Puankhequa’s families, Conseequa’s garden is unexpectedly located neither in Honam nor in Hua Di, but in the socalled Western City (西关) outside the city wall of Canton. It is interesting to note that at least in Western records, the relationship between this garden and Houqua is rarely mentioned. After Conseequa’s firm went bankrupt and he himself died in 1823, this famous garden was sold to Houqua’s eldest son, Wu Yuanzhi (伍元芝) in 1824, and therefore became one of Houqua’s real estates.119 However, this garden was seemingly never recognized as Houqua’s garden or Houqua’s family’s possession, since it continued to be called the garden of Conseequa after 1824. On the most popular images (Figs. 11 and 12), which were published in Thomas Allom’s collection “China – The Scenary, Architecture and Social Habits” during the 1840s in London, this garden was still named as “Conseequa’s garden” – almost two decades after 1824. It seems that Houqua was not willing to advertise his possession of the most luxurious garden in

Fig. 11: House of Conseequa a Chinese merchant, in the suburbs of Canton by Thomas Allom (1804–1872), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Fig. 12: The fountain-court in Conseequa’s house, Canton, by Thomas Allom (1804–1872), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

119 Mo, “The Hong Merchants’ gardens,” 355–357. Cf. also: Hunter, Bits of Old China, 226.

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Canton. In 1834, when William Hunter asked Houqua about his property, Houqua estimated his properties to be worth a total of 26 million taels of silver.120 A large part of his fortune must have included real estate properties, but he never shared detailed information about them. In fact, Houqua surely purchased properties from other Hong Merchants. For instance, in 1832, as Mowqua experienced financial difficulties, Houqua purchased some of his properties to help him. This is recorded in Augustin Heard’s diary, who was a partner at Russell & Co. during the early 1830s.121 But, there are no further sources providing detailed information regarding these estates bought from Mowqua. Although it is difficult to ascertain the number of gardens that Houqua’s family owned, it is not difficult to assume that he did have enough luxurious mansions with gardens to entertain his foreign guests and to display his wealth like other Hong Merchants did. In fact, Houqua’s mansion, especially its pomp and splendor, did give the foreigners an impression of Houqua’s luxurious lifestyle. But compared to his Hong friends, records about Houqua’s material life were relatively rare. One of the rare records about Houqua’s luxurious mansion can be found in the writings of Sir Henry Ellis in 1817. Ellis seemed to be quite impressed by Houqua’s house: How-qua’s house, though not yet finished, was on a scale of magnificence worthy of his fortune, estimated at two millions. This villa, or rather palace, is divided into suites of apartments, highly and tastefully decorated with gilding and carved work, and placed in situations adapted to the different seasons of the year. Some refreshments of fruit and cakes were put before us here as at Puan-ke-qua’s. How-qua and his brother, a Mandarin holding some office, waited upon us themselves. A nephew of How-qua had lately distinguished himself at the examination for civil honours, and placards (like those of office used by the Mandarins) announcing his success in the legal forms, were placed round the other court: two bands attended to salute the Ambassador on his entrance and departure.122

Obviously Houqua’s family had a luxurious life. His house, though not finished yet, was like “a palace”. But Ellis’ description also indicates that not only was Houqua able to maintain such a life of luxury, but that he was also careful in his early interactions with foreigners, especially the meetings called by the local government. For instance, “some refreshments” were already prepared before the arrival of the British ambassador. Also, Houqua, as well as his

120 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 48. 121 See Augustin Heard’s Diary on May 14th 1832, in: Heard Records, BP–1, BL. 122 Ellis, Journal of the Proceedings, 416–417.

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mandarin-degree-holding brother and nephew, took charge by the reception. This indicates that Houqua tried to impress his foreign guests with his house and his status as a member of a literati family rather than as a Hong Merchant. Nevertheless, although Houqua’s status as the senior Hong Merchant stabilized after the early 1820s, and his wealth became well known not only among the Chinese but also among foreign circles, records by foreigners about Houqua’s extravagant mansions and gardens like the one by Sir Henry Ellis in 1817 were rather rare. Even his close friends like John Cushing and John M. Forbes rarely mentioned Houqua’s residence. In Delano’s diary about Houqua’s dinner party in January 1842, there is no description about Houqua’s mansion. Thus, it is very likely that there was no “sightseeing” at all after this dinner. Also, in Robert Bennet Forbes’ journals to his wife from 1838 till 1840, there is very little detail about Houqua’s mansion or the entertainments that he hosted. Probably the most detailed description of Houqua’s luxurious house is in the journal of the American missionary Howard Malcom who visited Canton in 1840. However, this visit did not appear to be an entertainment. About the reason of this visit Malcom wrote: It is so unpopular to be familiar with foreigners, that an opportunity of visiting the private houses of respectable Chinese is rarely enjoyed by transient sojourners in Canton. One of the principal hong merchants, being particularly indebted to Dr Parker for removing a polypus, and at the same time a man of uncommon independence, I was glad to embrace a proposal to visit him. Dr Parker having announced our desire, we received a very cordial invitation.123

Both Malcom and Parker were missionaries, who couldn’t be potential business partners. Therefore, to welcome them would not bring in any business. Moreover, during the time that Malcom was in Canton in 1840, the war between Qing China and Great Britain had just begun. It was at this time that all the Hong Merchants had escaped from the city to countryside, except Houqua and Mowqua.124 Therefore, it is no wonder that it was particularly “unpopular to be familiar with foreigners”. Under these circumstances, it was rather unlikely for Houqua to entertain two American missionaries.125 Malcom was anyway quite impressed with Houqua’s mansion:

123 Malcom, Travels in Hindustan and China, 47. 124 Houqua to Robert Bennet Forbes and John Murray Forbes on April 12th 1841, in: HL, MHS. 125 It was surely not just because Houqua was “particularly indebted to Dr. Parker for removing a polypus,” since Houqua likewise did Dr. Parker a great favor in helping him establish his hospital in Canton. During the period from 1836 to 1838, Houqua was the only Chinese merchant who gave the “Medical Missionary Society” financial support. Cf.: Gulick, Peter Parker and the Opening of China, 72 and 53.

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I was soon bewildered in passing through halls, rooms, and passages; crossing little courtyards and bridges; now looking at scores of gold-fish in a tank, and now sitting in a rustic summer-house on the top of an artificial cliff; now admiring whole beds of china asters in full bloom, and now engrossed with large aviaries or grotesque bee-hives. Here were miniature grottoes, and there were jets of water. Here were stunted forest-trees and porcelain beasts, and there was a lake and a fancy skiff.126

This proves again that Houqua would sometimes showcase his luxurious life. The fact that his name appeared so rarely in foreign sources in the context of hosting performances was perhaps because such entertainment was not the focus of Houqua’s business relationships with foreigners. And secondly, it could be due to his personality. William Hunter once wrote about Houqua: Howqua was rather a serious man; I never knew him to perpetrate but one joke, and that was so innocently, it doubles its value.127 (originally emphasized)

Whether Houqua really had “innocently” joked only once in his life is hard to prove. But it shows that Houqua was a very serious person, who was not interested in entertainment. In fact, Houqua was not interested in entertaining specifically for foreigners, but also had little interest regarding the entertainments that the foreigners organized among themselves. There was an instance during which the foreigners wanted to organize a boat race on the Pearl River in front of their factories and living area. Houqua tried to prevent this “fight boat” race from taking place several times.128 Till now we have focused on Houqua’s attitude to his gardens in relation to his intercultural communication. If his gardens were not for entertaining the foreigners, what was their primary use? In contrast to the foreign sources, Houqua’s family gardens appeared often in Chinese writings. In China, traditionally the most important purpose for rich merchants to purchase or build extravagant gardens was to maintain the value of properties, and to entertain local gentry, so that the merchant family could be associated with the privileged social class. Often there was even a competition between the rich merchants regarding their gardens. For instance, as Ruan Yuan (阮元) – the Governor in Canton – once visited the garden of Pan Shicheng (潘仕成), another rich Hong Merchant and a cousin of Puankequa II, Ruan Yuan told Pan Shicheng that it would be a great pleasure for him to spend the mid-autumn festival enjoying the moon in the beautiful garden owned by Houqua’s family. After having heard this, Pan Shicheng began to build

126 Malcom, Travels in Hindustan and China, 48. 127 Hunter, Bits of Old China, 43. 128 Hunter, Bits of Old China, 277.

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another garden similar to Houqua’s but even more magnificent, so that he could win over the governor to be his guest and enjoy the moon.129 But, Houqua’s gardens continued to remain connected with Cantonese local gentry and officials and thus benefited the relationship between Houqua’s family and the officialdom. In fact, Houqua’s fifth son Wu Chongyao (伍崇曜), who inherited Houqua’s property and business after Houqua’s death, was probably best acquainted among Houqua’s family members with officialdom through these gardens, which were mentioned and almost immortalized by various local gentry in their poetry.130 In other words, whether or not they were under his name or not, Houqua did possess gardens and luxurious mansions, which served to entertain the local gentry rather than foreign guests. In summary, social activities like dinner parties in private luxurious gardens were the Hong Merchants’ standard programs during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in order to provide their foreign trading partners some entertainment and “fresh air” to enliven their rather monotonous lives in Canton, and to indirectly showcase their abilities and trustworthiness in financial transactions through their luxurious lifestyle. However, the central question remains, how important was this entertainment in early international trade? Besides the financial burden to maintain such a luxurious lifestyle,131 Houqua’s practices show that although such entertainments might be very enjoyable for foreigners, they were not really helpful or at least not decisive for a stable partnership in business. In 1816, a British trader admitted that Puankhequa II was a “clever able man”, but he also confessed “I like better to dine than to do business with him.”132 In other words, the foreign guests were more impressed by the hospitality of Pankhequa II than his abilities as a businessman. Also, in the case of Conseequa, who owned the most beautiful garden among the Hong Merchants during the early nineteenth century, there is no evidence proving that his gardens or entertainments were that beneficial for his business. An American trader Thomas W. Ward described Conseequa as “Rich – roguish – insinuating – polite – sends some excellent cargoes – some bad cargoes – not attentive enough to business and a man with whom you cannot talk safety.”133 Among these qualities, there aren’t any positive characteristics listed

129 Mai, Famous gardens in Henan of Canton, 7–8. 130 Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 80–81. 131 Chen, The Insolvency of the Chinese Hong Merchants, 107–111. 132 J. Elphinstone to Robert Morrison on Nov. 7th 1816. In: Morrison, Memoirs, vol.1 (1839), 468–469. 133 Quoted after: Grant, “The Failure of the Li-ch’uan Hong,” 245.

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that make for a good businessman. In contrast, Conseequa’s business ability was questionable. In 1799, an American trader Sullivan Dorr complained, describing Conseequa as “being a good adept at mixing teas”.134 Later, in early 1803 this same trader had to visit Conseequa nearly 20 times, since Conseequa still hadn’t procured 40 chests of Congo teas as he promised.135 Compared to other Hong Merchants, Houqua might be the one who was least amusing: He rarely provided dinner parties in his gardens and he was described as a serious man who had not told a single joke in his life.136 There are barely any records about his parties. It seems that Houqua’s seriousness and even “coldness”,137 which set him apart from other Hong Merchants, didn’t detract from his success at all. In fact, this character trait of his, while atypical among Chinese merchants, seemed to be quite suited to foreign trade, since it might have helped him focus only on his business and even benefited his image as a serious, trustworthy man. After Houqua’s death, his residence with gardens appeared to be more open and was frequently visited and used for entertaining foreign guests, especially under his fifth son and heir Wu Chongyao (伍崇曜).138 However, just like other Hong Merchants’ gardens, none of Houqua’s gardens survived today. After the glorious time of the Old Canton Trade and the Hong Merchants, their beautiful gardens fell into disrepair. Even Houqua’s main residence Wan Songyuan (万松园) lost its charm only decades after Houqua’s death. Around 1880, an American zoologist and orientalist, Edward S. Morse, visited Houqua’s house. About the garden he wrote in a rather pitying tone: In the rear of this great house was a large lotus pond walled in with brick; on each side were substantial summer-houses, in which dwelt the concubines. A glimpse of the large reception rooms only was permitted. Little bridges, such as one sees depicted on old china, spanned certain narrow places. Here was every opportunity to make a charming retreat, yet the pond was covered with slime and rubbish, the summerhouses were neglected- and dirty, and, knowing the great wealth of the family, one was compelled to recognize this condition of matters in China as a national trait.139

134 Sullivan Dorr to his father on Sept. 10th 1799, in: Sullivan Dorr Papers, S1 B1 F1, RIHS. 135 Sullivan Dorr to Amasa Delano on Jan. 3rd 1803, in: Sullivan Dorr Papers, S1 B1 F2, RIHS. 136 Hunter, Bits of Old China, 43. 137 J. Elphinstone to Robert Morrison on November 7th 1816. In: Morrison, Memoirs, vol.1 (1839), 468. 138 See the example of Mrs. Forbes’ description of a grandiose dinner party by Houqua’s son in 1846: Munroe, “The daily life of Mrs. Nathaniel Kinsman,” 73–74. 139 Morse, Glimpses of China and Chinese homes, 159–160.

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Today, only a part of the walls of Houqua’s residence on the Honam island, ca. 20 meter long, is left of the huge estates of Houqua.140

4.2.4 Gifts, favors and reciprocal exchange Business relationships are always reciprocal interactions with offers and returns, much like Houqua’s relationship with his foreign partners. This reciprocity between businessmen are de juri protected and anchored formally, for instance with contracts. But sometimes, the reciprocity also takes an informal form like giving gifts or doing private favors, especially in case of a close personal relationship or friendship that emerged from business. In imperial Chinese society and even often today, since personal relationships had such a strong role in social life, it was hardly possible to carry out a business relationship smoothly without any personal influence. Therefore, the Hong Merchants, like the Chinese businessmen of today, were very mindful of maintaining a good personal relationship in business, for instance through social entertainments and exchanging gift and favors. However, it was not easy to draw a clear line between private gifts or favors in the name of friendship or those that were given for utility. Moreover, as pointed out in numerous anthropological studies, gifts and reciprocal exchanges could also provoke danger, suspicion and pollution that may surround the gift. Donors may be conceived of as “evil” and their sin believed to be transmitted with the gift; Recipients may misuse and exploit the gift or those who offer it.141 In the Chinese business world in early nineteenth century, it was always an awkward situation to deal with gifts and favors, and this was also the case for Houqua. Although he was not active in providing foreign traders with social entertainment, he did cultivate his business relationship into a solid personal relationship through exchange of gifts and favors, which is the focus of the following section.142 4.2.4.1 Exchange of gifts and favors In Houqua’s patronage relationship towards Chinese officialdom, there was an official exchange of favors due to social identities: Houqua offered unofficial

140 Li, “The vanishing of the old Canton,” 16. 141 Ben-Amos, “Gifts and Favors,” 300. 142 Due to the lack of Chinese sources, I have not found any information about the gifts and favors exchanged between Houqua and other Hong Merchants. But it is to be assumed that there would be reciprocal interactions among the Hong Merchants.

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bribes and made his official financial contributions and carried out administrative duties as a Senior Hong Merchant, especially xhis management in a foreign affair in favor of his patrons, even if it was against Chinese law and morality. In return, he obtained official titles for himself and for his sons, not only for social honor but also as a buffer in the event that legal charges were filed against him. More importantly, his authority in the Canton Trade was given or withdrawn by his patrons. Thus, in this reciprocal interaction, there was hardly any voluntary aspects: Houqua’s offerings – be it administrative duties, or valuable gifts or bribes – were all aimed at satisfying the local officialdom, due to his fear of reprisals. In return, he obtained nothing more than official edicts and permissions from his patrons.143 Beyond these “favors” exchanged in administration, there was hardly any private “exchange” between Houqua and his patrons, but rather unilateral offerings made by Houqua. Though there are no records in Chinese, it is often mentioned in foreign sources that Houqua contributed involuntarily to satisfy Chinese officials.144 Moreover, it was well-known that the Hong Merchants had to pay for Western gifts like clocks and music boxes, which were “bought” by local officials for their superiors or emperor in Peking.145 It seems that the Chinese officials could rely on their social position to the extent that they did not have to give their clients like Houqua anything in return. Considering the unequal relationship that Houqua had with Chinese officials, his relationship with the British EIC was remarkably different. The most distinctive aspect of his relationship with the EIC was that he was an equal. However, the semi-official status of the EIC and their involvement in controversies, opium traffic as well as in conflicts with Chinese officialdom often put Houqua in a difficult situation. Thus Houqua’s relationship with the EIC was not pleasant but distant from the very beginning. Moreover, as we described in section 4.2.5, the nature of partnership between Houqua and the EIC made it also hard to make the transition from a business relationship to a more personal one. Consequently, British sources too have no record of Houqua receiving or giving 143 Till now in my research, I have not found any details about Houqua’s personal relationship with any of his official patrons or records of whether he received personal gifts or favors from his patrons. Even when an official turned a blind eye in a foreign affair – like the governor in “London” affair who agreed to use the suicide of the butcher to close the case – it was not really a favor for Houqua, but rather a maneuver for the governor to protect himself. 144 Cf. the dialogue mentioned in Pidgin English between William Hunter and Houqua, which reveals Houqua’s tendency to bargain with local officials, in: Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 36. 145 See for instance Hong Merchants’ complaints about large sums of luxury articles they had to pay for local officials, in: Morse, Chronicles, Volume III (1926), 194. Also cf.: Van Dyke, Merchants of Canton and Macao, 61.

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personal gifts or any other type of personal reciprocal interactions with the British beyond business communication, except with Plowden.146 In contrast, it seems that the British generally disliked Houqua.147 While also living in Canton as foreign devils, the American traders had a different attitude towards their Chinese partners: Since the Americans were private traders, they had de facto no protection from their country of origin like the employees of the EIC did. Therefore, they were more dependent on the Chinese for support. A powerful Hong Merchant like Houqua was not only a reliable business partner for the house of Russell & Co., but also their “God horse father”.148 Nevertheless, Houqua was equally dependent on his American partners and friends to manage his massive fortunes overseas. This mutual dependence is evident in the mutual favors they did for each other, especially during the most challenging years. During the war from 1839 to 1842, Houqua not only sent food to the American residences despite the Chinese blockage, but also helped the partners of Russell & Co. escape from the rebellion and the hostile native Chinese. On March 30th 1839, during the Commissioner Lin’s anti-opium campaign, William Hunter noted in his diary that at 10 pm that day, [Houqua’s] headmen came just now – in a great fright & told me that our cook & cooly who have been in our Factory must immediately leave, as the Commissioner had just issued another Edict, threatening with death [of] any Native, who sold a particle of Food to, or served a Foreigner in any way [. . .]149

But on the next day, Hunter wrote: At 12 today, Houqua’s servant came in with two coolies, bringing a Roasted leg of mutton & some boiled potatoes, wrapped up in paper. We hear today, that a Chinese who was taken yesterday at Ta-Sha-Tow150 on his way to Macao with a foreign letter on his person, was tortured to death – We cannot learn whose letter it was – A Chinese girl was also in the Boat is in prison.

146 Among Houqua’s last outgoing letters reserved in “Houqua’s Letterbook” there is only one letter sent to former EIC servant, namely Plowden. Moreover, Plowden was mentioned as Houqua’s “good friend” by Latimer. Cf.: J.P. Latimer to J.P. Cushing on March 31st 1833, in: J.R. Latimer Papers, Part II, Oversize II, LC. In 1828, as Plowden was in Canton, he wished Houqua on his birthday but did not mention any gifts. Cf.: FO, 1048/28/57. Such private note is quite seldom in the written correspondence between Houqua and the EIC. 147 A British trader Matheson stated in an interview in 1840 that “ I do not think that he [Houqua] was any friend to the English at any time,” in: British Parliament, Report from the Select Committee, 141. 148 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 36. 149 Also for the next citation cf.: Hunter Journal, BA. 150 “Ta-Sha-Tow (大沙头)” was a wharf on the Pearl River in Canton.

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Clearly, the situation at the time was very dangerous. The act of Houqua ordering his servants to bring food to the Americans would in itself be enough to kill Houqua and his family. But since the foreign factories had been under a blockade for days and the Americans did not have any supply of food from outside, Houqua took a risk to aid his American friends. In late 1842, a few months after the “Treaty of Nanking (南京条约)” was signed, the hostility against foreigners reached a boiling point in Canton – the only place where foreigners were allowed to live. On December 7th 1842, the factories or foreign residences, including the residences connected to Russell & Co., were surrounded by a native mob, who broke the walls and windows. Foreigners were “assailed” by furious natives who cried “kill the foreign devil,” “cut off his head.” Some of the “foreign devils” received “a big brick bat on his neck”. After an adventurous and narrow escape with the help of Houqua’s servant, the members of Russell & Co. including Edward Delano, Edward King, A.A. Low finally made it and reached a “chop boat”, organized by Houqua. Without this “chop boat”, i.e. a boat with license to leave Canton, the members of Russell & Co. might not have been able to survive this rebellion.151 Nearly during the same period, Russell & Co. transferred Houqua’s title to the company, in order to protect the millions of dollars’ worth of Houqua’s goods shipped abroad, and charged him only the standard commission for the service.152 Furthermore, it was the house of Russell & Co., specifically Houqua’s friends John P. Cushing and the Forbes brothers, who managed Houqua’s huge fortune abroad for over half a century after Houqua’s death. These favors carried out by his American friends went beyond Houqua’s lifetime, even when Houqua was not alive to impose any sanction in case of betrayal. Therefore, in contrast to his favors to the Chinese officials, which were based rather on the fear of sanctions and hierarchy, the favors exchanged between Houqua and the Americans was voluntary. Beside the exchange of favors, the exchange of gifts between Houqua and the partners of Russell & Co. especially John P. Cushing and the Forbes brothers also present strong evidence of their personal relationship: If the complete records were available today, this list of gifts would be surely much longer than it is. The gifts Houqua gave to his American friends or partners were mostly teas for their own use. Since he was a tea expert, he might have

151 Cf.: Delano Diary on December 7th 1842, in: Roosevelt Papers, FDR. 152 Forbes, Remarks on China and the China Trade, 161–162. Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 420–421.

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Table 4: Exchange of gifts between Houqua and partners of Russell & Co.* Receiver

Giver

Time Presents (approx.)

Houqua

John M. Forbes

 Hams and flours

Houqua

John C. Green

 Hams

Edward King

Houqua

 Four boxes of tea

Robert Bennet Forbes; John Murray Forbes; John P. Cushing

Houqua

 Teas for “own use”

Houqua

Robert Bennet Forbes

 Lorry snuffbox made by Robert Bennet Forbes himself

Houqua

John P. Cushing

 Flour and beer

Robert Bennet Forbes; John Murray Forbes; John P. Cushing

Houqua

 Teas

Houqua

John P. Cushing

 Milk cow

John M. Forbes Houqua

Houqua Robert Bennet Forbes

 Teas and satin shawls  Rocking chair and crackers

Houqua

Robert Bennet Forbes

 Beef and Pork and some fine Flour

Houqua

A. A. Low

 Stove

A. A. Low

Houqua

 Teas

*Sources providing the information of this table: John M. Forbes to Houqua on May 18th 1837, in: Forbes Records, F–7, BL; Houqua to John C. Green on July 6th 1840, in: HL, MHS; Houqua to Robert Bennet Forbes on December 27th 1840, in: HL, MHS (Houqua wanted to send some teas for Bennet, John and Cushing for their own use, but the owner of the ship Panama was prohibited all freight except silks.); Houqua to Robert Bennet Forbes on October 20th 1840, in: HL, MHS; Houqua to John P. Cushing on November 21st 1841, in: HL, MHS (The reason that Cushing sent flour and beer to Houqua was probably that Houqua was fond of American beer and Western bread. Cf.: Zhou, The Merchants of Canton involved in foreign trade, 98.); Houqua to Robert Bennet Forbes on November 22nd 1841, in: HL, MHS; Houqua to John P. Cushing on May 11th 1842, in: HL, MHS; Houqua to John M. Forbes on December 23rd 1842, in: HL, MHS; Houqua to Robert Bennet Forbes on April 5th 1843, in: HL, MHS; Robert Bennet Forbes to Houqua (brought by Paul Siemen Forbes) on January 2nd 1843, in: Forbes Records, Box 4, Folder 6, BL; Houqua to A.A. Low on April 4th 1843, in: HL, MHS (Abriel Abbot Low (1811–1893) was a partner of Russell & Co. in the 1830s. In Houqua’s letter of appreciation for the stove sent by A.A. Low, Houqua expressed his thankfulness: “It is very convenient article & much preferable to our Chinese chimneys and is just what I wanted for inner office room.”)

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selected the tea himself.153 And the gifts Houqua received from the Americans were mostly useful things he might need in his daily life. In other words, compared to the gifts Houqua gave to his Chinese patrons like money, clocks or musical boxes, the gifts presented above had far less monetary value. However, it was not the material value of the gifts per se, which was decisive for the nature of this exchange of gifts. Considering one of the anthropological studies by Annette Weiner regarding “alienable” and “inalienable” possessions, the gifts Houqua offered to his Chinese patrons were clearly “alienable”, since they did not possess any personal significance, but had material value.154 In other words, they could be easily resold or given away to someone else and thus become “alienable”. In contrast, the gifts exchanged between Houqua and his American friends specifically Cushing and the Forbes brothers had personal meaning more than material value, though theoretically even these gifts could be resold. While Annette Weiner differentiated inalienable possessions from alienable ones through the difference in symbolic and material value of the gifts, I would differentiate them based on their different purposes. Houqua’s gifts or favors to his Chinese patrons was connected with his expectation that his patrons would give him something in return, whether it was support in trade, political protection or as an incentive to refrain from bothering him.155 But the purpose of exchanging gifts between Houqua and his American partners or friends was connected to personal care, memories, trust and friendship. The milk cow that Cushing sent to Houqua in 1842 indicates the significant efforts that Cushing, who was authorized to handle Houqua’s fortunes, must have made to find a healthy and strong milk cow, which gave birth during the long travel by sea and survived. This was a favor or gift to a friend. As “return”, Houqua thanked Cushing for the cows, which furnished him “with a most liberal quantity of milk”.156 The same purpose can be found in the lorry snuffbox made by Robert Bennet Forbes himself. Also, the reason that Houqua sent gifts to Cushing or the Forbes brothers was to be remembered by his friends who he might never meet again. This is evident in his portraits that he gifted his friends. Since giving personal portraits

153 Until today, there is still a blend of tea called “Houqua Tea”, blended by Houqua himself. 154 According to Annette Weiner, inalienable possessions are symbolic repositories of genealogies and historical events with unique, subjective identity, whereas alienable properties could be exchanged against each other. Cf.: Weiner, Inalienable Possessions, 33. 155 Moreover, since the personnel in the Qing government changed every three to five years, Houqua had to appease and serve different patrons after every few years. Therefore, all he expected was to satisfy the patron in power by giving valuable gifts. 156 Houqua to John P. Cushing on May 11th 1842, in: HL, MHS.

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as gifts was not common in the Chinese context of the early nineteenth century at all, it is worth exploring Houqua’s portrait separately. 4.2.4.2 Houqua’s portraits as gifts In early nineteenth century Canton, as photography, telegraph and other technologies were still unknown in China, letters and portraits were the two important ways for maintaining personal contact. Letters as a way of written communication is already illustrated in section 4.2.2. The following section will deal with the portraits. In Europe and America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, portraiture was widely used as gifts between family members, friends or honored partners in business, especially when people went away to live in faraway places.157 In Canton, many Hong Merchants adopted this rather European way of portrait gifting in order to affirm their relationships with their Western trading partners. Moreover, it was an efficient way of advertisement and just like entertainment, it worked to transform a stranger into someone familiar. Among all the Hong Merchants’ portraits painted in a Western or “mixed” style and given to the Western traders, the portraits of Houqua were undoubtedly the most famous and popular ones, many of which are still hanging in American and British museums and private houses today, especially in New England. In the following section, Houqua’s portraits, which he used as gifts, are showcased and the reasons for the practice of gifting portraits used by Houqua being uncommon in the early intercultural communication between China and the West are delineated. Portraits as gifts In early modern Europe portraits were often used as gifts. Numerous examples prove that portraits of monarchs and of powerful individuals or families like the Medici were often used as important diplomatic gifts.158 Private portraits, especially in the form of miniature portraits, were used as personal and often intimate gifts, typically between men and women. This tradition of using portraits as gifts was soon introduced to America as well. Especially in the context of long-distance trade, as there were no other possibilities of carrying a likeness

157 Cf. Koon, “The Face of Diplomacy,” 133–134. 158 Examples of portraits of the Medici family during the middle 16th century cf.: Cox.Rearick and Bulgarella, “Public and Private Portraits,”101–159.

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of a person, portraiture was a very common farewell gift for maintaining personal relationships and deferential expressions of love and friendship.159 As mentioned in the last section, unlike other forms of gifts like money, jewelry or land, a portrait is a kind of “inalienable” and immovable possession. A portrait is usually inherited within a closed group and has an exclusive and cumulative identity with a particular series of owners.160 Therefore, it can be viewed as a “pure” emblem for personal relationship or friendship and can to be distinguished from bribery. Due to this, in the context of eighteenth century international commerce in India, portraits were encouraged to be used as gifts by the EIC.161 Since then, portraits were increasingly employed as diplomatic gifts in the intercultural context in South Asia. In imperial China, however, portraiture had a totally different perception. According to the social and ritual functions, there were two main categories of Chinese portraiture till the mid-nineteenth century. The first and most important category were the memorial portraits, which include ancestral and court portraits. The Chinese ancestral portraits served the family or lineage and were usually images of the dead, for example in a funeral. Also, some of the court portraits were used as documentation of the ancestral lineage of figures in a virtual state cult of the imperial family. These type of court portraits were also ancestral portraits. Other court portraits, i.e. portraits of living persons or imperial family members, performed the function of making an impressive display in palace halls, and were addressed to a very limited public audience, who had access to the court.162 While the memorial portraits were formal and relatively public,163 the second category of portraits in imperial Chinese society included informal and relatively

159 During Robert Bennet Forbes’ stay in Canton, he always had the pastel portrait of his wife Rose with him. Cf.: Forbes, Letters from China, 20. 160 Eaton, “Between Mimesis and Alterity,” 817. Weiner, Inalienable Possessions, 9–11. 161 In certain areas of India, excessive gifts such as bejeweled robes and money often changed hands as forms of tributes. In the late 1760s, the East India Company’s directors were concerned about the growing corruption and expense of the Mughal gift rituals. They imposed the Regulating Act of 1773 that prohibited British officials from receiving land, money and jewels from Indians. The governor-general of India, Warren Hastings (serving from 1772 to 1785), was among the first to replace his expensive gifts with a token of potentially stronger personal symbolism – the painted portrait. Subsequently, this practice was widely adopted and spurred a colonial market for portraits in both the Indian and the British public. Koon, “The Face of Diplomacy,” 135. Cf. also Eaton, “Between Mimesis and Alterity,” 819–821. 162 Vinograde, Boundaries of the Self, 2–9. 163 Not only did the court portraits have a rather limited audience at court, but also the recipients of the ancestral portraits were limited to certain families or lineages. But, both types of recipients are relatively “public”.

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personal ones, and were relatively fewer in number. Such portraits, which emerged after the period of the late Ming, i.e. the mid-sixteenth century, were employed as a convention of communication in the circles of the educated literati.164 Since their recipients were customarily part of the private or personal world of the sitter – friends or cultural associates,165 they could also be used as gifts between the literati.166 Nevertheless, this categorization is based on the functions. If we overview the traditional Chinese portraits again, we would have another interesting categorisation according to the sitters: Beside some of the court portraits of imperial family members and the informal, literati-orientated personal portraits, the subjects of the majority of portraits used widely in imperial Chinese society were dead persons. Moreover, since the subjects of the other two types of portraits, imperial family members and the literati, comprised a small social group, a conclusion can be drawn in comparison to the portraits employed in Western societies. For the overwhelming majority of Chinese, or “normal” and ordinary Chinese like the merchants and farmers outside the strongly privileged social classes, it was not customary to have their likeness painted while they were still alive. In other words, it would be highly uncommon to have a portrait of a living person painted. This dislike of portraits among the Chinese has been remarked on multiple times by foreigners in Canton. In a short advertisement published in an English newspaper in 1835 for a Chinese painter named Lamqua, who painted Western style portraits for foreign traders and the Hong Merchants in Canton, the author – despite trying to sell Lamqua’s quality as a portraitist – had to admit that “the Chinese have a dislike, a dread even, of having their likenesses taken.”167 This dislike or “dread” makes it reasonable to surmise that portraits were generally not used as gifts in China before the mid-nineteenth century, especially in circles of “ordinary” Chinese like the merchants. Even the portraits of Chinese emperors were never given as gifts beyond the imperial court, since they were a highly codified design that reaffirmed the emperors’ position as rulers who were above the social circles of gift-giving.168 Furthermore, this dislike also made it uncommon for the Hong Merchants to use their personal portraits as gifts while they were still alive, to be sent to the other side of the world. Houqua in particular, didn’t feel comfortable and was hesitant to use his portraits as gifts. In May 1837,

164 165 166 167 168

Vinograde, Boundaries of the Self, 2–9. Vinograde, Boundaries of the Self, 13. Cf.: Koon, “The Face of Diplomacy,” 134. “Chinese Painter” in: The Canton Register, Volume VIII (1835), No.49, 195. Koon, “The Face of Diplomacy,” 134–135.

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shortly after John M. Forbes left Canton for Boston, Houqua had to admit in his letter: Mr. Green has reminded me several times that I promised to sit for my portrait for you, but as yet I have no leisure169

Clearly, Houqua had to be reminded several times about his own promise of sitting for a portrait to be given to his close friend, who had just gone back home to America. It must have been uncomfortable for him to agree to this Western, unconventional way of maintaining long distance relationships. The content of Houqua’s portraits Besides the use of personal portraits, the subject of the paintings also indicate how uncommon gifting portraits was and points to the ability of the Hong Merchants to adopt Western ways of communication. In this section, some of the Hong Merchants’ portraits are described and compared to some traditional Chinese portraits, especially the famous ones of Houqua, in order to understand why was challenging for traditional Chinese recipients or viewer to get used to them. The following are two early portraits of Houqua (Figs. 13 and 14), both painted by George Chinnery (1774–1852) – the most famous Western painter who lived in Canton and Macao during the early nineteenth century and influenced Western style paintings including portraits in China enormously.170 The first one (Fig. 13) must have been painted around the end of 1827 as Houqua was about 58 years old, since its draft was inscribed in shorthand “December 26th [18]27”.171 It is said that this portrait was given to W. H. Chicheley Plowden (1787–1880), the President of the Committee of the EIC in Canton. When Plowden sailed for home on 31st January 1830, he took this portrait with him, which was then exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831.172 Although the British generally disliked Houqua and it was his friendship with some Americans like John P. Cushing and the Forbes brothers that made Houqua’s name wellknown in the West, his personal relation with Plowden nevertheless seemed to be quite profitable as well. In early 1833, an American trader in Canton

169 Houqua to John Murray Forbes, May 4th 1837, in: Forbes and Hughes, Letters and Recollections, Vol.1 (1899), 98. 170 Tilltson, Fan Kwae Picture, 17–22. 171 Conner, George Chinnery, 172. 172 Conner, George Chinnery, 177.

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Fig. 13: Houqua by George Chinnery, ca. 1827 or 1828, oils on Canvas, courtesy of HSBC Archives. Reproduced with the permission of HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC Archives).

Fig. 14: Portrait of Houqua by Chinnery, oil on canvas, ca. 1825, photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Fig. 15: Portrait of Houqua, copied by Esther Speakman after Chinnery, oil on canvas (62.2 x 47.9 cm), photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, gift of Anna I. Roberts, 2012–42–1.

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wrote that “Houqua again takes his shares of the Company’s business, since his good friend Plowden is again chief.”173 Another famous portrait of Houqua (Fig. 14) by Chinnery was painted during the 1820s when Houqua was in his late 50s. This version, on which Houqua looks more serious and less relaxed, seems to be the most popular version in the West, especially in New England during the 1830s. The original one by Chinnery (Fig. 14) was first brought to Philadelphia in 1828 by an American trader Benjamin Chew Wilcocks.174 Wilcocks subsequently commissioned two additional copies of this portrait, one from Philadelphia portraitist Thomas Sully (1783–1872) in 1828 and another (Fig. 15) by American artist or copyist Esther Speakman.175 Surely Wilcocks was not the only one, who commissioned copies of the original portrait by Chinnery.176 It is hard to ascertain the exact number of copies made of Houqua’s portrait before his death in 1843. Most of them might have been copied overseas without Houqua’s knowledge and therefore were not personally given by him as gifts. However, this still indicates how popular Houqua’s image was in the Western mercantile world. Even a decade after the emergence of the original one by Chinnery, in ca. 1840 this version of Houqua’s portrait was reproduced by the pioneer of mezzotint engraving in the United States, John Sartain (1808–1897) (Fig. 16). Since mezzotint was known for its expenditure of human labor and the luxurious quality of its tones, the popularity and reputation of Houqua’s portrait made it worthy of luxury reproductions. These two original portraits (Figs. 13 and 14), which Houqua used as gifts, were at odds with traditional Chinese notions of portraiture firstly because of the typical European painting style. Three-quarters of its composition is in shadow, while the face and upper body of Houqua are theatrically spotlight.

173 J.R. Latimer to J.P. Cushing, March 31st, 1833, in: J.R. Latimer Papers, Part II, Oversize II, LC. 174 Wilcocks was also the Consul of the United States at Canton during the mid–1820s. In a lawsuit in 1825/26 “Thomson v. Houqua”, Wilcocks was named by the defendant Houqua as one his commissioners. Although the jury verdict ruled against Houqua for the amount of $15377,01, this case didn’t ruin Houqua’s career. Shortly before Wilcocks’ final return to America in 1828, Houqua released him from enormous debts. Cf.: J.R. Latimer to his brother on September 30th 1832, in: Latimer Papers, Part II, Oversize II, LC. (note to Shuo- did the jury rule against Houqua or in favour of- because later you say Houqua forgave him his debts) 175 “Portrait of Hou Qua II (Wu Ping-Chien),” Philadelphia Museum of Art, accessed 15th July 2019, http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/321684.html?mulR= 17135|819 176 Probably Lamqua or another Chinese followers of the school of Chinnery copied this portrait and gave it to Dr. James Kearsley Mitchell. Cf.: Chuang, “The Sponsors of Nineteenth Century Chinese Export Painting,” 548 and 569.

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Fig. 16: Houqua by John Sartain after George Chinnery, 1830–1854, mezzotint on cream wove paper (62.70625 x 47.79645 cm). Acc. No.: 1985.x.204. Photo courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Source unknown.

This impression, of the subject sitting in the dark, was different compared to Chinese portraits of the time.177 Besides, the unusual painting style, specifically Houqua’s posture could disturb Chinese recipients. In both portraits Houqua is presented as a man with a knowing gaze, seated with his legs crossed over each other. This posture of crossing one’s legs was the typical stance used to connote a Western gentleman at leisure, usually depicted in three-quarter view that cultivated an air of gentlemanly ease.178 In Chinnery’s paintings for Western gentlemen in Canton, this posture was used quite often such as in the portrait of Dr. Colledge (Fig. 17). However, in Chinese culture, sitting with one’s legs crossed over each other was regarded as being uncivilized and rude and would never be used in any traditional Chinese portrait.179 In a typical sitting posture in a Chinese portrait the legs must be apart,180 such as in the official portrait of Chinese bureaucrats.

177 See for example “Portrait of Houqua” by Tinqua: http://www.artnet.com/artists/tinqua/ portrait-of-houqua-6byMSredHDQmEXErhc5vwA2 (Accessed 31 March 2019) 178 Koon, “The Face of Diplomacy,” 136. 179 Chuang, “The Sponsors of Nineteenth Century Chinese Export Painting,” 550. Tillotson, Fan Kwae Picture, 17. 180 See for example early photographs taken by William Saunders (1832–1892) in: Bertholet and Van der Aalsvoort, Im Reich der Mitte, 140.

4.2 Houqua’s intercultural communication: A reconstruction

Fig. 17: Dr. and Mrs. Colledge by Chinnery, oil on canvas, courtesy of HSBC Archives. Reproduced with the permission of HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC Archives).

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Fig. 18: Mowqua by Chinnery, ca. 1828, oil on canvas, courtesy of HSBC Archives. Reproduced with the permission of HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC Archives).

Even in the Westernized portraits of other Hong Merchants, including the ones of Mowqua also painted by Chinnery in a European style (Fig. 18), we cannot find anyone else, who was willing to be portrayed in a cross-legged posture. In other words, no one could go so far as Houqua did, in order to make himself appear familiar and accessible despite the potential racial otherness that a Western viewer of the nineteenth century might have registered.181 The development of Houqua’s portraits during the 1830s and early 1840s It is strange enough to remark that the two portraits (Fig. 13 and Fig. 14) from the 1820s are probably the only ones which were surely original works by George Chinnery.182 Both these portraits are full-length with extravagant, exotic

181 Cf.: Koon, “The Face of Diplomacy,” 136. 182 Since some of Chinnery’s Chinese disciples like Lamqua could copy his work perfectly, sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate between the original paintings by Chinnery and copies by his disciples. About Houqua’s portraits painted by Chinnery cf.: Crossman, The Decorative Arts of the China Trade, 81.

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backgrounds including Chinese furniture and gardens. During the 1830s, although Houqua continued giving his personal portraits as gifts for his foreign friends and partners, it appears that he did not work with Chinnery anymore, but mostly with Chinnery’s Chinese disciples especially Lamqua.183 The change of painter also brought about stylistic changes in the paintings. Firstly, the background of the whole painting is sometimes changed. The Western style of lighting, with the subject sitting in the dark, is replaced by a much brighter version like we can see in Fig. 19. This portrait, painted by an anonymous Chinese painter, who must have been one of the followers of Chinnery, might have been created during the late 1830s or early 1840s, since it was brought by Edward King (1817–1875) – a member of Russell & Co. and agent for Houqua during the late 1830s and early 1840s – to his home in Newport in 1844.184 Although its composition is very similar to Chinnery’s original work (Fig. 14), there is another obvious change other than the lighting – Houqua’s manner of posing. Instead of the Western manner of posing with legs crossed over each other, which was considered uncivilized in the Chinese context, Houqua is depicted in a typical Chinese sitting pose. Therefore, it can be said that he must feel more comfortable with this portrait than the ones from Chinnery.

183 From 1825 till his death in 1852, Chinnery resided in Macao but made also traveled and lived in Canton regularly till 1832. Therefore, he seldom appeared in Canton during the 1830s till Houqua’s death. The reason for this was probably due to Lamqua. After years of training under Chinnery, his most famous disciple Lamqua became a serious rival. According to the study on Houqua by John D. Wong, beside Lamqua’s lower costs, his swift reproductions made Houqua favor him to work on the portraits. (Cf.: Wong, “Global Positioning,” 171–172.) However, I am not totally convinced that the quick turnaround time was the reason for Houqua’s favoring Lamqua instead of Chinnery. It could also be due to Lamqua’s quality as a Chinese painter, who could work with Houqua easily without any language problems and who brought some Chinese elements into his portraits which made Houqua feel comfortable. It is clear that Houqua’s need for more and swift reproductions of his portraits indicated an increase or even expansion of his network of western traders. Unfortunately, the quantitative as well as qualitative expansion of Houqua’s network is hard to prove through research on his portraits, since it is impossible to trace every portrait of Houqua used as a gift to Westerners and thus imply quantitative increase of Houqua’s portraits. 184 According to information from the Redwood Library, there are no indications that this portrait was “made” for Edward King, just that he was the person who brought it back in 1844, and that the painting was created by George Chinnery. But due to the painting style of this portrait, I am convinced that this was not the original work of Chinnery but perhaps that of one of his followers. I would like to thank Whitney Pape from the Redwood Library in Newport for providing me such valuable information.

4.2 Houqua’s intercultural communication: A reconstruction

Fig. 19: Houqua by anonymous painter, ca.1830s or early 1840s, oil on canvas, photo courtesy of the Redwood Library, Newport, Rhode Island.

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Fig. 20: Portrait of Houqua, Lam Qua (fl.1801–60) Photo credit: Private Collection. Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images.

This disappearance of the cross-legged posture in Houqua’s portraits given to foreigners as gifts after ca. mid–1830s seems to take on the European gentleman style of portraits created by Chinnery during the late 1820s. Although there are still some exceptions, for instance Fig. 20, the cross-legged pose is partly “hidden” through the size of the painting, since it is a waist-length portrait, not in full-length anymore. Chinese painters such as Tingqua and Lamqua normally painted half-length versions such as these with a partly cross-legged pose. Furthermore, most of Houqua’s portraits produced during the late 1830s or early 1840s, i.e. during the last years of Houqua’s life, which are available today (e.g. Figs. 21 and 22), are half-length portraits, in which the discomfort caused by the earlier cross-legged pose is completely solved. Though these late portraits of Houqua are generally in a Western style, the distinctions mentioned above easily reveal that they were created by Chinese painters. Since it was forbidden at that time for the Chinese – including Chinese artists like Lamqua – to go abroad, these half-length portraits must have been produced in Canton and commissioned directly by Houqua. Therefore, unlike the reproductions that were created abroad during the 1830s, Houqua mostly used these later portraits by Chinese painters as gifts. The painting that Houqua gave to Robert Bennet Forbes as a farewell gift in 1840 (Fig. 22) is still hanging in Forbes

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Fig. 21: Houqua by anonymous painter, late 1830s or early 1840s, oil on canvas (74.9 x 55.9 cm), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gifts of Mrs. Thomas Motley, Mrs. William Jason Mixter, Mrs. George B. Dabney, Henry H. Fay, Frederick L. Dabney, and Thomas N. Dabney in memory of Daniel N. and Elizabeth E. Spooner.

Fig. 22: Houqua by Lamqua, ca. 1840, oil on canvas, photo courtesy of the Forbes House Museum, Milton, Massachusetts.

House in Milton.185 The copies of portraits which were made by Westerners without Houqua’s knowledge (Figs. 15 and 16) were of Houqua’s image that his foreign friends and partners would like to keep in their memories. In contrast, the halflength portraits which are not as exotic as the earlier versions by Chinnery, were often used by Houqua as farewell gifts due to the unsure situation caused by the war in early 1840 and his own old age. During this period, Houqua had already experienced the culmination of his career, and his name was already well-known in the Western world. Therefore, it was not necessary for him to please his foreign partners through gifting exotic portraits with what was considered an uncivilized pose. In other words, these later portraits that were half-length indicate the image

185 I would like to thank Ms. Robin M. Tagliaferri, the former Executive Director of the Forbes House Museum in Milton (Mass.) for providing me this information and the photo.

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that Houqua wished to leave behind in the memories of his foreign friends. This can perfectly explain why the extravagant background with luxury furniture and a garden is completely left out: Houqua’s wealth should not be the most important thing that the foreigners remember about him. But what was it that Houqua was remembered for? Besides his face, which became narrower as time progressed, there is one thing that Houqua surely wished his friends to remember –his status as an official, a “guan” in Chinese or “qua” in Pidgin English just like in his Westernized name. In his portraits throughout his life, he is always depicted in his official uniform, usually with his red cap indicating his purchased social status as a pseudo Confucian literati or official – the most honorable social status in imperial China. Since Chinnery possibly understood this red cap to be a type of crown, his versions (Figs. 13 and 14) have Houqua’s red cap placed next to one of his hands. Instead of presenting himself as a merchant, Houqua and the other Hong Merchants favored his image of an “official with a red cap”. This desired image is consistent through Houqua’s portraits till his death in 1843.186 However, there is at least one portrait of Houqua (Fig. 23), which is a little different in this regard. It is painted by Lamqua’s brother Tinqua and brought by David Washington Olyphant187 to (add to which place), which according to Houqua’s facial features, must have been painted during the years before he died. In this portrait, although Houqua is still dressed in his official uniform, his red cap is left out. Houqua’s face, that shows an old man almost at the end of his life, is evocative with its detail and emotion. Indeed, even before the First Opium War, Houqua as the richest and most successful Hong Merchant who had intensive contact with the Western invaders had to suffer a lot due to his patronage relationship with local officials.188 The purchased titles and donations didn’t help guarantee Houqua his safety or even dignity. His sadness

186 It is important to recall that Houqua actually lost his purchased title in 1821. It is not clear whether and when exactly he was allowed to purchase such a title again from 1821 till 1843. That he still presented himself as a “guan” or “a merchant with a red cap” all the time, indicates again his paradoxical faith in Confucian social values. 187 Chuang, “The Sponsors of Nineteenth Century Chinese Export Painting,” 549. 188 How much Houqua suffered is to be observed mostly through his fear. For instance as Robert Bennet Forbes noted in early 1839: “Houqua it is said is called upon to go to Macao with the Commissioner [Lin Zexu] to look into the opium trade [. . .] he is in great distress & says he was dead – he is near 70 years old & complains that he has not half the peace that meanest “cooly” or labor enjoys.” Cf.: Robert Bennet Forbse to his wife on March 11th, 1839, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 105. Although, as illustrated in section 3.1.4, there was a noticeable increase in Houqua’s confidence toward his Chinese patrons, this confidence could not replace his fear of sanctions being imposed on him.

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Fig. 23: Houqua by Tingqua, ca.1840, watercolour on ivory, 17.1 x 11.4 cm, photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

and exhaustion are evident in the last two portraits without his red cap. Peter Parker (伯驾1804–1888), an American missionary and doctor in Canton, wrote about Houqua’s physical and mental condition, in 1843: The old gentleman has been a sufferer from pruritus, recurring every cold season. More than a year since, he inquired, how long his physician thought he might live, and on being told that in the ordinary wear of his condition, he might live ten years, he replied that he did not wish to live so long; that three years more were as many as he desired.189

In summary, although Houqua was very aware of adopting the Western way of using portraits as gifts from the late 1820s till his death, his purpose for doing so and the context of his portraits were not always the same. Shortly after Chinnery’s first arrival at Canton in 1825, Houqua commissioned him to produce portraits as gifts. In the very early versions, Houqua was represented by Chinnery as a Western gentleman, in order to make himself acceptable and visually familiar in the Western mercantile world. During the 1830s, when the early, Westernized versions of Houqua’s portrait was still being copied

189 Peter Parker: Twelfth report of the Ophthalmic Hospital at Canton, from 21st November 1842 to December 31st 1843, in: The Chinese Repository, Volume XIII (1844), 301.

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overseas, Houqua changed the style of his portraits consciously by working with Chinese painters. Certain Westernized and uncomfortable elements like the cross-legged pose was left out intentionally. At the culmination of his career, especially in the latter years of his life, Houqua’s portraits were not simply gifts to maintain personal contact, but instead served to have his foreign friends remember him, so that they could take care of his legacy for his future generations after his death.

4.2.5 Modes of intercultural business partnership Before the modern means of transportation, communication, credit rating and international arbitration came into existence, establishing and maintaining a commercial network was quite risky but indispensable for merchants like Houqua involved in long-distance trade. This network of partnerships could develop into close personal relationships and even friendships. Houqua’s success in business was of course not only thanks to his skills in language and using his portraits etc., but also because of his partnerships with Western traders. The following section explores how Houqua managed his partnership considering the trading and technological conditions in Canton during his time. There were two types of foreign trading partners in Houqua’s commercial network. The first was the European chartered companies, like the British EIC. These companies were not purely commercial firms but run more or less as administrative organizations representing national interests and were under the control and patronage of their home states, which issued the company’s charter. The second type of trading partner that Houqua had was the free traders or trading houses. They were called “free” since they were less controlled and patronized by their homelands compared to the chartered companies. Though some of these free traders, especially the Americans did represent their governments, such as John Perkins Cushing who used to be American consul in Canton in early 1810s, they primarily represented their own commercial interests or that of their trading houses rather than national interests. Since the British EIC and Russell & Co. were Houqua’s two major partners, they can serve as examples to understand Houqua’s intercultural partnerships. Most importantly, it must be pointed out that Houqua’s partnership with European chartered companies like the British EIC worked out differently compared to that with American trading houses like Russell & Co. Houqua’s partnership with the EIC was based on the agreements made after negotiations between the two sides: At the end of every trading season in March, the EIC made “reservations” with the Hong Merchants, regarding who would

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deliver certain amounts of goods like teas and silks etc. at the beginning of the next season, usually in November of the same year. After verbal negotiations in Pidgin English between the Hong Merchants and the EIC, both sides came to an agreement: On the one hand, the Hong Merchants were bound to deliver the goods in the agreed upon quantity, quality, meet the deadline of delivery and undergo sanctions in case of delays.190 The EIC in return has to pay the agreed price after the receipt of the goods and checking it. However, there was also some leeway: If the quality of the goods was not satisfactory, the EIC would refuse to pay. Some of the Hong Merchants, who were financially weak and short of cash, received a part of the presumed sum from the EIC in advance. Therefore, after Houqua delivered the goods and the EIC was satisfied and paid him, the deal was over and the partnership between the two sides was finished for this season. Besides, Houqua was the opponent of the EIC in this partnership191 because the aims of both sides were in contrast: Houqua tried to sell his teas priced as high as possible, whereas EIC wanted to pay as little as possible. Under these circumstances, a business relationship in this partnership could hardly develop into a more personal one. Of course, there were other aspects besides negotiations and agreements in this partnership. The agreements, for instance, did not function exactly like contracts with legal protection that we see today. Even if the Hong Merchants had sanctions imposed on them – the most powerful being letting them go bankrupt –the EIC did not benefit from these sanctions as illustrated in section 3.2.3. Therefore, the EIC had to trust that the Hong Merchants, especially those who had received a portion of the cash in advance, would deliver the goods on time in the appropriate quantity and quality. Meanwhile, the Hong Merchants had to trust that they would receive the full price after delivery from the EIC. With time, after years of business, partnerships during every season became routine procedure with increased reliability from both parties.192 This partnership was reliable because of the mutual confidence as well as the aspect of control and threat of sanctions. Firstly, this partnership was limited to Canton, so both Houqua and the EIC could be easily be informed about any developments. In other words, neither of the sides was left in the dark. Secondly, this partnership started with negotiations, and ended with successful deliveries

190 There are plenty of examples reserved in the collection of IOR in the British Library, especially in the “consultations” of every trading season. 191 The German word “Verhandlungsgegner” would be a perfect expression for this position. 192 The EIC’s experience and judgements on the Hong Merchants of the previous seasons was decisive for the partnerships of the new season. Since Houqua delivered high quality goods on time, his partnership with the EIC was mostly smooth.

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and payments. Therefore, the EIC did not have to be informed about Houqua’s process of purchasing teas before their negotiation with him. And in return, Houqua did not have to worry about the risky transportation of his teas outside China and the cost at which the EIC sold his teas in Europe after his delivery. Importantly, during the duration of the partnership, Houqua could manage and follow every step of the business. The control of his capital and merchandise was always in his own hands. If anything went wrong, he was able to impose sanctions immediately. All these geographical and temporal conditions made the whole process of partnership easily controlled and secured. However, in Houqua’s eyes this kind of partnership was quite problematic. In 1813, Houqua expressed his dissatisfaction towards his partnership with the EIC: he [Houqua] was compelled to go through the forms of naming a price which was merely the price of the day which on the morrow might be altered, and no obligation whatever could be made to an Individual Merchant making his purchases as the thought proper, but to secure himself he must obey orders, and passing through the forms of putting a nominal value on articles imported.193

Obviously, Houqua would prefer more freedom and flexibility to make his business profitable. Although the geographical and temporal conditions provided security of the partnership with the EIC, they also made it impossible to enlarge or to establish an international commercial network. Thus, in Houqua’s business with Americans he tried a different way of partnership. As mentioned before, the American trading houses were “free” and much less controlled and patronized by their homeland. The structure of a trading house like Russell & Co. was very typical in American commerce in the early nineteenth century, which was formed with a small number of partners or shareholders.194 Every partner managed the firm as if it were his own, and he had the right to make decisions and sign agreements representing the firm. All partners shared the profits according to percentages stated in the contract. Therefore, Houqua’s partnership with Russell & Co. indicated that he had daily interactions and deals with the partners of this house, who resided for years in Canton, usually without a break.195 This was a very important aspect that allowed Houqua to transform

193 IOR, Volume R/10/26, “Secret Consultations”, Season 1813/14, 56f. 194 Cf.: Lamoreaux, “Constructing Firms,” 51–52. 195 The representatives of the British EIC, the members of the Committee, resided in Canton only during the trading season. The rest of the time, i.e. from ca. March till ca. October every year they were usually in Macao.

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his business relationships with the partners of Russell & Co. like John P. Cushing into personal friendships. Houqua’s partnership with Russell & Co. was fundamentally different its process, outlined here as several steps: In the first step, Houqua managed the purchase and procurement of teas and other merchandise in Canton. The capital invested in the purchase was partly from Houqua and partly from Russell & Co. The details of the merchandise like the type of goods, their quantities and quality was based on the information suggestions and regarding the American and European markets provided by Russell & Co.196 But it was Houqua who decided how the teas would be procured from the Chinese tea dealers. In the second step, the merchandise would be shipped as property of Russell & Co. to American and European markets. The maritime insurance for the shipping was usually managed by Russell & Co. . In the third step, the partners or agents of Russell & Co. in America or Europe managed to sell the merchandise. The results were reported to Houqua, so that both sides could calculate their own profits according to the agreed percentage. In this partnership, Houqua and Russell & Co. were both part of the whole process of conducting business, i.e. from the investigation before purchasing goods in mainland China and Canton, the risks including transportation, till finally the profits gained from the sale in European and American markets was shared. Sometimes, if Houqua took on the whole investment, Russell & Co. would receive a certain percentage for their commission, usually at 2 or 2½ %. Added to this, Russell & Co. could charge 2% guarantee for sale and 1% for remitting.197 Houqua also had private partnerships with John P. Cushing. For instance, in December 1833 Houqua invited John P. Cushing to join him in an “adventure” under the name of Russell & Co. If Cushing agreed to provide half of the starting capital, he would receive one fourth of the final profits.198 Since Cushing lived at that time in Boston, the purchase of goods, transportation, insurance etc. would be managed by Houqua and Russell & Co. Considering that Cushing was only in charge of the sale in American markets, this offer from Houqua was fair. Compared to his business with the British EIC, Houqua’s partnership with Russell & Co. was a joint business with shared investigation, risks, and profits. The role that Houqua had in this partnership was not that of an opponent

196 The information of the markets was the main content of Houqua’s correspondence with the members of Russell & Co. . Cf. for instance correspondence in Forbes Records, volumes F–5,6,7,8, BL. 197 See for example Russell & Co. (Canton) to “Geor. Wildes & Co.” (London) on August 15th 1834, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–5, BL. 198 A. Heard to John P. Cushing on Dec. 9th 1833, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–5, BL.

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(Verhandlungsgegner) any more, but a partner (Verhandlungspartner) or cooperator. The aims of both Houqua and Russell & Co. were the same, that is to purchase the merchandise at the lowest possible prices and to sell them at the highest possible prices. Moreover, unlike the partnership with the EIC, which was based in Canton, Houqua’s partnership with Russell & Co. began at the earliest step that of his negotiations with Chinese tea merchants in Canton or even at the tea plantations in the Fujian province, and ended only as the teas were sold somewhere in America or Europe and Houqua received his share of the profits.199 In fact, this kind of partnership with Russell & Co. based on a joint venture and management was not totally new in traditional Chinese society. A similar form of doing business, “business management based on joint capital (合本经营)” as it was referred to in Chinese, can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907).200 Several Chinese studies on business partnerships in the salt industry in the Sichuan province during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries show that such a procedure was widely used to accumulate capital and divide risks, and it was already quite developed in the mid-nineteenth century.201 Nevertheless, there were still certain remarkable aspects to Houqua’s management in his partnership with Russell & Co. Most importantly, in contrast to the Western mercantile commercial world, in Chinese partnerships there was no separation between the owner’s role and the role of the manager of capital until ca. 1860s.202 In other words, the owners of the capital usually managed the business themselves. In the Chinese business

199 Not all Houqua’s profits were transported back to Canton. Sometimes, they were reserved as funds in Baring Brothers & Co. under Russell & Co. or John P. Cushing’s name. Or they were invested in purchasing cargoes or return-goods for the Chinese market like “long cloths” according to Houqua’s requirement, and transported back to Canton. Sometimes, Houqua required specific sorts of specie like “old heads” or “hard dollars”. All these transactions were managed by Houqua’s agents or members of Russell & Co. See for example: Russell & Co. to Baring Brothers & Co. on October 1st 1834. A. Heard to John P. Cushing on March 14th 1833. Houqua to Bryant & Sturgis on March 9th 1835. Houqua to John P. Cushing on March 27th 1834. Russell & Co. to the “Select Committee of the Hon’ble E. I. Company” on March 18th 1834. All these letters are reserved in: Forbes Records, Volume F–5, BL. 200 Yang, “The mode of joint capital,” 1–2. Moreover, in the agricultural China, it has been long existed the joint labor. The most typical case was that several labourers or famers worked together on a piece of land, paid the rent together and divided the harvest according to the individual work. This procedure worked very similar like partnership with joint capital. Cf.: Li, “The notion and customs of partner,” 39–42. 201 Peng and Chen, “contracts of share-holding in China,” 65. Li, “The notion and customs of partner,” 39 and 45. 202 Cf.: Chen and Lu, “development of the role of manager,” 31.

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world, a pure “manager” who does not own any capital appeared after the midnineteenth century.203 Just like in Houqua’s own firm, the “Ewo Hong (怡和行)” was not only the owner of all capital but also the manager. But in his partnership with Russell & Co., he was not always the manager of his own capital. After his capital or his shipments were loaded in Russell & Co. ’s ships and left Canton, he would not have any control over them since he could not even access information about his shipments due to the challenges and delays in communication between Canton and the outside world. More importantly, these shipments going abroad were usually under someone else’s name, i.e. Houqua was not even the legislated owner of his shipments.204 Hence during this “dark period”, Houqua was not the manager of his capital and not even the legal owner. His partnership with Russell & Co. was reliable not only because of the shared interest but also because of the trust that he had in his shipments being well managed and his American partners not cheating him regarding the sale of his merchandise. Conversely, the Americans also relied on Houqua’s punctual delivery and the good quality of his teas. These shared interests and the mutual trust contributed to the personal relationship between Houqua and the partners of Russell & Co. Nevertheless, this separation between the owner and manager of the capital, which was atypical and risky for a Chinese businessman, did not necessarily mean that Houqua lost control over his capital completely. In the Chinese context, a business partnership was based mostly on family bonds, kinship or at least “acquaintanceship”, rather than being based on a neutral “strangership” which enabled business between strangers in Western trade.205 This use of personal relationship to secure business in Houqua’s network is explored in section 4.3.2. In summary, though both the British EIC and Russell & Co. were foreign barbarians, they had very different ways of working in their partnerships with Houqua. With the British EIC, Houqua had a relatively secure business relationship with geographical and temporal limitations. He was the owner, the manager and controller of his business at all times. His partnership with Russell & Co. was much more flexible and profitable, but risky as well, since he was left in the dark for at least a portion of this partnership. Finally, it was the success

203 Chen and Lu, “development of the role of manager,” 31–32. 204 Houqua even insisted on having his shipments under someone else name, so that he did not appear to be involved that much with foreigners and thus could keep clean in the eyes of Chinese local officialdom. Cf.: John Murray Forbes to Joshua Bates on October 28th 1834, Forbes Records, Volume F–6, BL. 205 Cf. Zhou, “contracts of water projects,” 111. This was also the reason why the possibilities for such Chinese partnership to accumulate capital were much more limited than that in Western societies.

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of the latter, which helped him establish an intercontinental commercial network covering three continents.

4.3 Reducing risks, fostering trust In business transactions today, legal contracts provide security and can increase familiarity and confidence. But if a legal contract were so perfectly constructed that the partners could control all contingencies, they would not need to rely on trust anymore.206 As indicated in the last section, language and cultural barriers were unavoidable in Houqua’s intercultural communication, despite his practices and skills and the trading conditions per se were also difficult and insecure due to the standard of communication and long-distance transportation during the early nineteenth century. This made every business between Houqua and his overseas partners risky and their relations vulnerable. Moreover, considering Houqua’s partnership and the geographical range of his network, trust was an indispensable factor. Thus, Houqua had to work to not only reduce risk but also to foster trust. In contrast to modern economy, in which “trust” is used to reduce costs of transactions,207 for Houqua “trust” served not only as the foundation for his intercultural partnership or friendship, but also as risk management. This chapter investigates Houqua’s risk management measures to do with his social network with foreign traders.

4.3.1 Insurance One of the important and direct devices of risk management in long-distance trade during Houqua’s time was marine insurance, which had a long tradition in European trade. In thirteenth century Genoa, merchants adopted insurance in form of maritime loans for sea voyages. The more “modern” type of insurance – the so-called “premium insurance” – originated in Pisa and Florence during the fourteenth century.208 Until the early nineteenth century, premium insurance was a common part of overseas long-distance trade and enormously facilitated the expansion of the occidental commercial network.209 The nature of the South China Sea, 206 207 208 209

Cf. Friedler, “Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist teurer,” 580. Friedler, “Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist teurer,” 582. Ebert, “Early modern Atlantic trade,” 102–103. Ebert, “Early modern Atlantic trade,” 105.

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piracy, rich cargoes, and periodic warfare made risk management indispensable for trade. However, despite the re-opening of Canton trade in 1685, it was not until the early nineteenth century that the first insurance organization, the Canton Insurance Office was established in China, founded by a small group of British merchants in 1806.210 Houqua was one of the first Chinese merchants who invested in marine insurance for overseas trade.211 During his early years of trading with foreigners, Houqua used maritime insurance to protect his shipments against various unexpected dangers like bad weather, pirates etc. The following images are two of the original insurance contracts referring directly to Houqua’s shipment, both dated on 23rd May 1809. It is interesting to note that the shipment was sent from New York to Canton, i.e. it was “inbound” insurance to secure Houqua’s cargoes bought from Europe or America that would later be sold in China.212 Since Houqua had to remain in Canton, he could not control the whole process from the purchase of cargo in New York, and the management of transportation, to the settling of insurance. Therefore, he did not sign the contracts himself, but his agents or partners did. The second interesting point to note is that these two insurance contracts were signed with two different companies, but for the same ship, the same captain, and the same cargo. The one assigned to the “United Insurance Company” had the value of the cargoes of 14,000 Dollars, whereas the other one assigned to the “Commercial Insurance Company” had only 6,000 – probably an important part of the whole shipment. This shows how strong Houqua’s sense of security was, since some of the cargoes were insured twice. Later, as Houqua’s partnership with Russell & Co. and other Americans continued to run smoothly and was secured through Houqua’s personal relationships with the partners, his shipments were transported and insured totally

210 The “Canton Insurance Office” was the principal maritime insurance company in Canton. It was established in 1806 jointly by members of firms later known as “Jardine, Matheson & Co.” and “Dent & Co.”. Le Pichon, China Trade and Empire, 78–79. However, there is no study regarding the reasons it took so long for insurance to be introduced in China and moreover, why there were no insurance businesses initiated by the Chinese themselves until the midnineteenth century. Cf. Reid, “Spreading Risks,” 181. It seems to me that, according to the working procedure of the partnership between the EIC and the Hong Merchants, there was probably no need to insure the transfers of goods over sea. 211 However, unlike the Indian merchants, who became the shareholders of insurance companies, Houqua, as well as other Hong Merchants, remained as the underwriters. Cf. Leonard, “Underwriting British Trade,” 997. 212 The insurance in Canton trade was often attached to ships that left China, “outbound” insurance, rather than to ships returning to Canton. Cf.: Van Dyke, Merchants of Canton and Macao, 45.

4.3 Reducing risks, fostering trust

Fig. 24: Contract “By the Commercial Insurance Company of New York”, Wolcott Papers, CHS, Folder XLIX.12. My photograph.

Fig. 26: Contract “By the United Insurance Company In the City of New York”, Wolcott Papers, CHS, Folder XLIX.12. My photograph.

Fig. 25: Reverse of Fig. 24. Contract “By the Commercial Insurance Company of New York”, Wolcott Papers, CHS, Folder XLIX.12. My photograph.

Fig. 27: Reverse of Fig. 26. “By the United Insurance Company In the City of New York”, Wolcott Papers, CHS, Folder XLIX.12. My photograph.

197

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under his American agents’ names. This was despite the fact that marine insurance remained one of Houqua’s concerns and he often reminded his partners of the same in his business transactions.213 Beside securing his cargoes for long distance transportation, Houqua also used insurance to guarantee the sale of his goods abroad.214 For instance, during the “panic” of 1837,215 Robert Bennet Forbes – a cousin of John Cushing and the elder brother of John Murray Forbes – lost heavily due to his guarantee to sell Houqua’s goods.216 In other words, the tragic loss that Houqua would have had to bear was transferred – through insurance – to Robert Bennet Forbes.217

4.3.2 Family bonds Although insurance helped Houqua to reduce his risks, not all risks could be avoided or transferred through insurance. As mentioned above, due to the

213 See for instance: A. Heard to John P. Cushing on December 19th 1833, in: Forbes Papers, Volume F–5, BL. 214 As mentioned previously, Houqua paid Russell & Co. usually 2½ percent of the whole value of his goods for guarantee for selling these goods abroad. See for instance: R & Co. to Mess. Geor. Wildes & Co. on August 15th 1834, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–5, BL. 215 The “panic of 1837” refers to a financial crisis in the United States, which started with the suspension of payments of the banks in New York City in May 1837. The major cause was wild speculation in Western lands. Also other events increased the immense pressure on funds, such as: The crop failures in 1835 and 1837, which decreased American exports to Europe; The tightening of credits in Europe in 1837, which brought a demand for the return of funds from America; The “Specie Circular” issued in 1836, which directed the American government agents to accept only gold or silver in payment. Cf.: “Reflections of the 1837 Panic,” 6. In his letter to Houqua in May 1837, John P. Cushing described the situation as “the most disastrous accounts that you have ever before received from this country [. . .] there was nothing like the complete prostration of commercial credit & confidence that has taken place within last two months.” Cf.: John P. Cushing to Houqua on May 5th 1837, in: “Reflections of the 1837 Panic,” 7. This financial crisis of 1837 also played an important role in the “Coolidge affair”, which will be illustrated in section 4.2.5. 216 John Murray Forbes to Houqua on 18th May 1837, in Forbes Records, Volume F–7, BL. Due to this heavy loss, Robert Bennet Forbes had to sail to Canton again in 1838. After one and a half years of work in Canton, including one year as the head of Russell & Co. with Houqua’s help, he went back to Boston in 1840 with a fortune of more than 100,000 Dollars. Cf.: Robert Bennet Forbes to “Chip” on 3rd March 1879, in: Forbes Papers, MHS, Part I, No.26. Cf. also: Robert Bennet Forbes to his wife on 11th Feb. 1840, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 210. 217 But in Robert Bennet Forbes’ personal reminiscences, he does not mention anything about Houqua in connection with his loss in 1837, but only speaks of his own miscalculations. Cf.: Forbes, Remarks on China and the China Trade, 137–140.

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trading and social conditions in Canton, Houqua was not willing to sign insurance contracts or any other kinds of agreements with “foreign devils” himself but only through a trustee. Therefore, the problem was not dealing with bad weather or other unexpected incidents, but finding someone reliable who took charge of his business. As quoted in a study on commercial network of Sephardic diaspora, reliability was the “heart and soul of business friendship”.218 To establish a reliable relationship in business was essential for survival. The most common way to have a reliable relationship in commercial networks was through family bonds like marriage and kinship, which were widely used both in Chinese and Western societies. For instance, the aforementioned relationship between Houqua and Mowqua that came about thanks to marriage contributed to the reliability in their partnerships and cooperation. In eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe, despite the strangership that enabled strangers to do business with each other, family bonds still played an important role to maintain a reliable commercial relationship. Besides, American merchants in the nineteenth century, who rejected the European-style chartered trading companies and identified themselves as “free traders”, still followed the marriage and kinship-based model of commercial network and “family capitalism”.219 Some sociologists like Fukuyama assumed that most American businesses were still family businesses until the 1830s.220 According to a study on partnerships in American firms in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although the number of firms whose members had the same surname was surprisingly low, the partners were still mostly distant relatives like cousins and in-laws.221 Moreover, those firms founded by a mix of family members and strangers had the best chance of survival.222 Therefore, despite the existence of a relatively well-developed system of commercial law and the stock market, family bonds were still valued in the world of early nineteenth century American business. A perfect example to illustrate the mix of “strangership” and the traditional value of family bonds in business is the American trading house in Canton, “Russell & Co. ”. Apart from some “strangers” like William C. Hunter, Edward King, John C. Green, Joseph Coolidge etc., there were always positions in this house “reserved” for

218 Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers, 181. 219 Cf.: Tarmar Van, “Free Trade & Family Values,” 10–11. 220 Fukuyama, Trust, 64. 221 Lamoreaux, “The Partnership Froms of Organization,” 284–285. 222 Lamoreaux, “The Partnership Froms of Organization,” 282.

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members from the Perkins clan.223 During Houqua’s time, during the first half of the nineteenth century, despite the profound cultural gap, both Chinese and American merchants had a shared understanding and value regarding family bonds in business networks. Due to this shared value or familiarity, Houqua was able to establish his reliable network based on the Perkins clan. The story of the Perkins clan in the Canton trade began with the Perkins brothers, James (1761–1822) and Thomas Perkins (1764–1854), who founded “Perkins & Company” in the late eighteenth century. This trading house expanded its business in Canton trade since ca. 1803.224 One of the Perkins’ brother-in-law was Russell Sturgis (1750–1826) who also worked for Perkins & Company in the Canton trade. More importantly, the nephew of Russell Sturgis, namely William F. Sturgis (1792–1863), founded the house of Bryant & Sturgis. This house later became one of Houqua’s important business partners. Another brother-in-law of the Perkins brothers was Robert Cushing (1755-?). His only son, John Perkins Cushing (1787–1862), was sent by his uncles to Canton in 1803 as an apprentice working for the Canton branch of Perkins & Company. During John Perkins Cushing’s stay in Canton till 1831, he became Houqua’s partner in business and his most important trustee. In 1824, Cushing, together with his friend Samuel Russell,225 reorganized and founded the famous house of Russell & Co.226 This trading house became the most prominent American trading house in Canton Trade and Houqua’s major business partner thanks to the long-term friendship between Cushing and Houqua. Beside Sturgis and Cushing, another brother-in-law of the Perkins brothers was Ralph Forbes (1773–1824). His three sons – Thomas Tunno (1802–1829), Robert Bennet (1803–1885) and John Murray (1813–1898) Forbes – used to be apprentices of Perkins & Co. in Boston and Canton, and were all well connected with Houqua personally through their family bond with their cousin John Perkins Cushing. Whereas Thomas Forbes died at a young age because of a typhoon on the South China Sea, his two brothers followed his footsteps in the Canton trade and became partners of Russell & Co. Later these two Forbes brothers, with their cousin John Perkins Cushing, took charge of Houqua’s legacy in America.

223 See the study on the Perkins clan by Rachel Tamar Van “Free Trade & Family Values: Kinship Networks and the Culture of Early American Capitalism”, Dissertation of Columbia University 2011, especially the chart of Perkins genealogy on page 27. 224 “Perkins and Company, Canton 1803–1827,” 1–2. 225 This Samuel Russell was not related to Russell Sturgis, the brother-in-law of the Perkins. 226 The firm was originally called “Samuel Russell & Co. ”. In 1824, John Perkins Cushing entered the firm and reorganized it under the new name “Russell & Co. ”.

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In addition to the Sturgis, Cushing and Forbes names, which appeared constantly in Houqua’s network and Canton trade, the Perkins clan was connected to other prominent merchant families like Higginson,227 Paine and Elliot, which not only enlarged the Perkins clan, but also provided further resources in business.228 All these connections show how indispensable family bonds were in commercial networks during the nineteenth century. Since neither Houqua nor any other member of his family was allowed to go abroad, he did not have other choice other than to let a “stranger” in Canton help him reach the markets outside China. However, although Houqua was not connected with the Perkins clan through a family bond, he recognized the potential power of this Bostonian clan and used this family to enlarge his commercial network. John Perkins Cushing was the first member of Perkins clan with whom Houqua became acquainted. It was during Cushing’s long stay in Canton that he and Houqua became trustworthy business partners and friends. Later, other members of Perkins clan began to join Houqua’s commercial network thank to Cushing. Thus, it is no accident that Houqua let Sturgis and Forbes, with whom he was not familiar to start with, take care of his business abroad during the “dark period” of his partnership. In other words, based on his relationship with Cushing and Cushing’s family ties with Perkins, Houqua confidently allowed other members of the Perkins clan to join his commercial network. For Houqua, Cushing was a personal guarantor for the reliability of his kinsmen. Conversely, it was Cushing’s intention to introduce his cousins into Houqua’s business and the shared value of family bonds in business in both Chinese and American cultures made this possible.

4.3.3 Joint business, shared secrets The value of family bonds was, however, not the only value shared by Houqua and his American trading partners. As mentioned in the working process of their

227 The two Perkins brothers who founded Perkins & Co., had another younger brother, Samuel Gardner Perkins (1767–1847). He used to be a partner of the trading house Stephen Higginson & Co. in London. Later, he married the daughter of Stephen Higginson. During the war in Europe in the early 1810s, many of the Perkins & Co. adventures (adventures or investments in?) to Europe were joint investments with Stephen Higginson & Co. Cf.: Tarmar Van, “Free Trade & Family Values,” 27 and 81–82. 228 Both the founders of Perkins & Co. married into wealthy families: James Perkins married Sarah Paine, and Thomas Perkins married Sally Elliot. Both Pains and Elliots were prominent mercantile families in New England. Cf.: Tarmar Van, “Free Trade & Family Values,” 27 and 36.

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partnership, the most important factor Houqua shared with Russell & Co. was their joint business. This was the basic foundation for the partnership between Houqua and Russell & Co., and for a long term, reliable relationship as well. Furthermore, their shared secrets also contributed to the reliability of their partnership. For Russell & Co., it was their duty to keep their partnership with Houqua secret, because any joint business with “foreign barbarians” was not favored by the Chinese officialdom and Confucian literati. Therefore, as the agents of Russell & Co. recorded: he [Houqua] is very cautious not to appear to be connected with foreigners, except in his capacity of Hong Merchant, & wishes to keep his name as much as possible clear of his transaction with foreign countries.229

This shows that Houqua’s patronage relationship to Chinese officialdom had priority over the other relationships in his network. Another letter reveals Houqua’s difficulty in dealing with “enemies”, probably his competitors among his “Hong friends” who were delighted to use Houqua’s connection with “foreign devils” and “always ready to make mischief” to destroy him.230 But, the most important secret that Houqua shared with Russell & Co. was the opium trade. According to an official British report in 1840, the Americans in Canton – with the exception of W.C. King 231 – were all involved in the opium trade.232 Soon after the Perkins began their business in Canton, John Perkins Cushing discovered the market for Turkish opium. A decade later, Cushing was so successful that Perkins & Company gained control of the Canton market for

229 John Murray Forbes to Joshua Bates on October 28th 1834, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–6, BL. 230 Russell & Co. (Canton) to Joshua Bates on November 25th 1835, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–6, BL. In this letter Russell & Co. in Canton informed their agent in London, Joshua Bates, that Houqua had problems with local officialdom due to his enemies reporting on him regarding his joint business with the Americans. 231 W.C. King, who was called by Robert Bennet Forbes “the only Godly man in China”, was the head of Olyphant & Co., the only American house that felt it was morally wrong and refused to participate in the trade of drugs. Olyphant & Co.’s quarters in Canton were called Zion’s Corner because of their friendliness to missionaries and their righteous attitude toward the trading houses that were active in the opium trade. Moreover, since Mr. King, his wife and their son lived in Macao till the First Opium War began, it cost the Kings $3000 a year “to live in their quiet way.” Cf.: Robert Bennet Forbes to his wife on 9th April and 24th August 1839, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 116 and 164. Nevertheless, according to an official report of the British traders, “unfortunately he [Mr. King] smuggled in everything else except opium.” Cf.: British Parliament, Report from the Select Committee,100. 232 British Parliament, Report from the Select Committee, 100.

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Turkish opium.233 But as another American opium dealer observed, John P. Cushing and the Perkins “kept wisely their operations [in opium traffic] secret.”234 It is certain that not only Cushing, but also the Forbes brothers were deeply involved in opium traffic as well as the entire trading house, Russell & Co.235 Before 1821, though Houqua officially refused to have anything to do with the drug and tried to keep his activities in opium trade out of sight of his Chinese patrons – he was involved in opium trade. In his correspondence with Perkins & Company during the 1810s for instance, it is mentioned several times that Perkins purchased opium according to Houqua’s suggestions.236 In 1821, the “London Affair” brought Houqua into an extremely challenging confrontation with the native Chinese due to his connection with the foreign murder. Immediately after this affair, the local government in Canton started a serious anti-opium campaign. This initiative was hard on Houqua. He lost his purchased official title – the most important symbol of his social standing.237 Since then, Houqua seems to have distanced himself from the opium trade. Even one of his American partners, Samuel Russell & Co.,238 remarked in early 1822 that “Houqua is not as friendly [to his American partners] as he was formerly.”239 At the same time, the Hong Merchants introduced a new regulation to preventing opium trafficking, as a condition to allow foreigners to enter Canton, – foreigners had to sign a bond as guarantee to not bring any opium into Canton. As this bond was

233 Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 120–121. 234 J. R. Latimer to G. G. & S. Howland on September 12th 1833, in: Latimer Papers, Part II, Oversize 2, LC. 235 It was not until the end of February 1839, just a few weeks before the Commissioner Lin disgraced Houqua in the public “show”, that Russell & Co. officially announced staying clear of the opium business. Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes (Boston) on Feb. 27th 1839, in: Forbes Records, Box 2, Folder 3, BL. 236 In a letter from Perkins & Company to their agent Paine in London, it is noted that Houqua had “recommended in very strong terms the purchase of a large quantity of opium and quicksilver.” Cf.: Perkins & Co. (Boston) to F. W. Paine in February 1817. In another letter also from Perkins & Co. to S. Williams in 1817 it is mentioned again that “the subject of purchasing Bengal opium in England” was suggested by Houqua. He even requested to “purchase say 15,000 lb of this opium.” Both in: R & Co. / P & Co., Box 27, BL. Cf. also: Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 406–407. 237 Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 18, 360. 238 Samuel Russell & Co., which was founded first in 1818, was reorganized and renamed Russell & Co. in 1824 under the leadership of Cushing. 239 S. Russell & Co. (Canton) to Edward Carrington & Co. on 16th January 1822, in: Russell & Co. Records, Oversize Letterbook, LC.

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suggested, Houqua was against it. But probably due to the stress in 1821, Houqua eventually agreed to this bond in 1822.240 However, this serious anti-opium campaign did not stop the lucrative drug business. Instead, it continued with a new route through Lintin island (零丁洋 岛) – an island on the waterway between Canton and Macao, ideal for smuggling. Both the Forbes brothers, especially Robert Bennet Forbes – the successor of Cushing and later chief of Russell & Co. in Canton in 1839 and 1840 – were active in the opium trade on Lintin island.241

Fig. 28: Map of the Pearl River Delta (1700–1860s). Map by Andrew Burstein. Source: MIT Visualizing Cultures.

More importantly, John P. Cushing never stopped trading opium. Both the house of James P. Sturgis & Company, founded by Cushing’s kinsman James P. Sturgis in 1818 and heavily influenced by Cushing himself, and the Russell & Co., which was reorganized and lead by Cushing until 1831, made their profits from the opium traffic, especially from Turkish opium.242 Cushing reorganized Russell & Co. twice. The first time was in 1824, just a few years after Houqua

240 Cf.: S. Russell & Co. (Canton) to Edward Carrington & Co. on 23rd March 1822, in: Russell & Co. Records, Oversize Letterbook, LC. 241 Cf. Forbes, Remarks on China and the China Trade, 45–46. 242 Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 119–120.

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lost his official title in 1821 due to his involvement in opium trafficking. According to Robert Bennet Forbes, Cushing transferred the drug business from Perkins & Company to the newly organized Russell & Co., in order to “please Houqua”.243 The second time was in 1830, shortly before his cousin, John Murray Forbes arrived at Canton. This time Perkins & Company merged into Russell & Co., which – through John Murray Forbes – undertook most of Houqua’s oversea business.244 In other words, both reorganizations were closely connected to Houqua. Till today, the extent to which Houqua was involved in the illegal opium trade after 1821 is unclear. But if he was, the activities in the drug business must have been shared and kept secret by Houqua and Russell & Co., especially its members from the Perkins clan. The British, who disliked Houqua, were of the opinion that Houqua was “unconnected with opium”.245 But in Chinese studies, the perception is that Houqua was certainly deeply involved.246 In American

243 Robert Bennet Forbes to Samuel Sturgis on 7th March 1879. Moreover, R.B. Forbes was sure that Houqua “always knew of P & Co dealing with it [opium]”, cf.: Robert Bennet Forbes to H.W. Hubbell on 8th March 1879. Both letters in: Forbes Papers, Part I, No.26, MHS. During the first two decades of the nineteenth century, Houqua’s major American partner in business was Perkins & Company in Canton, led by John Perkins Cushing. Houqua’s connection with Perkins’ opium trade in the 1810s has been mentioned. 244 The death of Thomas Forbes in 1829 – the older brother of Robert Bennet and John Murray Forbes, who was in charge of Perkins’ business in Canton – proved to be a turning point in the affairs of Perkins & Company, for it left the trading house not only without a partner in Canton, but also without any person who had been in training for such a position. Therefore, John Perkins Cushing, who had already decided to go back home, merged the Perkins business with that of Russell & Co. just before the arrival of John Murray Forbes in Canton in November 1830. Cf.: Forbes and Hughes, Letters and Recollections, Vol.1 (1899), 61. 245 British Parliament, Report from the Select Committee, 100. Moreover, the British were in the opinion that it was Houqua, who persuaded John P. Cushing to stop engaging in opium trade. Cf.: British Parliament, Report from the Select Committee, 142–143. 246 In Chinese studies, Houqua is understood to definitely have been involved in opium trafficking. Cf. Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 55–57. The most serious official accusation against Houqua was issued in 1821 by the Governor Ruan Yuan (阮元) due to Houqua’s “non-cooperation” in anti-opium campaign. Cf.: Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 18, 360. Later, in 1825 it was reported by Huang Juezi (黄爵滋 1793–1853) – a fervent opponent of opium trade and a supporter of Lin Zexu – that Houqua had drug business with Dent & Co. Cf.: Huang and Xu, Huang Zijue’s memorials, 49. But since Houqua barely had business with Dent & Co. or other private British trading houses, this accusation seems to be questionable. However, it was impossible for all the Hong Merchants after ca. 1800, including Houqua to be “clean” of the drug business, since they were all involved in the flow of cash facilitated by the opium trade (as argued in chapter 1.3). The cash or credit, which Houqua received from the sale of his teas, came indirectly from the sale of opium. Cf. also: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 55.

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records, though Houqua’s trustees never mentioned Houqua’s name in their accounts of opium business,247 there are still some slight hints of Houqua’s possible activity in opium trade in the 1830s. For instance, in Augustin Heard’s diary,248 it is noted that Houqua informed Russell & Co. that the “brokers” were “active again”, referring quite probably to opium brokers.249 Houqua was undoubtedly fully aware of the dealings of his American partners in opium trade at all times. Robert Bennet Forbes himself confirmed this decades after Houqua’s death: I am aware that Houqua the friend of R & Co never liked the flavor of opium. One day when I was gossiping with Houqua, he said referring to the three Forbes – Tho’, J.M. & myself – “inside three brothers have got only one bad man”250

This “bad man” was the one in charge of opium trade under the name of Russell & Co. Furthermore, R. B. Forbes also mentioned the manner in which Cushing endeavored to keep his name out of the opium traffic to please Houqua: I am aware that one of the reasons for Mr. Cushing giving the drug business of Perkins & Co & Brynt & Sturgis to Russell & Co was that Houqua thus desired to “whip the devil round the slump”, he always knew of P & Co dealing with it as agents of the Perkins & others & was wishing to “shuttee ege” to the fact so long as R & Co move the agents.251

Therefore, Cushing merged the opium dealings of Perkins & Co. and Bryant & Sturgis – both belonging to the Bostonian Perkins clan – into the reorganized house Russell & Co., so that Houqua’s opium dealings with the two former houses could be cleared. In the records of Russell & Co., Houqua’s name never appeared in any association with opium. But it was obviously Houqua, who persuaded Russell & Co. to give up the opium business. On January 30th 1839, shortly before the arrival of the Commissioner Lin in Canton, Russell & Co. wrote to John M. Forbes in Boston:

247 There are indeed opium records of Russell & Co. . But Houqua’s name does not appear in any of them. See for instance “Opium Account” of Russell & Co., in: Forbes Records, Volume H–7, BL. Moreover, as mentioned, Houqua particularly desired that his name should not appear in any joint business with Russell & Co. . Since the dangers of opium trade were well-known, Houqua was surely careful not to leave proof of his connection to opium trade. 248 Augustin Heard was a partner of Russell & Co. during the early 1830s in Canton. 249 See John Heard’s diary on July 23rd 1832, in: Heard Records, BP–1, BL. 250 Robert Bennet Forbes to Hubbell Esq. on 6th March 1879, in: Forbes Papers, Part I, No.26, MHS. 251 Robert Bennet Forbes to H.W. Hubbell on 8th March 1879, in: Forbes Papers, MHS.

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Our friend Houqua earnestly recommends us to take warning and give it up in time & the chances are equal that we shall give up all connections with it as soon as we can.252

This shows again that Houqua was fully aware of Russell & Co.’s involvement in opium trade. Houqua’s attitude towards the opium trade was in line with his pragmatism. On the one hand, he was officially against it due to his fear of being punished by Chinese officialdom. On the other hand, as long as the opium dealings of his American partners did not bring him into difficulties, it was irrelevant to him to be aware of the dangers that opium brought to his country.253 Similar to Houqua’s behavior in foreign affairs, it was not his moral standpoint but rather his pragmatic thought or his fear of sanctions by his Chinese patrons that determined his attitude towards opium trade. But due to the importance of Russell & Co., Houqua saw it as a duty to keep this secret till the end of his life. Even during the most serious anti-opium campaign in 1839, foreigners who were held responsible for illegal opium traffic were the English traders. None of the members of Russell & Co. landed on the Commissioner Lin’s blacklist. This sharing of secrets between Houqua and Russell & Co., which was so important and essential for their survival, certainly contributed to the reliability of their relationship over the years.

4.3.4 Houqua and John Perkins Cushing Houqua’s partnership with Russell & Co. and his personal connection with the Perkins clan, enabled him to establish an intercontinental commercial network without making a personal appearance abroad. This network covering three continents included not only the members of Russell & Co. but also many other traders or agents of other trading houses. However, among all these traders with whom Houqua had business contacts, John Perkins Cushing was the most special one. Firstly, Cushing was a trader with extraordinary talent in business. His uncles discovered this at a very early age. After Mr. Bumstead, the first agent

252 Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes (Boston) on January 30th 1839, in: Forbes Records, Box 2, Folder 3, BL. 253 In May 1839, shortly after Commissioner Lin Zexu began with his famous anti-opium campaign, Houqua assured R.B. Forbes that “all the local government is waiting for is the departure of the Commissioner when the trade will be returned to its former footing as far as we inclined to have it.” It even seems that Houqua was also waiting for the departure of Commissioner Lin. Cf.: Robert Bennet Forbes to his wife on 26th May 1838, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 128.

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who was sent by the Perkins brothers to China, died soon after his arrival in Canton in 1803, Thomas Perkins decided to go to China immediately to take care of his Canton business, as there seemed to be no alternative in the event of such an emergency. Accordingly, he prepared for the trip. But just before he was ready to sail in 1804, a vessel arrived from Canton with letters from his nephew John Perkins Cushing. His reports were so complete and showed such a mature judgment and understanding of the business that Thomas Perkins postponed his voyage and later gave it up entirely.254 At that time, Cushing was only sixteen years old. Later, Houqua had such a confidence in Cushing that Cushing became Houqua’s teacher in business. According to Robert Bennet Forbes’ memory: Houqua always spoke of Mr. Cushing as his “schoolmaster” he studied the East India Companies trade & taught Houqua how to avail himself of the same & how to manage exchanges – hence the trade of schoolmaster 255

Beside his ability in business, Cushing’s family ties with the Perkins clan, which functioned as the basis for Houqua’s commercial network outside China, also contributed to Cushing’s importance with Houqua. Moreover, as mentioned in section 4.2.2, during the early 1810s Cushing had the position as the “American Consular Agent at Canton”, which – at least in Houqua’s perception – could be held responsible for any mischief caused by Americans.256 All these qualifications were relevant to Houqua in choosing his trustees. But Cushing was not the only one among his countrymen who had enough qualifications. For instance, his own cousin, John Murray Forbes, was also a member of the Perkins clan and an able businessman.257 However, among all these “candidates”, Cushing was the only “foreign devil”, who stayed in Canton for almost 26 years.258

254 “Perkins and Company, Canton 1803–1827,” 2. 255 Robert Bennet Forbes to Waren Delano on 31st March 1879, in: Forbes Papers, Part I, No.26, MHS. 256 Cf. the letters or notes with Cushing’s official seal in: Cabot Papers, Box 1, Folder 11, MHS. 257 John Murray Forbes was indeed Houqua’s trustee. However, his relation to Houqua seemed to be more vulnerable compared to the relation between Cushing and Houqua. More of this is explored in the “Coolidge Affair”. 258 Cushing decided to retire from the Canton trade in 1828 and sailed to America. But after his cousin and descendent Thomas Forbes, who was to take over Cushing’s position in Houqua’s business and Perkins & Company, suddenly died in the same year, Cushing had to rush back to Canton. He continued to look after Houqua’s business until John Murray Forbes’ arrival in late 1830 and left Canton finally in March 1831. This was the only break during Cushing’s stay in China from 1803 till 1831.

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Such a long stay in Canton was extremely unusual for a Westerner in early nineteenth century. After the Americans entered the Canton trade and the dissolution of EIC’s monopoly, heading to Canton was a way for young healthy men with little money to make fortunes fast and retire early. It was common that a trader made a fortune of a “lac” or 100,000 dollars within a few years in Canton – a very sizeable amount in nineteenth century. For those who had good connections through family bonds and could secure a position as a partner in a trading house before arrival, it was particularly easy to become rich. Robert Bennet Forbes, whose position was arranged through negotiation between Russell & Co. and John Murray Forbes, had earned at least 65,000 dollars in 1839 alone. His brother, John Murray Forbes, whose position in Russell & Co. was secured personally by Cushing, made a fortune of more than 120,000 dollars after his ca. two year stay in Canton.259 Moreover, due to the hard living conditions, most foreigners were not willing to stay in Canton longer than necessary. In July 1837, as John Murray Forbes got back to Boston from Canton, he confessed to a friend that he “would do almost anything for the chance of promoting [Houqua’s] interest except going across the waters again.”260 It was a hard decision for a young trader like Forbes to be separated from his family and forced to live in China for years. In fact, the members of Russell & Co., for instance, stayed in Canton for 4.94 years on average before they could get back with impressive fortunes.261 However, Cushing was an exception: When he came to Canton and probably met Houqua for the first time, he was only a 16-year-old teenager. As he finally left Canton in early 1831, he was already in his mid–40s. In other words, he almost grew up in Canton. None of his countrymen could undergo such a long stay in China. Therefore, unlike other foreign traders whose stay in Canton was more of a fleeting visit, Cushing had enough opportunities to let Houqua observe and witness his personality and its growth. Through this long period and personal experience, Cushing was the only foreigner with whom Houqua could share his life over the decades. Due to this shared experience, Houqua and Cushing worked together for more than half a century despite their irreconcilable differences and later geographical distance. But what was the nature of the relationship between Cushing and Houqua, and how special or important was Cushing in Houqua’s network?

259 Robert Bennet Forbes to his wife on 6th January 1839 and 3rd January 1840, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 84 and 196f. 260 John M. Forbes to John C. Green on July 18th 1837, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–7, BL. 261 Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 84–85.

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Firstly, Cushing played an indispensable role in Houqua’s credit relations with foreign traders especially Americans. Unlike the EIC, the American traders were normally not furnished with enough cash to make any credit advances for the Hong Merchants. In fact, as indicated in Houqua’s partnership with the Americans, the Hong Merchants had to invest their money at first or give loans to their American partners, so that their teas could be transported abroad through American ships. They could get their profits only once the teas were sold and the money was carried back to Canton. Sometimes, Hong Merchants also gave loans for profits from the interest at 12% p.a. or simply as a friendly act in business. Such credit relationships were risky but an efficient way for a Hong Merchant to enlarge his network and profits. As Frederic D. Grant Jr. says, “the future of the Hong became a gamble, depending on the collection of money from debtors half a world away.”262 Some Hong Merchants like Puankhequa avoided getting into such credit relationships with the “poor” Americans. Some others, who used to be successful and rich, failed in this gamble and went bankrupt. The most famous one might be Conseequa, whose famous luxury garden was mentioned in section 4.2.3. Since the early 1800s, Conseequa was in debt. As he appealed to the US president, writing him a letter in April 1808, Conseequa was already owed half a million dollars by his debtors in Philadelphia alone.263 Therefore, to be able to control the credit relationship was of central importance. Houqua too had to face problems caused by such credit relationships. But unlike the other Hong Merchants, who were completely left in the dark, Houqua always had Cushing as a personal guarantee. As mentioned in section 4.2.2, Houqua used Cushing’s identity as the American consul in Canton to notarize the notes in the 1810s – the most significant proof for claiming back his loans. Moreover, Cushing’s family ties were used to collect Houqua’s credit in America. For example during the 1810s, the Perkins – who were presented by Houqua as his “friends and agents” – had to travel around almost all of New England to collect Houqua’s credit.264 Although it was not always successful,265 Houqua still 262 Grant, “The April 1820 Debt Settlement,” 76. 263 Grant, “The April 1820 Debt Settlement,” 75. 264 See for instance a letter by Houqua to Isaac Claron on 30th January 1814, in which Houqua described the Perkins as his friends and agents “whose acknowledgement will be of the same effect as my own, they having my special power of attorney for the adjustment & final settlement of all my affairs in the United States.” In: Cabot Papers, Box 1, Folder 11, MHS. Without Cushing as the middleman, it would be rather impossible for Houqua to let the Perkins have his special power of attorney. 265 In 1814 for example, the Perkins tried to collect Houqua’s credits from ten debtors in New England. At least seven of them were not able to pay. Cf.: J. & T. H. Perkins to Houqua on 16th November 1814, in: Cabot Papers, Box 1, Folder 11, MHS.

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had someone reliable in the country to collect his money. Moreover, even in case of problems with the Perkins, Houqua still had Cushing on his side. In 1811, when Perkins & Co. was involved in a credit conflict with Houqua and was short of cash, it was Cushing, who – against the wishes of the Perkins – paid Houqua at least a part of the debts back.266 Sometimes, Cushing appeared to be a negotiator between Houqua and his debtors. One such case was Houqua’s cancelling debts by an American, Wilcock, the account of which is mentioned in William Hunter’s “Fan Kwae at Canton” and is evidence of Houqua’s generosity:

266 In July 1811 the Perkins complained that Cushing “ignorantly” made payments to Houqua due to the notes given by Snow, which the Perkins thought “to be forged”. Cf.: J. & T. H. Perkins to Oliver Keane in July (without date) 1811, in: R & Co. / P & Co. Collection, Box 27, 197f., BL. This payment made by Cushing to Houqua was therefore interesting, since it happened during a serious dispute between Houqua and some American debtors including the Perkins and Snow. On March 12th 1804, an American trader, Thomas Thompson of Providence, issued a note to Houqua for $45,000 in Canton, which he promised to pay in twenty months as compensation for the tea he was shipping to America. He also promised to Houqua “[i]f not then paid Interest [. . .] at the rate of twelve per cent per year.” Meanwhile, he had signed this note “for and in behalf of John Innes Clark Esqr, Messrs James & Thos H. Perkins, Munro, Snow & Munro, merchants of America.” Therefore, the Perkins and Snow were among the debtors of Houqua in this case. When the aforesaid note came due, Cushing paid Houqua $22,500, half of the principal outstanding. Another $11,250, half of the outstanding balance, was returned to Houqua on January 30th 1806, along with “Two hundred ninety two dollars fifty cents / $292,50 / on account of the interest of the within note.” The third and last entry on the document recorded a payment on December 22, 1807 from Perkins & Co. in the amount of $2,906.20, without any division between principal and interest specified. After years of waiting, in 1811, Harrison G. Otis and George Sullivan – “agents of Master Houqua of Canton” – filed a suit on behalf of Houqua, seeking repayment on the note. In March 1812, the court of Massachusetts decided that the Perkins were obliged to pay Houqua the rest of the debt, namely $14,645, plus $49,04 costs of suit. In the end Houqua could gain back at least the principal part of his credit, without interest. The textual records of this law suit “Houqua, Master vs. Perkins, James et. al” are reserved in “Circuit Court for the District of MA (1789 – 01/ 01/1912), File Unit from Records Group 21; Records of District of the United States, 1685–2004”, NAB. Cf. also: Wong, “Global Positioning,” 141–143. What is worth mentioning is not only that Houqua as a Chinese merchant let two American lawyers Harrison G. Otis and George Sullivan, probably through Cushing’s introduction, represent him at court in the US already in 1812, but also Cushing’s attempt to reduce Houqua’s financial loss through making payments to Houqua “ignorantly”. However, the aforementioned payment made by Cushing to Houqua due to Snow’s note was not mentioned in the lawsuit of 1812. Based on the present state of archives and accessibility of historical resources, there are many details about this lawsuit in 1811/1812 that need to be explored. The correspondence between Cushing and the Perkins needs to be uncovered.

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An American gentleman, who had resided many years at Canton, and had possessed a considerable fortune, met with serious losses. The hope of regaining it induced him to continue operations, in which he was materially assisted by Houqua. [. . .] Time passed, considerable sums were placed at the disposal of Mr. W–, no reference being made to them by the Hong merchant, until, at the end of a second or third year, Houqua’s and his accounts were compared, and the balance in favor of Houqua was 72,000 dollars. [. . .] One day, when on a visit to [Houqua], the latter said, `You have been so long away from your own country, why do you not return?’ To which Mr. W – replied that it was impossible – he could not cancel his note, and this alone would prevent him. Houqua enquired if the bond, only, kept him in Canton, and if he had not some means wherewith to provide or a residence at home? The answer was that no other debts existed, and he was not without resources – but the note!! Houqua summoned his purser, and ordered him to bring the envelope containing promissory notes from the treasury. Taking out that of Mr. W--, he said, `You and I are No.I “olo flen”; you belong honest man, only no got chance.’ He then tore the note up, and throwing the fragments into the waste-paper basket, added, `Just now hav settee counter, alla finishee; you go, you please.’ That is to say, `Our accounts are now all settled, you can leave when you like’.267

William Hunter, a former partner of Russell & Co. and Houqua’s agent, wrote down this story to show Houqua’s “boundless generosity”. Indeed, Houqua’s release for “Mr. W – ” became the mostly told story among the American China traders in the nineteenth century, which made Houqua popular as a generous “merchant prince”.268 However, the origin of this story was in fact not about Houqua’s generosity. The reprieved “Mr. W – ” was Benjamin Chew Wilcocks (1776–1845), an American trader in Canton who did not have much to do with Houqua in business but rather through Houqua’s loans. According to John R. Latimer, an American Canton trader and Wilcocks’ closest friend and partner in business, Wilcocks owed Houqua $100,000 in the 1820s – a huge sum in early nineteenth century.269 Due to his various failures in business, Wilcocks was obviously unable to pay back this huge sum. But he was yearning to go home. Then, “about a month before Wilcocks left Canton [in December 1827], through the influence of Mr. Cushing, Houqua gave up his claim and fully released Wilcocks without demanding one dollar.”270 In other words, it was not Houqua’s generosity, but rather Cushing’s negotiation, that made Houqua give up such a huge amount of credit. But why did Cushing suggest Houqua to give up Wilcocks’ debts?

267 Hunter, The “Fan Kwae” at Canton, 43–44. 268 Cf.: Forbes, “Houqua, the Merchant Prince of China,” 16. 269 John R. Latimer (Canton) to his brother James Latimer on 30th September 1832, in: Latimer Papers, Part I, Oversize 2, LC. 270 John R. Latimer (Canton) to his brother James Latimer on 30th September 1832, in: Latimer Papers, Part I, Oversize 2, LC.

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Benjamin Chew Wilcocks could be of great interest for Houqua. Wilcocks was a merchant with an elite Philadelphia background. He also served as the third US consul at Canton from 1815 till 1822. Such positions provided Wilcocks good connections both in Canton and America, for instance, with some prominent Philadelphia lawyer families.271 These connections were already used in another lawsuit “Thompson vs. Houqua” in 1825, in which Wilcocks was named by the defendant Houqua as one of his commissioners.272 In this sense, Houqua’s release in 1827 was rather an expression of gratitude for Wilcocks’ services. However, as a businessman, Wilcocks was far less useful. Since the 1810s, he was in debt. The financial burden explains his unusually long residence at Canton.273 Considering Wilcocks’ lack of ability in business and hopelessness of paying back the debts, Cushing’s suggestion for Houqua to release Wilcocks was indeed reasonable. After Wilcocks was back in America, he was still thankful to Houqua and promised his service.274 Moreover, as it turned out later, the loss of 100,000 Spanish dollars was compensated through this release, since this story became the most efficient advertisement for Houqua to establish a good reputation abroad. In this case, Cushing was the only one, whose relationship to Houqua was close enough to mentor and advise Houqua. 271 Benjamin Chew Wilcocks was the grandson of Pennsylvania Chief Justice Benjamin Chew. His father was Justice for Philadelphia County, and two of his sisters married Ingersolls, another prominent lawyer family. Grant, “Merchants, Lawyers,” 7. These connections were of great importance in collecting debts. 272 In this case, Houqua was indicted by Thompson to have delivered goods which should have been “first quality merchantable articles”, but proved to be “not equal to the goods contracted for”. Finally, the court of Pennsylvania required Houqua to pay the amount of $15,377.01 including interest as compensation. Though this decision was against Houqua, the result was thoroughly acceptable, since the sum of compensation did not ruin Houqua. More details cf.: “Thompson vs. Houqua” in: Nile’s Register, April 23, 1825. Cf. also: Grant, “Hong Merchant Litigation,” 47–48. 273 From 1804 till 1808, and 1812 till 1827, Wilcocks stayed at Canton for almost 20 years. 274 In May 1828, Wilcocks wrote to his friend in Canton Latimer “Whenever a ship arrives I may wait on my excellent friend Houqua, tell him I hold him high in my estimation, and have not been silent on his subject (particularly his last act of munificence to me) since my arrival.” In: Latimer Papers, Part I, Box 13, LC. Though there are no details about the “subject” Wilcocks promised to take care of for Houqua, it is obvious that Wilcocks was quite thankful to Houqua. It is noteworthy that Houqua was not the only generous creditor. Some other Hong Merchants also released their foreign debtors – since the foreigners had no other choice. Conseequa was also Wilcocks’ creditor. In 1813, Wilcocks owed Conseequa ca. 416,000 Spanish dollars. In 1820, Conseequa released Wilcocks from this debt with 40,000 Spanish dollars paid to Conseequa – less than one tenth of the original amount. In this release, the EIC played an important role, since Conseequa owed a large sum to the EIC. Grant, “The April 1820 Debt Settlement,” 79–82. It seems that no one gained the positive attention through the generous letting go of debt as Houqua did.

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Of course, Houqua’s long-term profits were directly connected to Cushing’s profits. Cushing was the most important person for Houqua not only in terms of credit relationship but also in business partnership. During Cushing’s long stay in Canton, he had significant joint business with Houqua, which enabled Cushing to return to Boston in 1831 as an extremely rich man.275 Moreover, the joint business between them continued after Cushing left China and continued to earn him a huge amount.276 What is also worth mentioning is that there was no contract signed between them. As Houqua once wrote to the Perkins: [. . .] as Mr. Cushing has kindly consented to allow me to address them [i.e. Houqua’s shipments] to him, I am not under the necessity of consigning to any established house [. . .]277 (originally underlined)

In other words, Houqua did not have to make any consignments if shipments were addressed to Cushing. There was no legal protection for Houqua in his joint business with Cushing. The Baring Brothers & Company in London even deposited his credits under Cushing’s name.278 These forms of partnership based on trust instead of control and fear of sanctions continued till the end of Houqua’s career. During the war in the early 1840s, in order to protect his fortunes, Houqua shipped largely under Cushing’s name.279 Therefore, Cushing was officially the major owner of Houqua ’s fortunes. Besides Houqua’s credit relation and partnership, Cushing’s unique position in Houqua’s network was also observed by other members of the Perkins clan, especially the Forbes brothers. As mentioned, all the three Forbes brothers used to work for Houqua. In fact, Houqua saw them as the representatives and successors of Cushing. As the first Forbes, the brother of Robert Bennet Forbes and John Murray Forbes, arrived in Canton in 1828, he was introduced by Cushing to Houqua.280 The second Forbes brother, Bennet Robert Forbes, was thankful to be Cushing’s nearest kinsman in Canton, so that he could enjoy his profitable relation with Houqua.281 Moreover, as mentioned before, it was due to Cushing that the youngest Forbes, John Murray Forbes, became the 275 Larson, “A China Trader Turns Investor,” 350. 276 The joint business of Houqua and Cushing during the 1830s amounted to $200,000 annually. Cf.: J. P. Cushing to Bryant & Sturgis on 13th May 1839, in: B & S, Vol. 12, BL. Cushing to Houqua on 13th May 1839, in: Forbes Papers, No. 3, Folder 10, MHS. 277 Houqua to Perkins & Company on April 18th 1833, in: Forbes Records, Vol. F–5, BL. 278 Houqua to J. P. Cushing on July 12th 1834, in: Forbes Records, Vol. F–5, BL. 279 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, January 20th 1840, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. 280 Cushing to Houqua on 22nd April 1828, in: Cabot Papers, Box 2, Folder 3, MHS. 281 See Robert Bennet Forbes to his wife on December 12th 1839, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 191.

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manager of Houqua’s business as soon as he arrived at Canton in 1830. During his stints in Canton, John Murray Forbes spent even more time handling Houqua’s affairs than in the business of Russell & Co.282 In fact, he earned extremely well through Houqua’s business during his first stay in Canton.283 Before he sailed to Canton for the second and last time in 1834, he wrote to Cushing to introduce him to Houqua and persuade the old gentleman to let him join the profitable business again.284 It is remarkable that, regardless of whether it was because of Cushing or not, John Murray Forbes was loyal to Houqua. He refused to make use of the proceeds of Houqua’s shipments or credits for any private purposes.285 In the early 1840s, due to the opium war and the hopeless position of the Chinese side, it was impossible for Houqua “to come to any satisfactory conclusion” regarding the future.286 Beside transporting his fortunes through shipments under Cushing’s name, Houqua also gave his last wish in his letters to the Forbes brothers and Cushing to take care of his fortunes abroad for his heirs. Though the content is almost the same, Houqua’s emphasis is slightly different. To John Murray Forbes, Houqua wrote: I have now a large amount of funds in America and Europe of which you must take the best care you can, place them in safety and where they will be productive of interest. [. . .]287

282 W. H. Low to S. Russell on October 31st 1832, in: Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. 283 Once John Murray Forbes admitted that beside the regular commission, John Murray Forbes received “one tenth part of net profits, without charge of interest or chance of loss & without responsibility.” In other words, Houqua rewarded John Murray Forbes with 10% of the entire profits extra. In some shipments John M. Forbes received even 25% of profits. Cf.: John Murray Forbes to Augustin Heard on December 29th 1832, in: Heard Papers, Volume BM–1, BL. Cf. also: T. H. Cabot to his father on January 22nd 1835, in: Cabot Papers, Box 2, Folder 7, MHS. 284 John Murray Forbes to Augustin Heard on December 19th 1833, in: Heard Records, Volume BM–8–1, BL. 285 John Murray Forbes to Baring Brothers & Company on July 29th 1837, in: Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. Before John Murray Forbes left Canton for the last time in 1836, Houqua gave him half a million dollars for investigation in America. This sum of credit was saved under Forbes’ name, but always separate from his own account. Cf.: Forbes, Reminiscences of John Murray Forbes, vol.1 (1902), 273. 286 His letters to his foreign friends from 1840 to 1842 indicate how frustrated he was because of the situation created by the opium war. See the letters reserved in “Houqua’s Letterbook”, for example Houqua to Robert Bennet Forbes on April 12th 1841, HL, MHS. 287 Houqua to John Murray Forbes on June 28th 1840, in: HL, MHS. On the same day Houqua wrote a letter to Robert Bennet Forbes with almost the same content, asking him to take care of his fortunes, in: HL, MHS.

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In his letter to Robert Bennet Forbes Houqua emphasized his wish that he should follow Cushing’s advices: I request that you will consider with my old & good friend Cushing & your brother John M. Forbes how to take the best care you can of my property placing it when it will be safe & production of interest.288

In his letters to Cushing, Houqua requested many times that he should advise the Forbes brothers in managing his properties. For instance in one of his letters in 1840: I have now so much property in America that I must ask you to advice with Mr. J. M. Forbes in what manner to place the funds so that they may be safe & act the same time productive of interest [. . .]289

Later in 1841, Houqua wrote to Cushing, expressing his satisfaction with John Murray Forbes managing his shipments. But meanwhile Houqua requested Cushing: I beg you to continue to give your good consult to him [John M. Forbes] & his Brother in any affairs of mine.290

The importance of Cushing can be observed in another letter from Houqua in June 1842, which is very short but exclusively about the management of his property: My Dear Friend: I write now to say that I have directed Russell & Co. to request you in the event of any accident to John M. Forbes & Robert B. Forbes, to take charge of the business which I have placed & am placing in their care from time to time, through Russell & Co. and in so doing you will oblige. You old friend291

Although Houqua trusted both the Forbes brothers to take care of his property, Cushing was the one, whose advice they must follow and thus who had the final decision. In other words, to put his property under Cushing’s management

288 Houqua to Robert Bennet Forbes on June 28th 1840, in: HL, MHS. 289 Houqua to Cushing on 28th June 1840, in: HL, MHS. 290 Houqua to Cushing on 21st November 1841, in: HL, MHS. 291 Houqua to Cushing on 21st June 1842, in: HL, MHS.

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was the safest way for Houqua.292 Although there were other candidates in Houqua’s circle of foreign acquaintances like John M. Forbes, whose loyalty and ability in business were no less than that of Cushing, as the Coolidge affair in the next section will show, Houqua would always give Cushing first place in his hierarchy of trust. In summary, Cushing’s position in Houqua’s network of social relationships can be observed in various perspectives: Firstly, he was the only “schoolmaster” who could affect Houqua’s credit relation decisively. This indicates the closeness of Cushing to Houqua. Secondly, in their business partnership, he was the major owner of Houqua’s property, emphasizing Houqua’s confidence and trust in Cushing. Thirdly and most importantly, Cushing was one of the trustees who would accomplish Houqua’s last wish and the only one who had the final say in managing Houqua’s legacy. Both confidence and trust served the same purpose for Houqua: to reduce the risks in his business. As mentioned before, insurance was a direct measure of reducing risks. Reliable persons or agents were indispensable for securing his huge commercial network. Cushing was certainly the most reliable person in Houqua’s network. However, what would Houqua do, when there was a conflict between his trust and security? Were his instincts as a businessman that prompted him to secure his business stronger than his trust towards these stewards and his instincts of a friend? In the last years of Houqua’s career, there was an affair that did not ruin his business, but illustrated the interaction between trust, confidence, and the need of security under the difficult trading conditions in the early nineteenth century.

4.3.5 The Coolidge affair: A test of Houqua’s trust On May 5th 1838, Joseph Coolidge (1798–1879), one of the partners of Russell & Co., reported from London that he had sold the teas which Houqua had consigned to him to the Baring Brothers & Co. in London. Furthermore, he wrote that:

292 The reason that Houqua did not let Cushing manage his property directly, but requested him to advise the Forbes brothers was perhaps down to the fact that, it was Cushing’s own wish to withdraw himself from business after his long stay in Canton and to enjoy his life. Therefore, it is understandable that Houqua would not trouble Cushing directly through business. To let him advise the Forbes brothers seemed to be proper because it involved him to a lesser degree. Cf.: Cushing to Sturgis on May 13th 1839, in: B&S Records, Volume 12, BL.

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[. . .] as goods are low in this country [England] and not many have yet forward to China, with the concurrence of Mr. Cushing and Mr. [John M.] Forbes, I have recommended that the investment shall be in goods instead of Company’s Bills as promising a better result. I hope you will have reason to approve my having done so.293

The total amount of the investment he was referring to is £72,000, an enormous capital at that time. Strangely enough, Coolidge didn’t mention his dispute with the Barings at all, who were not willing to sell Houqua’s teas, due to the slow recovery from the “panic” in 1837, in European market in general.294 Neither did he mention the original instruction of John M. Forbes to purchase British goods worth of £20,000.295 Instead, although Coolidge was convinced that his investment would be “a better result”, he didn’t forget to mention “the concurrence of Mr. Cushing and Mr. Forbes”. Surely Coolidge didn’t anticipate that he, with this letter, began an affair lasting for almost two years that not only cost Houqua’s trust in his confidantes in Boston at least temporarily, but also Coolidge’s own membership in Russell & Co. This section focuses on this controversy caused by Coolidge from 1838 till 1840, which has been insufficiently investigated in historical studies till now. Probably the only work, in which this affair is discussed with some details, is the “Rivalry of Canton” written by Tim Sturgis,296 a descendent of William Sturgis – founder of an American house in Canton “Bryant & Sturgis”. Tim Sturgis discovered this story of the Coolidge affair by delving into the founding history of “Heard & Co.”, another American house established by Coolidge with his best friend Augustine Heard directly after his almost humiliating discharge from Russell & Co. on January 1st 1840. However, what makes this affair more interesting is not only the people around whom apparently the whole affair revolved like Coolidge and the Forbes brothers, but also Houqua and Cushing who, as the following section shows, were the real decision makers.

293 Joseph Coolidge to Houqua, May 5th 1838, Forbes Records, Box 1, Folder 25, BL. 294 Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 34–36. John M. Forbes also mentioned this dispute but without details in his letter to Coolidge in March (without date) 1838, Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. 295 John M. Forbes to Joseph Coolidge, March 6th, 1839, Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. 296 Sturgis, Tim: Rivalry in Canton. The Control of Russell & Co. 1838–1840 and the Founding of Augustine Heard & Co. London: 2006.

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4.3.5.1 Joseph Coolidge and John M. Forbes Sources that provide details about Joseph Coolidge before 1840 were limited in number and mostly negative considering his dealings in business.297 As early as in 1819, the Perkins wrote to their London agent F. W. Paine that “Coolidge is vapouring. [. . .] He is a great talker, and not to be relied on.” (originally underlined)298 Also, after Coolidge joined Russell & Co. in 1834, as explored later, it appears that he was a problem for the whole house, especially for John Murray Forbes and later, John C. Green. The only exception was Augustine Heard (1785–1868), who used to be a partner of this house from 1831 to 1834 and had good relationships with all members of Russell & Co. including Coolidge. But after John Murray Forbes arrived at Canton in late 1834, he complained in almost every letter to A. Heard about Coolidge. As Coolidge was on his way back to America in 1835, John Murray Forbes even worried that Coolidge would abuse the $15000 credit from Houqua to pay Coolidge’s father’s debts.299 Even the usually “good natured old gentleman” Houqua seemed to be quite irritated with Coolidge, since he once gave Houqua an empty pledge to pay back Houqua’s remittances.300 In May 1837, just a few months after being back in Canton, despite the objection of his colleagues, John C. Green and others at Russell & Co., Coolidge sailed back to the US again, because he was concerned about his family in Boston.301

297 Joseph Coolidge came from one of the most influential families in New England in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some of the prominent members of this family are John Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933), the 30th President of the Unites States; Charles Allerton Coolidge (1858–1936), a famous architect in Boston; Archibald Cary Coolidge (1866–1928), a professor at Harvard etc. Joseph Coolidge, who had studied at Harvard, married Ellen Randolph (1796–1876), a granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). As a young man, Joseph Coolidge usually left a good impression like “intelligent, very handsome”, “romantic” or “mighty fond of poesy”. Cf.: Kienast and Felt, Lewis Coolidge, 80. However, as will be illustrated later in this section, Coolidge’s ability in business was less impressive. The fact that he got a position in Russell & Co. in Canton seems to be thanks to his family background. 298 Perkins & Co. to F. W. Paine, January 5th, 1819. R. & Co. / P. & Co Collection, Box 27. Since Cushing had worked for Perkins & Co. in Canton for nearly 30 years before he reorganized and merged this house into Russell & Co. in 1830, I find it quite curious that according to Tim Sturgis, Cushing recommended Coolidge as partner for Russell & Co. Cf.: Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 12. 299 John M. Forbes to A. Heard, Jan. 23rd, 1835, Heard Records, BM–8–2, BL. 300 “[Coolidge] told H[ouqua] that he expected remittances in a month, with which he would refund !!! [Houqua says:] spose that ship no come? Then I must pay interest? No, says Old Red Cap make finish just now! [. . .] I have been getting along famously with your friend Green and I shall keep so as long as Coolidge stays away. For heavens Sake don’t let him come back [. . .]” John M. Forbes to Augustine Heard on January 23rd 1835, in: Heard Records, BM–8–2, BL. 301 Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 29.

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When he met John M. Forbes in Boston towards the end of 1837, Forbes advised him strongly to go to London to settle the dispute between Russell & Co. and Baring Brothers & Co. regarding Houqua’s teas, which were sent from Canton at the end of 1836 in three ships according to Barings’ order that year.302 It seems that Coolidge was not willing to go to London, because John M. Forbes had to convince him repeatedly that “it is well for us [i.e. Russell & Co.] if you go, if only to make our managements with B[aring] B[rothers] & Co. understandingly.”303 Furthermore, John Murray Forbes emphasized in the same letter to Coolidge, “I do not think that the house have any right to ask at your hands such a personal sacrifice as this voyage involves & that your own interest as a partner ought to determine the question of going or staying.” In April 1838, Coolidge settled the dispute with Baring Brothers & Co. and reported his settlement draft on April 21st, and then conveyed the results to Houqua on May 5th. Meanwhile, Coolidge also informed John M. Forbes in Boston about the settlement. Due to the mailing route and speed of post at that time, it took four to six months for a letter mailed from London to reach Canton, whereas it took around one month or two for a mail from London to reach Boston. Therefore, John M. Forbes in Boston should have received the news from Coolidge about his reinvestment of Houqua’s £72,000 – instead of £20,000 – much earlier than Houqua and Russell & Co. in Canton. Probably in early June 1838, John M. Forbes as well as John Cushing already knew what had taken place in London. The first reaction from John M. Forbes regarding Coolidge’s management of the funds was clear in Forbes’ letter to Coolidge on June 8th 1838: You have recommended to Baring Brothers to exceed the very explicit orders which I gave them [. . .] I am by no means certain that the owner of the property [i.e. Houqua] will sanction deviation from positive orders. [. . .] I must beg you in future to make no alteration in the orders received from Canton regarding the business of No. 1340 304 without first having reference to me, in matters entrusted to my management, I think it is but fair that I should have the opportunity of judging for myself.305

302 Due to the “panic” of 1837, Baring Brothers & Co., just like other financial institutions in London, was short of cash, so that they were not willing or able to pay Houqua’s teas. Cf. Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 31–32. 303 For the next quotation in this paragraph cf.: John M. Forbes to Coolidge on March 13th 1838, in: Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. 304 “1340” was the code that Russell & Co. had developed to refer Houqua’s account. Wong, “Global Positioning,” 253. 305 John M. Forbes to J. Coolidge on June 8th 1838, in: National Archives of Canada. Quoted from Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 37. According to Tim Sturgis’ research, Coolidge replied to this

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As John M. Forbes wrote this letter, he surely knew that Coolidge had already finished the settlement with the Barings, so there was actually nothing he could do but to warn Coolidge with regard to any future management of funds and to pray that Houqua would accept this settlement despite everything. Also, Cushing was very concerned as he wrote in his letter to Houqua on June 25th 1838: John M. Forbes tells me the Barings have with the sanction of Mr. Coolidge’s trust the bulk of your funds from England in British goods which though not authorized by Mr. Forbes to the extent they may have your will if done within the limits. He gave proves more advantages than any other mode of remittance that could have been adopted.306

On the one hand, Cushing let Houqua know that Coolidge’s management was “not authorized by John M. Forbes”, in order to protect his cousin and himself. On the other hand, since he knew Houqua for almost 40 years, Cushing had already anticipated that Houqua would not agree to this arrangement. So, he tried to remedy the serious consequences by speaking of bring convinced of “more advantages”. However, Houqua received this letter from Cushing in Boston probably in November 1838 or even later. In other words, both Coolidge’s letters from London – the first one on April 21st about the draft of his settlement, the second one on May 5th about the results – reached Houqua’s hand months earlier than Cushing’s from Boston. On August 7th 1838, Russell & Co. in Canton showed its first reaction referring to Coolidge’s first letter of April 1838: Mr. Coolidge wrote from London the 21st April that he had been there several days and would remain in England for months. [. . .]

letter and wrote to John M. Forbes “suggesting that he [Coolidge] acted on his own responsibility; he would be answerable to Houqua, and would not be beholden to John M. Forbes.” Unfortunately, Tim Sturgis doesn’t give any reference to this source, and does not even mention the date of this letter. Till now I haven’t found this letter from Coolidge to Forbes, although I went through various historical collections in the Baker Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, Library of Congress etc., where this letter would most likely have been reserved. During the years of my research, unfortunately, I could not visit the National Archives of Canada. Anyway, regarding this action of Coolidge, Tim Sturgis’ comment is “foolhardy”, since Coolidge underestimated how close the relation between Forbes and Houqua was. (Cf.: Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 37.) I totally agree that Coolidge underestimated the importance of this relationship. As seen in the later procedure, Coolidge didn’t understand the personal trust that Houqua had given Forbes and Cushing. However, what seems to me quite confusing is that Coolidge guaranteed John M. Forbes that he would be answerable to Houqua, and would not be beholden to John M. Forbes, although he mentioned in his letter to Houqua on May 5th 1838 that his action was “in concurrence with Mr. Cushing and Mr. Forbes”. 306 J.P. Cushing to Houqua on June 25th 1838, in: B&S Records, Volume 12, BL.

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He writes that he contemplates, on the advice of Mr. Bates, investing the proceeds of your consignment, to Barings in British dry goods, in violation of our orders given in behalf of the owners thereof. If this should be done, our principal China friend has given us notice that he will hold us answerable for damages, which inevitably will be heavy [. . .] We will not allow ourselves for a moment to believe that you would under any ordinary circumstances so far above the power with which you now entrusted by one of our Chinese friends, as to authorize any purchase of dry goods on his account, and much less that you would buy on ours. The plan if persevered in, must produce much mischief.307

The members of Russell & Co. in Canton were quite dissatisfied. Although Houqua’s name is not mentioned here, it is obvious that the “principal China friend” or “one of our Chinese friends” who the gentlemen of Russell & Co. did not want to anger, is Houqua. Almost at the same time, on August 10th 1838, Houqua wrote a very personal letter to John M. Forbes, which was friendly as if nothing happened, and informed him about “a considerable consignment of tea and silk piece goods” which Houqua instructed John M. Forbes to sell in America, whereby Houqua emphasized “Remember, security is my first object: I desire to run no unnecessary risks, and want, if possible, to have the accounts closed early.”(originally underlined)308 Moreover, at the end of the letter Houqua added something even quite personal: You know it is an ambition common to my countrymen to have many sons, and I confess I feel inclined to congratulate my friends when I hear that they are contributing their quota to posterity in this way. My grandson sends his regards, to which, my dear friend, I add my own most sincerely, Houqua (signed)309

Since Houqua’s tone in this letter is very different to his tone in the previous one from Russell & Co., it is even to be assumed that the partners of Russell & Co. in Canton didn’t inform Houqua about the first letter from Coolidge at all, trusting that either Forbes or Cushing in Boston would prevent Coolidge from carrying out his mischief on time. Or, since Coolidge’s report from April 1838 was not final, it cannot to be ruled out that Houqua himself hadn’t realized the serious consequence yet and continued to trust his associates in Boston. About one month later, Coolidge’s second letter (May 5th 1838) from London about his investing Houqua’s funds of £72,000 in British goods finally arrived at Canton. On September 15th 1838, Houqua showed his consequence to John M. Forbes through Russell & Co.:

307 Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes on August 7th 1838, Forbes Records, Box 1, Folder 23, BL. 308 Forbes and Hughes, Letters and Recollections, Vol.1 (1899), 99. 309 Forbes and Hughes, Letters and Recollections, Vol.1 (1899), 99.

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By direction of Houqua, we enclose herein a letter lately received from Mr. Jos. Coolidge addressed to him, sealed London, May 5th 1838, and request that you will forward to us, for his satisfaction, your reasons for concurring in the purchase of the goods, which in that letter it is stated were in the course of preparation to be shipped for this market. [. . .] We hereby revoke all authority we have ever conferred on you in behalf of Houqua, to use your discretion in remitting to us funds for his account; and direct that in all cases you implicitly follow orders, as to the medium of remittance, which may have been sent you from hence.310

This was an official announcement from Houqua withdrawing his power of attorney from John M. Forbes who was managing his huge overseas fortune and also indicated a termination of his trust towards Forbes – a serious and tragic consequence for John M. Forbes.311 Only two days later, the partners of Russell & Co. in Canton sent John M. Forbes another letter, this time without mentioning Houqua but expressing strongly their disappointment: [. . .] respecting the mission of Mr. Coolidge to England, we regret that we are compelled to disagree entirely with you as to the expediency of his going. It appears to us that nothing to the advantage of the house can possibly result from it, and probably much will, that is mischievous, perplexing, and expensive.312

Due to the long mailing route, John M. Forbes received this serious news from Canton not earlier than March 1839. On March 6th 1839, as Coolidge still enjoyed his stay in London especially with John Bates, an agent of Baring Brothers & Co., and other new acquaintances,313 John M. Forbes wrote to Coolidge and this time he could not control his fury anymore: [. . .] your writing to no. 1940314 under date of 5th May 1838 stating that with my concurrence you had authorized the purchase of £ 72.000 cost of British goods. Of there I had authorized the purchase of 20.000 [. . .] on receipt of your letter above referred to, he [Houqua]

310 Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes on August 7th 1838, in: Forbes Records, Box 1, Folder 23, BL. 311 To recall, that in joint business with Houqua till then, John Murray Forbes received “one tenth part of net profits, without charge of interest or chance of loss & without responsibility” (originally underlined). Cf.: John Murray Forbes to A. Heard on December 29th 1832, in: Heard Records, BM–1, BL. 312 Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes on September 17th 1838, in: Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. 313 Coolidge and his wife stayed in London for about one year till the spring 1839. Cf.: Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 37. 314 I suppose it should be “1340”, because it obviously refers to Houqua, whose account’s number was 1340. This letter I’ve found is a duplicate of the original in a letter book. Therefore, it could be a mistake made during the process of duplication.

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immediately wrote me enclosing a copy of it, demanding an explanation of it, and withdrawing all the authority which he had given me over his property going or gone to Europe. I have thus been forced to write Mess. Baring requesting them [. . .] a just regard for their good opinion makes me desirous that they should be made aware of the circumstance which cost me the confidence of so old & valuable a friend. [. . .] I think it is but fair that you should write to him [Houqua] that instead of acting with my concurrence you acted in direct opposition to my written request dated a day or two before you left Boston that you would make no material alternative in the orders which I had given.315 (originally underlined)

As mentioned above, John M. Forbes totally realized the consequence of losing Houqua’s trust – a nightmare for him since it was a long-term and long-distance trade relationship with the old gentleman. The situation was made even worse with the “delay” in communication thanks to slow international postal systems. Even when he wrote to Houqua immediately, it took another six months for Houqua to receive his explanation and at least one year until he received Houqua’s possibly positive response. Fortunately, his elder brother, Robert Bennet Forbes, was the fastest and safest bearer of John M. Forbes’ letter to Houqua. 4.3.5.2 The Forbes brothers Originally, Robert Bennet Forbes’ decision to leave for Canton had nothing to do with Coolidge. As his brother John M. Forbes sailed for Canton for the first time in order to join their cousin John P. Cushing and the house of Russell & Co. in 1830, Bennet Forbes was the captain of the ship that carried John M. Forbes. After years of working as a captain between America and Canton, he had become a very rich man in Boston. Unfortunately, the “panic of 1837” and his guarantee for Houqua’s business cost him most of his fortune, so that he had to leave for Canton again in early June 1838, this time as a future partner of Russell & Co. In early May 1838, Robert Bennet Forbes wrote to Baring Brothers & Company announcing that he was embarking on a ship to China “at the first good opportunity, to remain there several years.”316 It was his “intention to join the house of Russell & Co.” Besides his long experience in the Chinese trade, he also emphasized his “long and intimate connection with the most influential of the Hong Merchants [i.e. Houqua]” which would help him join the trading house with an advantage.

315 John M. Forbes to Joseph Coolidge, March 6th, 1839, Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. 316 For the following quotations in this paragraph cf.: R. Bennet Forbes to Baring Brothers & Co., May 5th 1838, Heard Records, EM–12–3, BL.

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On June 10th 1838, Robert Bennet Forbes said farewell to his brother John M. Forbes, who came to see him off.317 According to Forbes’ journal to his wife, he had brought several letters from John M. Forbes to Houqua.318 At this point of time, Houqua hadn’t received Coolidge’s letters from London yet, but John M. Forbes in Boston, as indicated in his letter to Coolidge on June 8th 1838 had just informed him about Coolidge’s management and disobedience in London. So, it was highly important to let Houqua know John M. Forbes‘ “innocence” in this catastrophe as soon as possible, even if his letter would not reach Canton earlier than Coolidge’s from London sent on May 5th 1838. Indeed, Robert Bennet Forbes tried his best: After exactly four months of sailing, he met Houqua in the morning of October 10th 1838 – one month after Houqua’s official announcement to withdraw John M. Forbes’ power of attorney on September 15th – and “read John’s letters to him [Houqua] as well as Mr. Cushing.”319 About the first reaction of Houqua, Robert Bennet Forbes described only quite briefly that Houqua was “quite angry with B[arings] B[rothers] & Co. London.” In other words, at least in front of Robert B. Forbes Houqua made the Barings in London responsible for the loss. About the mischief of Coolidge or innocence of John M. Forbes, he did not make any comments. With the arrival of Bennet Forbes in Canton, the whole affair went into another stage, namely the reorganization of the house “Russell & Co. ”. In 1838, Coolidge was officially the second important shareholder of Russell & Co. . The first one, namely the head of the house was John C. Green (1800–1876) – “whose hatred for Mr. Coolidge seems to know no bounds,” in Coolidge’s wife’s words.320 Since Green decided to return home in 1839, he immediately offered 317 Bennet Forbes’ first letter to his wife after he left Boston was on June 11th 1838. On June 20th he noticed “10 days out”. So he must have left Boston on June 10th 1838. See Forbes, Letters from China, 20 and 25. 318 Forbes, Letters from China, 20–21. 319 Also for the next quotation in this paragraph cf.: Forbes, Letters from China, 59. Unfortunately I haven’t found the letter by John M. Forbes. However, due to John M. Forbes’ letter to Coolidge on June 8th 1838 and Cushing’s letter to Houqua on June 25th 1838, John M. Forbes should have informed in this letter to Houqua brought by Bennet Forbes that Coolidge’s management of Houqua’s funds in London was against John M. Forbes’ instruction. What is remarkable is that in Cushing’s letter he did not remind Houqua the innocence of John M. Forbes at all. Instead, he emphasized his connection to Robert Bennet Forbes and wished strongly Houqua’s support for Forbes in business. Cf.: j. P. Cushing to Houqua on June 6th 1838, in: B&S Records, Volume 12, BL. It is to be assumed that Cushing received the news from London much later than John M. Forbes. 320 E.W. Coolidge (wife of Joseph Coolidge) to Augustine Heard, January 2nd, 1840. Heard Records, BN–3–5, BL. The relation between Coolidge and Green had never been good. While Coolidge was seen as a gentleman and good talker, Green was a tough person but also an

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Robert Bennet Forbes a place in the house. Green, as well as other members agreed that Robert Bennet Forbes take over his brother John M. Forbes’ shares until the present term ended at the end of 1839, although Coolidge’s protest had already reached Canton before Robert B. Forbes’ arrival.321 From then onward, the focus of the Coolidge controversy was not regarding Houqua’s funds amounting to £72,000, but the rivalry between Coolidge and Forbes in Russell & Co. and Houqua’s influence in the background. Meanwhile, according to the correspondence of Russell & Co. to John M. Forbes on October 20th 1838 – ten days after Bennet first met Houqua – the British goods worth £72,000 purchased by Coolidge using Houqua’s funds arrived and were transported into Houqua’s storeroom, “where they will lie till Mr. Coolidge gets here to offer the necessary explanations on the subject.”322 Despite the letters brought by Robert Bennet Forbes, Houqua remained tough. His instruction through Russell & Co. concerning John M. Forbes was still strict: In the future we [Russell & Co. ] intend to send you copies of our register of foreign bills which we may draw or endorse, by frequent opportunities, in order that you may always behalf in case there should be any necessity for it. British woolens may be sold at low prices [. . .]323

Obviously, Houqua was not yet recovered from Coolidge’s mischief and he was still not able to believe John M. Forbes’ innocence. However, it seems that the personal relationship between Robert Bennet Forbes and Houqua was going well. Shortly after his meeting with Houqua, Robert B. Forbes wrote to a friend, expressing his dissatisfaction with Coolidge protesting his entry into the trading house, but also mentions the unwavering support by Houqua considering the affair:

experienced and valuable merchant. As he entered Russell & Co. in 1834, the house was just before its bankruptcy. But through his obstinacy and efficiency the house soon reached its summit in 1836. Cf.: Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 168–170. As Coolidge decided to sail for America in 1837, Green was strictly against it. Cf.: Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 28–29. As the news of Coolidge’s mismanagement in London reached Canton, it was imaginable that Green was the most furious one in the house. So, the last thing he did before he retired and sailed home was to make sure that Coolidge would never be part the trading house again. 321 Cf.: Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 44. 322 Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes, October 20th 1838, Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. 323 Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes, October 20th 1838, Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC.

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I will only say that I think he [Coolidge] has made a great blunder by supposing himself & lending others to suppose (particularly Mr. Bates) that he was Russell & Co. & could have things exactly after his fashion in China, he has also taken same pains to explain to his acquaintances who know me only by name, that I had never resided in China, was brought up a sailor & not a merchant &c &c [. . .] when he [Coolidge] comes I shall keep as cool as possible & listen to his propositions; if he will be satisfied to stay here & mismanage Baring’s affairs, he don’t [sic!] ask a large share, & that Delano324 will consent to be associated with him which I much doubt [. . .] Besides I have the unbounded confidence of Houqua & through his business can turn the obdurate heart of Bates to continue as in the best of his Protégés. The Old Gent is as well as he was 10 years ago & take a lively interest in all my doings. Coolidge will not be aware till he awares that Houqua insisted on Mr. C[oolidge] being left [. . .] By Green’s advice & John’s I consulted Houqua & he had so much to say in the new managements [. . .]325 (originally underlined)

This shows that Houqua joined the fraction of Russell & Co. who were against Coolidge remaining in the trading house. However, there was no conciliatory sign from Houqua giving the power of attorney back to John M. Forbes. During the trading season of 1838/39, Houqua’s teas were not consigned to John M. Forbes as usual, but to another American house “Bryant & Sturgis” under John Cushing’s name. It was so unusual that William Sturgis, the head of Bryant & Sturgis, wrote to John M. Forbes about the “compensation of this loss”.326 Up to that point, Coolidge was still in London waiting for his ship to Boston. After he received Robert B. Forbes’ letter announcing his intention to sail to China, Coolidge sent his protest resisting Robert B. Forbes’ entry into Russell & Co. immediately. But he certainly had no idea that – based on Houqua’s influence – not only would Robert B. Forbes enter the trading house, but also he would be kicked out of the house too. During his stay in America before he left for China in July 1839, he worked diligently in pursuing the Forbes brothers and strengthening his union with Augustine Heard to establish a new house in Canton.327 Meanwhile, John Murray Forbes was also active in Boston to reveal

324 Warren Delano, grandfather of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a friend of Bennet Forbes, joined Russell & Co. as a partner in 1840 thanks to the recommendation of Robert Bennet Forbes. 325 R.B. Forbes to S. Russell, October 31st, 1838, Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. 326 See John M. Forbes to R. Bennet Forbes, May 1st, 1839, Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. 327 Sturgis, Rivalry in Canton, 46–52. It is rather strange that Coolidge in his self-defense described how “faithfully and diligently and successfully [he] worked” in London to improve Russell & Co.’ business there. But he didn’t mention his (mis)management of Houqua’s funds. Neither did Coolidge’s most important fellow defender John Bates (a partner of Baring Brothers & Co., who advised Coolidge to reinvest Houqua’s funds in British goods and with whom Coolidge and his wife stayed in London for nearly one year) mention this fund of

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Coolidge’s mischief.328 To his brother in Canton, John Murray Forbes emphasized repeatedly Houqua’s influence. “[I]f any split comes” wrote John Murray Forbes to Robert Bennet Forbes, “you may with Houqua’s aid stand on good ground.”329 Finally, just before he sailed to Canton, Coolidge turned to Cushing at the end of June. On June 28th 1839, Cushing wrote to Houqua as a peacemaker: Mr. C[oolidge] has been much troubled at the announcement of your displeasure in consequence of your funds having been settled from London in merchandise by his recommendation, & altho’ he will no doubt agree with you that he was wrong in interfering in the affair without special authority his endeavors could have been no other than the protection of your interest, & under this view of the matter I am sure you will not let the transaction operate to the prejudice of said gentleman who I believe most friendly thought he was doing what would be for your advantage; Mr. C has the confidence of Mr. Baring Brothers & Co who speak highly of his attention which in England to the business entrusted to his charge. Mr. Coolidge initials remaining in China & will I trust enjoy your goods will desiring his residence in your country [. . .]330

On the one hand, Cushing gave Houqua a confession from Coolidge admitting his failure in London, so that John M. Forbes’ reputation could be rectified. On the other hand, Cushing also reminded Houqua that Coolidge “has the confidence of Mr. Baring Brothers & Co.” – this British house acted de facto as Houqua’s agent to sell his goods in Europe especially after the withdrawal of the EIC from Canton in 1834. On the same day, Cushing also wrote to his cousin Robert B. Forbes, suggesting that he admit Coolidge as a partner, because that would be better than to “have him [Coolidge] form a separate establishment, which must be in various ways operate disadvantagingly.”331 Coolidge himself brought these two letters, so he probably knew what the two letters were about. During Coolidge’s long journey from Boston to Canton in the summer and autumn of 1839, Houqua had finally made some progress concerning his relation to John M. Forbes. He gave his “pardon” through the correspondence of Russell & Co. to John M. Forbes on July 12th 1839:

£72,000. Cf.: J. Coolidge to Samuel Russell, July 1st, 1839, Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, and Bates’ letter to R. B. Forbes, copied by Coolidge in his letter to Samuel Russell on July 1st 1839, also in Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC. 328 See various letters from John M. Forbes to A. A. Low, W. C. Hunter, E. King, Wetmore etc. during April and May in 1838 in Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. 329 John M. Forbes to R. Bennet Forbes, April 5th, 1839, Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. See also: John M. Forbes’ letter to R. Bennet Forbes on March 8th 1839 in the same volume. 330 J. P. Cushing to Houqua, June 28th, 1839, B&S Records, Volume 12, BL. 331 J. P. Cushing to R. Bennet Forbes, June 28th, 1839, B&S Records, Volume 12, BL.

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In relation to the withdrawal of all authority from you, which you had before exerted over our consignments to parties in Europe, we beg to state that the writer has called the attention of the principal party concerned, to your remarks, as well as those contained in your letter to him [Houqua]. He desires us most expressly to state, that his confidence in your good judgment & directions, is unimpaired and that he was fully aware of the relief it must be to you to have that control cancelled, another reason given is that his calculations are now more certainly made & the regular overland mail, putting him in properties of early information, is also a very good reason why his agent in America should have no control over shipments to Europe [. . .]332

This is the first time after the Coolidge incident that Houqua gave positive feedback to John M. Forbes – nine months after he received the first explanation from John M. Forbes, brought to him personally by Robert B. Forbes in October 1838. Since Houqua officially stated that his confidence in John M. Forbes was “unimpaired”, this could be viewed as an official pardon from Houqua’s side. Just as John M. Forbes’ business depended a lot on Houqua’s commission, it was also a great loss for Houqua to cut ties with John M. Forbes. However, this pardon still had serious reservations, because John M. Forbes lost his management or control over Houqua’s fortune in Europe. Although the reasons Houqua stated here are indeed authentic, it seems that his trust in John M. Forbes, who worked for Houqua since the early 1830s, was still not fully “recovered” from the shadow of the Coolidge affair.333 An additional positive sign showed up three days later. On July 15th 1839, Houqua authorized John M. Forbes through Russell & Co. in Canton a shipment of 80 cases silks worth of $16932. Forbes was given plenty of scope as long as Houqua received “returns & advanced at 6 % Interest” and the goods were already insured. Meanwhile, “in case of serious difficulties between the U.S. & Great Britain, you [John M. Forbes] will consult with Mr. J.P. Cushing & do whatever he may think best to secure the interest of the owner.”334 This time, in the original letter (i.e. not the duplications), Houqua signed his

332 Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes, July 12th, 1839, Forbes Records, Box 2, Folder 6, BL. 333 On the other hand, Russell & Co. was quite satisfied with Houqua’s generosity: “relating to the investments in England [. . .] so disastrous in their results, we are happy to state, that the owner [Houqua] makes no mention of his first intention to throw the goods on our hands & he attaches no blame on you. [. . .] relating to Mr. Coolidge’s mission to England, as Mess. Barings have consented to drop that matter, let it rest, so far as the Teas are concerned & so far as it related to our MR. C. we can only say we exonerate you & leave the matter open to future discussion, only persisting, in our determination not to pay Mr. C’s expenses while in Europe after the settlement of the question with Mess. Barings.” Cf.: Russell & Co. (Canton) to John M. Forbes, July 12th 1839, Forbes Records, Box 2, Folder 6, BL. 334 Russell & Co. (Canton) and Houqua to John M. Forbes, July 15th, 1839, Forbes Records, Box 2, Folder 6, BL.

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English name “Houqua” at the end of the letter in order to insure his personal wish to have John M. Forbes in his business again.335 4.3.5.3 Houqua On October 28th 1839, after nearly two and a half years of absence in Canton, Joseph Coolidge, accompanied by his wife, landed at Macao. Robert B. Forbes, the new head of Russell & Co. in Canton, had two possibilities in dealing with Coolidge: Either let him stay and allow him to keep his shares in the trading house, which would be against the wishes of all the present members of Russell & Co.; or to ask him to leave, but then he would establish another house with Augustine Heard, which would bring disadvantages in business according to Cushing’s prognosis. Since neither possibility was satisfactory, Robert B. Forbes couldn’t decide.336 One day before Coolidge’s arrival at Macao, he had a long talk with Houqua: [Houqua] says it is of no consequence whether he [Coolidge] establishes a house or not separate from us & he advises us to treat him civilly until the first day of January & then say – adieu – good bye – god bless you &c – I suppose it will be but right as he is an older man & an older member of the house than myself, to let him take the head of the table, this would be no more than common courtesy [. . .]337

In other words, Houqua would let Coolidge stay till the end of his turn and ask him to leave after that. Moreover, Russell & Co. continued to be the most important partner in Houqua’s business. While the Forbes brothers could not contain their anger and even fury while talking about Coolidge,338 Houqua stayed calm and he even advised Robert B. Forbes to treat Coolidge “civilly”. No matter what mischief Coolidge had carried out till then, he was an older man. While in traditional Chinese society, age alone could be a factor for Coolidge to earn unconditional respect from the younger members, as long as he was still officially in the house. It seems that no matter in how awkward a situation was created, Houqua tried to prevent Coolidge from becoming an enemy. Unfortunately, this

335 Cf. the duplications of this letter in the same folder (Forbes Records, Box 2 Folder 6, BL), which were signed only with “Russell & Co.”. Furthermore, compared to Houqua’s handwriting in other letters, he had signed his name in this letter very possibly with his own hand. 336 R.B. Forbes to his wife, Oct. 3rd, 1839, Forbes, Letters from China, 172f. 337 R.B. Forbes to his wife, Oct. 27th, 1839, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 181f. 338 Cf. e.g. the letter from John M. Forbes to Robert Bennet Forbes on June 9th 1839, Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. R.B. Forbes was also furious about Coolidge’s objection of R.B. Forbes’ joining Russell & Co. See e.g. R. B. Forbes to S. Russell, Oct. 31st 1838, Russell & Co. Records, Business Records, LC.

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still happened. In early December 1839, Coolidge learnt that both Russell & Co. and Houqua wanted him out. In his letter to Augustine Heard, Coolidge wrote with a bitter disappointment, mentioning Houqua not even by the name but only an account number: “I was left out of the House because I was ‘not to the taste of any of the business’ and by advice of 1340.”339 After his conversations with Robert B. Forbes in early December 1839, Coolidge’s disappointment became even worse, since neither his request to keep his shares nor his work for Russell & Co. during his stay in London was respected: [. . .] when we came to talk about the House, he [Robert B. Forbes] took a very high tone, spoke of himself as all in all “my House, and my mode of doing business”, said that he should expect to act without control; that all Howqua’s business must be in his hands [. . .] And on this to send me to England, at my own expenses; in the mean time, Hunter, Low, King & Delano all protested against my coming in at all [. . .].340 (originally underlined)

Coolidge was quite disturbed by Forbes’ tone as the head of the house and his use of Houqua’s business as an efficient weapon. Meanwhile, Coolidge had to admit Houqua’s influence in the world of Canton trade and his failure in overestimating the Baring Brothers. However, his admission was conveyed very negatively: I almost wish that 1340 would die, or retired, to pay them for their [Russell & Co. ] conduct to me; for they pride themselves on his business, indeed [Robert B.] Forbes says he would go home instantly in such case. Well, they have been sending largely of Tea & Silk to B[aring] B[rothers] & Co. in order to show that House that their interest must be sacrificed if they keep their promise to me [. . .]341 (originally underlined)

After it was settled that Coolidge had to leave Russell & Co. without receiving his full shares for his last term until the end of 1839, it was clear that Coolidge would soon establish another house in Canton together with Augustine Heard. But meanwhile another serious problem began: Now Coolidge wanted to use the name “Russell & Co.” for the trading house that he wanted to establish. This was of course against the wishes of all the partners of Russell & Co., since this name was the most influential and powerful American trademark in international markets at that time. Besides, most of Houqua’s business was transferred through this trademark. On December 13th 1839, Coolidge complained

339 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, December 2nd 1839, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. 340 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, December 13th 1839, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. 341 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, December 14th 1839, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL.

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to Augustine Heard about the Robert B. Forbes’s furious reaction. This time even Houqua had to intervene: [Robert B. Forbes] has threatened that if I took the name of Russell & Co. he should consider my assurances of regard as altogether unsecuring; but I am not to be deceased in consequence. Howqua, too, tried to prevent it, probably at the instigative of others.342

However, it seems that Coolidge did not care so much about the reaction of Russell & Co., since he was deep in his enthusiastic thought of the establishment of his future house with Augustine Heard, as his letter to Heard on December 14th clearly indicates: R. B. Forbes may go home, probably will; and then if you are here, 1340’s business will come to you, & perhaps something may then be done to unite the two Houses [. . .]343

Beside his naïve thoughts and plans with his only friend Heard, Coolidge seemed to have realized the importance of Houqua’s influence. It was Houqua’s support that made Coolidge’s protest resisting Robert B. Forbes’ entry into Russell & Co. ridiculous and helpless. It is clear that Coolidge totally underestimated the personal connection between Houqua and the Forbes through Cushing. As there were just about two weeks before the opening of Coolidge’s house on January 1st 1840, the problem with the name “Russell & Co. ” was still not solved. On December 15th 1839 Robert B. Forbes went to Houqua again and asked for his advice: I have talked with Houqua about my arrangement with Coolidge & he approves of all I have done, he says if Mr. Coolidge had established himself in Co[operation] with Heard under their own names he would have helped them if they required it.344

Obviously, Houqua wanted to protect the name of Russell & Co. with which his business was closely connected since the late 1820s. If there were suddenly two houses of “Russell & Co.”, his enormous accounts would get into chaos, not mentioning that one of which would be led by Coolidge with whom Houqua didn’t want to conduct business right now. In order to make Coolidge relinquish using “Russell & Co.”, Houqua promised his help in business as reward if Coolidge and Heard used another name. In the following days Houqua possibly spoke to Coolidge several times in person. The results are showcased in a letter written by Coolidge to Augustine

342 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, December 15th 1839, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. 343 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, December 14th 1839, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. 344 R.B. Forbes to his wife, December 15th 1839, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 193.

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Heard on December 19th 1839, only four days after Robert B. Forbes’ talk with Houqua: I had previously seen H[ouqua] many times. He had been very kind to me, [. . .] advised me, as a good friend, not to take the name of R & Co., for, in a little time, it would be known who was in each house, and the business would be given to the men, and not to the name: and in the mean time they had the books, and the balances, and the correspondence, and could get all that cause before the separation was known. Furthermore, he told Forbes privately that if I did not take the name he would be my friend. I thought these things well and the next morning I told Forbes that I had made up my mind not to take the same name. I then saw Houqua, he was much pleased and said “now you talk my pleir, I show you pleir. I thinkee you do proper, and now I no forget that you beforetime was olo friend, and Mr. Heard olo friend”345 He showed more kindness and feeling than I now knew him to do before.346

This was an astonishing change in Coolidge regarding his view about Houqua. Through his personal conversations within a few days Houqua had changed Coolidge’s mind and avoided his hatred. In fact, in his later letters to Augustine Heard, Coolidge even wrote proudly that he and Houqua had become friends again.347 This shows that Coolidge could change his mind easily,348 and Houqua’s impressive influence and personal charm in dealing with foreigners. On January 1st 1840, Coolidge announced the opening of “Heard & Co.”. According to Robert B. Forbes, who visited him on January 2nd, the new beginning of Coolidge’s career was rather pathetic: Coolidge has issued his “chop” under the style of Augustine Heard & Co & we have duly congratulated him on his happy prospects – on the 2d I thought I would call on him, I found him in a small sixteen foot room with a poor fire, a straw hat on to keep him war – trunks & boxes & china were scattered round & every thing in disorder, no carpet, & he pointed out to me the place where he had slept on the floor & caught cold [. . .]349

Nearly one month later, Coolidge’s image as a merchant hadn’t changed through the establishment of his own house. On January 28th 1840 Robert B. Forbes wrote to his wife:

345 These is Houqua speaking in Pidgin English, meaning probably: Now you tell me your plan, so I can show you my plan. I think you are doing the right thing. And I will not forget that you are my old friend, so is Mr. Heard. 346 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, December 19th 1839, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. 347 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, December 19th 1839, and J. Coolidge to A. Heard, December 29th 1839, both in Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. 348 This is probably an indication of how the Baring Brothers & Company could persuade Coolidge to purchase British goods of £72,000 instead of £20,000 in 1838. 349 R.B. Forbes to his wife, January 3rd, 1840, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 196.

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[Coolidge] has made himself supremely ridiculous in all the transactions he has been engaged in & has acquired the reputation of being excessively mean in matters of trade. In short he is no better fitted to carry on business in Canton than you are.350

During the war between China and Great Britain until 1842, Coolidge, with help of Augustine Heard, gained most of commissions from Jardine Matheson & Co., the biggest British house in Canton. After the war, Augustine Heard sailed to Canton to take charge of Heard & Company. Until Heard & Company’s bankruptcy in the 1870s, the house was run by Augustine Heard and his nephews. The personal relationship between Houqua and John M. Forbes appears to have become normal again by the end of 1839. After receiving the acknowledgement through Russell & Co. that John M. Forbes still had Houqua’s confidence and would continue to manage his fortune only in America, John M. Forbes did not ask for anything further. In November 1839, he sent “some flour & crackers” through a shipment to Canton, which his brother Robert B. Forbes handed over to Houqua.351 Due to the military confrontation and the outbreak of the war directly after the Coolidge affair, the trade between the Chinese and the British, and later all foreign trade was stopped. Houqua’s business in the European market, had to be transferred to America. Therefore, John M. Forbes still had an indispensable place in Houqua’s network. Nevertheless, Houqua did not have more time to rebuild his trust towards John M. Forbes due to the outbreak of the war. As mentioned before, since the early 1840s, Houqua was busy transferring his fortune to America as quickly as possible. Perhaps Houqua foresaw the challenging times his family would go through after the war. In January 1840, Coolidge noticed that “H[ouqua] is shipping largely; every ship [. . .] had J. P. C. on its bxs, which means 1340. He is very civil to me when I go there.”352 “J. P. C.” means obviously John Perkins Cushing. This shows again that it was Cushing, who had Houqua’s trust unchanged throughout his life, not John M. Forbes. However, though it seems to be unfair, it was actually John M. Forbes, who managed Houqua’s fortune for more than half a century after Houqua’s death and who kept his promise and remitted Houqua’s descendants large sums of money whenever it was required till the last fund in America was exhausted.353 The long drawn out process of the Coolidge affair reveals not only a real case of long-distance trade but also the interactions of confidence, trust, and the need of security in Houqua’s commercial network. As the chief of this network, 350 R.B. Forbes to his wife, June 28th, 1840, in: Forbes, Letters from China, 237. 351 John M. Forbes to R. Bennet Forbes, November 16th 1839, Forbes Records, Volume F–8, BL. 352 J. Coolidge to A. Heard, January 20th 1840, Heard Records, EM–12–2, BL. 353 Cf. Wong, “Global Positioning,” 248.

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Houqua surely had difficulties in operating his business due to cultural and language barriers, delay of information, and not being allowed to go abroad etc. So, the strong need for security and limited confidence made Houqua’s trust in cases like the Coolidge affair vulnerable. In this controversy, Houqua was firstly alarmed as he was informed that his funds in London were no longer secure and even appeared to have been abused. Since these funds were entrusted to John M. Forbes, and there was no possibility for Houqua to examine the whole process in London, Houqua immediately made his decision to withdraw his power of attorney from John M. Forbes. Despite John M. Forbes’ explanation, brought by Robert B. Forbes to Houqua less than a month later, Houqua did not change his mind. In other words, Houqua’s trust in John M. Forbes became vulnerable when the security of his fortune was endangered. At this moment, in his relationship with John M. Forbes, Houqua’s instincts as a businessman had the upper hand over his role as a friend. The manner in which Houqua’s need for security affected his trust is best observed during the period starting from the arrival of Robert B. Forbes in Canton in October 1838 till August 1839. On the one hand, Houqua still appeared to be suspicious of John M. Forbes. On the other hand, this did not seem to harm Houqua’s relationship with other members of Russell & Co., especially John’s brother Robert B. Forbes, since Houqua joined the faction against Coolidge. After this long process of “recovering”, Houqua declared his satisfaction with John M. Forbes but still couldn’t give him back the entire power of attorney, since John M. Forbes was still not allowed to handle Houqua’s business in Europe. But, John P. Cushing was exempt from this strong need for security and his relationship with Houqua remained unchanged. It is noteworthy that in his letter dated May 5th 1838, Coolidge mentioned that his action was “with the concurrence of Mr. Cushing and Mr. Forbes”. That means Cushing himself should be involved as well from the very beginning. However, Houqua’s determination of his trust concerned only John M. Forbes, not Cushing. As mentioned, this solid trust to Cushing continued during the war in 1840, as Houqua transferred his property under the name of “J.P.C.” to America – a safe place to secure his fortune for his descendants.

5 Résumé 5.1 Trust in imperial China and the West The Coolidge affair reveals how vulnerable Houqua’s trust was in such an insecure business environment. However, trust was indispensable for a successful business relationship not only in early nineteenth century, but also in modern times. Although the new technologies nowadays could increase the calculation and security in business transactions, the problem of mistrust is still unavoidable. Therefore, during Houqua’s time when there were insufficient systems of control and circulation of information, trust was a fundamental risk management technique and the key to his extraordinary success. This chapter uncovers the different conceptions of “trust” in the Chinese and Western contexts as well as the manner in which it was understood by Houqua’s.

5.1.1 Familiarity, confidence and trust in Western perception The understanding of “trust”, especially in international business, has received significant attention over the decades. In 1998, a study on the development of “trust” showed at least 33 different perceptions of trust.1 In China too, there are an increasing number of studies on “trust” in social relationships.2 But most of them focus on current business, not on historical aspects or social history of premodern and early modern era. A concept, which can provide a good starting point for a comparison between Western and Chinese conceptions is the classification of “trust”, “confidence” and “familiarity”. The German sociologist Niklas Luhmann introduced this concept in the 1980s.3 Certain studies in the last three decades use a similar classification, which has been extended and clarified by Adam Seligman in particular. The following account on “trust” in the Western historical context is based mainly on Luhmann’s and Seligman’s concepts. The three elements “familiarity”, “confidence” and “trust”, which are often unconsciously used under the same semantic term “trust” in our daily lives, reflect three different degrees of demanding or qualities of social relationships.

1 Cf. Kriz and Keating, “Business relationships in China,” 302. 2 Cf. Zhai, “Essence of Trust,” 2–3. 3 Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,” 95–98. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-005

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Seligman defines the first quality, namely familiarity to mean shared strong values.4 Similar to trust, familiarity also facilitates certainty and reduces risks.5 About the relationship between the two terms Luhmann declares: trust has to be achieved within a familiar world, and changes may occur in the familiar features of the world which will have impact on the possibility of developing trust in human relations.6

In other words, familiarity is a precondition of trust.7 For Luhmann, familiarity functions as the foundation of security for trust, since no one can trust a stranger without any points of reference or prior experiences.8 However, following this meaning, in an ideal, totally familiar society where “everybody is presupposed and co-experienced as sharing the same formal, empty entity of another ego, as being another ‘I’, and impersonal ‘one’”, there would be no unfamiliar contingencies, no social complexity, and thus no need for trust.9 Just like Siegrist once notes: “Trust involves risk and vulnerability, it is important when familiarity is low.”10 About this rather paradoxical relationship between familiarity and trust, Seligman differentiates between two kinds of familiarity: the traditional familiarity of clan, family bonds or other prescribed social ties, and the one that “encompasses that element of trust which is an aspect of voluntary associations.”11 Only within the latter form of familiarity, which is based on a “civic consciousness” instead of clan or other prescribed social status, can trust emerge.12 This civic

4 Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 69 and 90. But there is a difference between Luhmann’s and Seligman’s understandings regarding “familiarity”: Whereas Luhmann comprehends familiarity as “Vertrautheit”, meaning to be familiar with someone or something based on knowledge and information etc., Seligman emphasizes shared values, meaning acknowledgement of information. In this study, the term “familiarity” includes both meanings, namely knowledge and acknowledge. 5 Luhmann, Vertrauen, 19. 6 Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,” 95. 7 It must be pointed out that familiarity is a precondition for both trust and mistrust, depending on the attitude towards future. Cf.: Luhmann, Vertrauen, 19–20. 8 Cf.: Luhmann, Vertrauen, 20. 9 According to Luhmann, the main function of trust is the reduction of social complexity. Cf.: Luhmann, Vertrauen, 23–26. In fact, Luhmann himself did not make the relation between familiarity and trust very clear. In another work he states that “the very complexity of the social order creates a greater need for [. . .] trust, a need which is now decreasingly met by familiarity.” In other words, familiarity should be counterproductive for trust. Cf.: Luhmann, Trust and Power, 20. 10 Siegrist et al. “Perception of risk,” 147. 11 Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 91. 12 Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 80–81 and 92.

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consciousness including equality, justice and sympathy, which was stressed and praised during the Enlightenment and commercialization in Europe, was also fundamental for the “strangership” in occidental commercial society. However, civic consciousness related to this failed to develop in imperial China. Unlike in Western societies, in which the bonds exclusively defined by family, custom, state and estate etc. became less important due to the development of commercial society,13 such bonds still played an essential role in the social lives of Chinese till the early twentieth century. The “traditional” familiarity reflected in acquaintanceship, especially family bonds still dominated Chinese society in early nineteenth century. The domination of family bonds, which can be traced back to Confucian familism, made any development of ties beyond family businesses very difficult due to the lack of familiarity. This could partly explain why commercialization in imperial China, despite appearing widespread after the sixteenth century, was in fact quite limited. As Fukuyama points out, there is till today a reluctance in Chinese society to bring in professional managers, because this requires reaching outside the bounds of family, “where trust is low.”14 In other words, the most desirable business relationship are within the family. If this is not possible, other forms of acquaintanceship like regional connections based on shared regional culture, customs, dialects etc., or occupational connection based on shared acknowledged codes of certain groups would also be taken into consideration in business. But without any familiarity from any kind of acquaintanceships, a further development in business relationships would hardly be possible. In this context, Houqua’s success in international business was an exception. As argued in section 4.3.2, based on family bonds, which still played an important role in nineteenth century long-distance trade, Houqua was able to establish and enlarge his international network. However, this happened after Houqua became familiar with John P. Cushing – the key person in Houqua’s commercial network. Thus, what is indeed unusual and exceptional is Houqua’s “acquaintanceship” with Cushing, who was seen as an American “devil” in Canton. At least at the beginning of their relationship, there seems to be no familiarity between Houqua and Cushing, neither in the traditional form of family bonds, nor through modern civic consciousness. The basis of familiarity which could have led to their intercultural acquaintanceship which developed to friendship,

13 Silver, “Two Different Sorts of Commerce,” 15. 14 Fukuyama, Trust, 56. The term “trust” that Fukuyama uses here is actually very close to the second type of familiarity based on civic consciousness in Seligman’s concept.

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came partly from their positions in the Canton System and partly from certain shared universal morals and qualities of a businessman valued both in Chinese and in Western contexts, such as reliable personality and talent in business.15 But more importantly, as indicated in section 4.3.4, this type of familiarity between Houqua and Cushing is based on shared experience and could only be cultivated after they had significant personal contact over a long time. Therefore, the crosscultural atmosphere in nineteenth century Canton made it possible to establish strong, shared values as a starting point of social relationship though there appeared to be no overlap between the Chinese familiarity of “acquaintanceship” and the familiarity in form of Western understanding of civic consciousness. In case of Houqua, his skills and strategies to establish positive familiarity should not be ignored: Through his generosity – evidenced in his credit relationship with Wilcocks under the influence of Cushing – Houqua gained a reputation among the American traders that held true even decades after his death. This reputation was particularly important in early international trade, as the number of agents was limited and the frequency of contact was high.16 Besides, his portraits made him familiar to Western traders, functioning not only as an efficient advertisement but also in establishing “visual” familiarity. Of course, familiarity is not the only quality to describe social relationships. In simple ancient societies, social relations could be based on the familiarity

15 Another factor which might have contributed to the familiarity between Houqua and Cushing was the pragmatism of American traders. Compared to the British, the American traders were true pragmatists. During the First Opium War, the attitude and actions of Russell & Co. ’s men were based on advancing economic self-interest. In 1839 and 1840, the representatives of Russell & Co. including Robert Bennet Forbes sent several memorandums to the US Congress, petitioning their government not to stand idly by while Britain prepared to use force to secure what they feared might be exclusive commercial privileges and rights. Meanwhile, they made use of the war to benefit their businesses: Only hours before the British naval blockade was to go into effect, a ship owned by the British entered Canton. After it was unloaded, the captain realized that there was no way for him to get out of the war zone safely while flying a British flag. He sold it cheaply to Warren Delano, the chief of Russell & Co. in Canton. But before this vessel was employed to serve the Russell & Co., Commissioner Lin requested the Americans to sell her to the Chinese government. Although Delano disliked the mandarin’s arrogance and had no sympathy for the Chinese, he was in no position to refuse this business opportunity. The ship was sold to the Chinese at a lucrative price. Refitted and heavily armed, this – originally British – vessel was then used as a battleship in the war, fighting against the British. A year and a half later, the British sank China’s first modern naval vessel, which was originally a British commercial ship. Cf.: He, “Russell and Company and the Imperialism,” 89. This American pragmatism was quite comparable to Houqua’s pragmatism indicated by his dealings in Chinese patronage. 16 Cf. Friedler, “Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist teurer,” 584.

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and the asymmetric distinction between familiar and unfamiliar fields, whereby the unfamiliar remains opaque.17 In the early period of Christianity, the difference between the familiar and the unfamiliar could be controlled by religion.18 However, over the course of time, religion and faith in God were not enough to cope with the increase of contingencies and the extension of conception of the world especially since the early modern period.19 Thus, new forms of social relations emerged, which required two further qualities beyond familiarity: “confidence” and “trust”. Unlike familiarity, which orients towards the past, through knowledge and experience from the past, both confidence and trust refer to future events. However, the distinction between “confidence” and “trust” is rather confused, since their semantic usage is usually mixed up unconsciously. In our daily lives, the term “trust” is more popular and welcome compared to “confidence”. For instance, strictly speaking, as Seligman argues, it would be wrong to state “I trust the doctor”. It would rather be “I have confidence in the doctor’s abilities”.20 Luhmann explains his understanding of the concepts: If you do not consider alternatives (every morning you leave the house without a weapon!), you are in a situation of confidence. If you choose one action in preference to others in spite of the possibility of being disappointed by the actions of others, you define the situation as one of trust. [. . .] Trust is only possible in a situation where the possible damage may be greater than the advantage you seek. Otherwise, it would simply be a question of rational calculation.21

This is to say, the essential distinction between trust and confidence is firstly the existence of a choice or the voluntary nature of it. In the case of confidence, it is a matter of enforcement or compromise, whereas trust reflects a voluntary choice. Secondly, it depends on rational calculation in choosing alternatives: If the choice is made according to rational calculation, it is a matter of confidence. Otherwise it is a choice based on trust, free of utility. Thus, trust should be free from any type of pragmatic thoughts. This rational calculation, upon which confidence is based, could be knowledge, information, or experiences from the past that set expectations. In this sense, trust could be summarized as the willingness to make oneself vulnerable to another, despite uncertainty.

17 Cf. Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,”“ 99–100. 18 Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,”“ 99–100. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 130–131. 19 Luhmann, Vertrauen, 21. 20 Cf.: Seligman, “The Challenge of Ambiguity,” 33. 21 Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,” 97–98.

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Confidence is then the belief, based on rational calculation, that certain future events will occur as expected.22 Actually, these two distinctions derived from Luhmann, namely the voluntariness and rational calculation, have their counterparts in Seligman’s concept, which can be more easily integrated into a historical perspective: Confidence is defined as “systematically based expectations of role behavior”.23 And trust is caused by the “inability to rely on, to have confidence in, as set of role expectations:”24 the greater the number of roles or statuses (and the concomitant increase in the complexity of role-sets within any one status position), the greater the potential for those types of conflict and contradictions between roles and between the (sanctioning) power of different members. [. . .]25

With this increase of role conflicts and contradictions, “a certain degree of negotiability of role expectation becomes possible.”26 The greater negotiability of role expectations leads to the greater possibility for the development of trust as a form of social relations. On the connection between confidence and trust Seligman states: the more confidence in a system of role expectations cannot be taken for granted, the more difficult it becomes to establish role reciprocity which can only be met by the establishment of trust.27

In other words, confidence and trust are complementary. Trust emerges as a form of social relationship as confidence is not enough to cope with the unexpected happenings or contingencies. The voluntariness or the existence of choice in Luhmann’s concept reflects the role conflict due to the increased number of social roles or role sets. The role conflicts and contradictions in Seligman’s concept correspond to Luhmann’s “social complexity”. The function of trust is to deal with these role conflicts and contradictions, and thus, using Luhmann’s words, reduce social complexity.28 Moreover, because of unexpected happenings, vulnerability – as the consequence of being free from rational calculation – is also an indispensable constituent, as Seligman states: “Trust then involves a vulnerability occasioned by some form of ignorance or basic uncertainty as to the other’s motives.”29

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Cf. Siegrist et al. “Perception of risk,” 147. Chua et al. “Guanxi vs networking,” 491. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 170. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 84. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 39. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 39. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 39–40. Luhmann, Vertrauen, 23–26. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 21.

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Not only are the function of trust and its distinction from confidence in both Luhmann’s and Seligman’s concepts similar, but chronological backgrounds are also alike. Starting with a simple world with relatively few complexities and dominated by familiarity, “confidence” is required later to cope with the increase of contingencies. “Trust” is regarded as a modern phenomenon – though it is difficult to determine the exact time of its emergence because only in the modern era could the conflicts and contradictions of social roles or the social complexity develop to a degree that trust, as a new quality of social relationship, became indispensable.30 Based on the increase of social complexity and the number of social roles, there were several historical developments in Western societies that contributed to the emergence of trust and its distinction from confidence. The first one was the distinction between public and private sphere. In pre-modern societies, the majority of social roles or role-sets tended to be subsumed within the parameters of determined, normative, and publicly sanctioned expectations. But in modern societies, these social roles, which were defined by the public, were formal and relatively determined, became increasingly negotiable, pliable, relatively undetermined, and private. In words of Seligman, the public realm could be identified with the “phenomenon of confidence in systematically enforced expectations”, while the private realm is connected “with those of trust, individual agency, and a space for the negotiation of role expectations”.31 Hence the distinction between private and public sphere contributed to the distinction of trust from confidence. The second helpful fact for trust to develop in Western societies is thanks to the emergence of “risk”, as opposed to “danger”. In Luhmann’s words: Only in early modern times did a new term (riesgo, rischio, risk) appear to indicate that unexpected results may be a consequence of our decisions, and not simply an aspect of cosmology, an expression of the hidden meanings of nature or the hidden intensions of God. This discovery of “risk” as a general feature of life – roughly replacing what has previously been known as fortuna – does not facilitate the task of religion, but it adds another dimension to human experience. [. . .]32

This new dimension to human experience and an aspect of social relations – trust – has emerged as a constitutive aspect of life in modern society beyond the limit of systematically based expectations or confidence.33 More importantly, the

30 Cf. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 30–43. 31 Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 148–149. 32 Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,” 96. 33 Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 170.

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distinction between “risk” and “danger” reflects again the distinction between trust and confidence. The “danger” is inherent to all external systems like environmental disasters or unexpected behaviors of others.34 The function of confidence, be it based on legal forms like laws to protect individual rights, or based on technologies to be informed about others’ behavior or the general environment as far as possible, is to avoid and control the danger. But the “risk”, which refers to the possible damages in the future as the consequence of internal decision and thus also carries the features of voluntariness and vulnerability, can be only solved by trust. The third contribution to “trust” in Western societies was the search for the replacement of faith in God. As noted in section 2.1.1, Christianity provided the basis for equality and the perception of abstraction in social relationship in Western societies. Moreover, as the degree of social complexity was relatively low, the boundary between familiar and unfamiliar could be controlled by religion.35 In early Christianity, faith in God was not only the most important shared value, but also functioned as a mediating factor among the believers. In other words, the individual exists primarily as an “individual-in-relation-to-God” and the relationship between individuals was based on a common fellowship to God.36 But due to the process of Reformation since the sixteenth century, a new form of relationship between selves had to emerge, namely a direct relation between individuals unmediated by the Christian God.37 In such a relationship without the involvement of God, faith in God was no more relevant. This changed function and position of God in social relationship, together with the secularization of grace and church, contributed to the loss of part of the transcendent nature of God and the replacement of faith in God. Therefore, “trust” was beneficial as a replacement of Christian faith in relationships between individuals. In Seligman’s words: Faith could no longer be supported by the armature of transcendent God nor could it provide the nexus for interpersonal relations. What took place was, in the broadest of terms, a search for trust. [. . .] the process of secularization and the replacement of godly by human attributes also implied the replacement of faith by trust.38

34 Cf.: Luhmann, Soziologie des Risikos, 30–31. Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,” 100. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 172–173. 35 Cf. Luhmann, “Familiarity, Confidence, Trust,” 99. 36 Cf. Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 47–48. 37 Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 49. 38 Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 49.

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In summary, based on the increased social complexity and the classification of “familiarity”, “confidence” and “trust”, trust as a modern phenomenon of social relationship has the features of voluntariness and vulnerability. The emergence of trust in the West took place because of the distinction between public and private, the need to solve risk and the requirement of a replacement of faith in God since the early modern era.

5.1.2 Where was “trust” in imperial China? How was trust perceived in the Chinese context and in Houqua’s network in early nineteenth century? As mentioned before, familiarity, especially the “traditional” type of familiarity based on acquaintanceship and family bonds, played an essential role in Chinese social networks. Between Houqua and John P. Cushing, there was familiarity, which was based neither on family bonds nor on civic consciousness but rather on their shared experiences over time and universal values relevant for merchants such as reliability. But, familiarity was not the only quality in this intercultural relationship. So how did confidence and trust play out in Houqua’s network? To this point, it is significant to raise the question, namely whether the Western concepts of “confidence” and “trust” can be integrated in the Chinese context. Following Seligman’s theory, the increase of social roles, i.e. role conflicts and contradictions since the early modern era, was indispensable for the emergence of trust and the growing need for distinction between confidence and trust. However, this condition of “trust” would hardly be compatible with the Chinese context of the early nineteenth century. Just as Hamilton pointed out, the strengthening of social hierarchy led to social roles became better and more strictly defined in the course of last two millenniums.39 Consequently, even if there were an increased number of roles, well-defined social roles with duties and obedience that were anchored in the Qing Law, avoided the conflicts and contradictions between different roles as far as possible. Closely connected to the influence of hierarchy, the perception of “conflict” and “chaos” in Chinese tradition also played a relevant role: In the Chinese social and mental history, every school of philosophy always perceived “chaos (乱)” negatively. The “chaos under the heaven (天下大乱)” was the most terrible state for the Chinese people and the most serious concern for the ruler. The

39 Hamilton, “Patriarchalism,” 417. Hamilton, “Patriarchy, patrimonialism, and filial piety,” 94.

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“peace under the heaven (天下太平)” or “great order under the heaven (天下大治)” was the most desirable goal for every ruler in imperial China. Despite the change of dynasties one after another, the desire of “peace (安)” remained the central core of the structure of Chinese culture, and the effects of this concept on Chinese social development are still noticeable today.40 More importantly, as the opposite of “chaos (乱)”, the Chinese conception of “peace (安)” is not only against military conflict like wars, but also against every possible type of conflict including disturbed hierarchy or social role-conflicts. Thus, this “peace (安)” requires everyone “to act proper to or to be contented with his role (安分守己)” in the social hierarchy.41 Therefore, as the rules and duties of a social role was defined precisely, the behaviors connected to these social roles could be predicted, and thus conflicts between social roles could be avoided.42 In other words, well-defined roles and the strengthening of social hierarchy in imperial Chinese society worked precisely to avoid and control the unexpected and contingencies from taking place as much as possible. In this way, “trust” as a solution to cope with the limit of systematically based expectations became unnecessary. Furthermore, founded on the strengthening of social hierarchy and roles, there were several profound differentiations regarding social development in imperial China compared to that in the West. Firstly, as analyzed in section 2.1.2,

40 Sun, The deep structure, 10–11. 41 Sun, The deep structure, 344f. This thought of “peace” based on social roles can be found not only in Houqua’s behavior and his efforts to avoid every possible conflict especially when dealing with foreigners, but was also deeply rooted in Confucian elite consciousness. Cf.: Rowe, Saving the World, 307. 42 The most difficult dilemma of role-conflict, theoretically, in the Chinese context would be the conflict between the loyalty to the ruler (忠) and filial piety (孝). Indeed, both social roles, as a loyal subject to the ruler and the filial son to the father, served Chinese social hierarchy in the same way. If the emperor and his ministers were filial to their parents, then all subjects would in turn be filial and this virtue would translate into loyalty to the ruler. In early Confucian works, filial piety was placed above loyalty in cases of conflict. For instance, in the context of Lunyu (论语), the son concealing his father’s misconduct would abandon not only his humane love for the victim but also his loyalty to the ruler. In a discussion about the threeyear mourning period on the death of a parent, Confucius also holds that, in order to requite his parents’ love for him, the superior man ought to observe this ritual even at the risk of having propriety go to ruin. Cf.: Liu, “To Become a Filial Son,” 178. However, according to a study by Norman Kutcher on the mourning rituals in imperial China, filial piety lost its place as the keystone social virtue over the course of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1911). During the Qing period, the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, while affirming the centrality of filial piety (孝) in official pronouncements, elevated loyalty to the ruler (忠) to the primary position. Cf.: Kutcher, Mourning in Late Imperial China, 190–195.

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the unclear and problematic perception of “private” was rooted in Confucian ideology, which perceived the “private” – despite its unavoidable existence in human nature – as a negative and even shameful phenomenon. Moreover, since patrimonial hierarchy legitimized the emperor as the owner of “everything under the heaven”, and in the same way the patriarchal family hierarchy legitimized the head of the family owing the entire family property, the distinction between “private” and “public” could be never clearly perceived in the Chinese context. This led to an ever increased differentiation between the theoretical ideology advocating unrealistic ideas like “give no thought on oneself (大公无私)” or “the world is public (天下为公)”, and the reality which was that, the “private” as a part of human life could never be abolished. In contrast, the “private” played an immense role in the personalization of social relationships in imperial China and in the problem of corruption. Under such circumstances, “trust” emerging from the distinction between private and public realms was hardly possible in the Chinese context with its confused perceptions of “private” and “public”. The second differentiation is the solution and perception of “risk”. Similar to the manner in which “private” is understood, “risk”, which was combined with “conflict” and “chaos”, was also perceived negatively in the Chinese tradition, since risk-taking was a factor that disturbed the “peace (安)”. Even when the risk-taking was unavoidable, the solution for risk in Chinese society was not necessarily “trust”. According to a recent study on social institutions in imperial China and pre-modern England, whereas risk-sharing institutions based on relationships among non-kin people evolved in the individualistic, nuclear family-based English society and in much of Europe, a “clan-based risk-sharing institution” evolved in Chinese society.43 This “clan-based” institution was the family bond, in which the elders and the family head in particular, according to Confucian ideology, were responsible for taking care of the young and the poor. In other words, even in case of risk-taking, it became a matter of family bond that governed it, not necessarily a matter of “trust”. This is also the reason for the small scale of enterprises in imperial China, which were usually clan- or family-owned and family managed. Thirdly, there was no need to search for a replacement of the faith in God in imperial China. As noted, neither had monotheism existed in Chinese society like Christianity in Western culture, nor had there been any profound revolution in Chinese culture and mind until the end of nineteenth century like the Enlightenment. The faith in Chinese society comparable to the Christian faith in God, might have been faith in Confucius, or for the “uneducated” and ordinary

43 Greif and Iyigun, “Social Organizations,” 535–536.

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Chinese who did not feel close to Confucius, faith in the Chinese emperor due to the impact of the Confucian patrimonial social order on the common Chinese. This can be seen in Houqua’s gratefulness towards the emperor who bestowed him his honorary title. Regardless of the Dynasty, the position of emperor as a patriarch remained the same until 1911, and there was de facto no need to search for a replacement for the faith placed on the emperor – which began to fade anyway – and thus no need for the emergence of “modern” trust.44 To sum up, the social conditions, particularly under the effect of intensified hierarchy during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, were not conducive for the emergence of trust according to the Western concept. Furthermore, the pragmatization of social relationships in the Chinese context was also incompatible with voluntary and vulnerable “trust”, since pragmatic thought makes a “trustworthy” relationship that free from utility hardly possible. Thus, following the Western conception, there would be no place for “trust” in imperial China. Nevertheless, as already shown in Houqua’s intercultural practices, due to insurmountable language and cultural barriers, communication and business transfer in this intercontinental commercial network with American participation would be inconceivable without “trust”, or something more than familiarity and confidence. But due to the inseparability of the three terms, the construction of “familiarity” and “confidence” in early nineteenth century China must be clarified.

5.1.3 “Familiarity” and “confidence” in Chinese perception The importance of family ties is illustrated in an anthropological study, which shows that even in the twentieth century in a Chinese village, “a man not thoroughly imbedded in a network of clan cannot be completely trusted because he cannot be dealt with in the normal way.”45 This “normal way” is precisely the traditional Chinese familiarity of family bond. In words of Fukuyama, such “distrust” is mainly because of “the weakness of a sense of duties and obligations to anyone outside the family,”46 or lack of familiarity.

44 In contrast, as the Qing Dynasty ended in 1911, it was difficult for the young republic to transform faith in the emperor as the patriarch into a confidence in the republican government. 45 Wolf, The House of Lim, 23. 46 According to Fukuyama, this weakness can be traced back to the self-sufficiency of the peasant household in Chinese tradition. Traditionally the Chinese peasant usually owned his own plot and had minimal contact with social superiors except when he was taxed. The state provided few social services in return for the taxes. The sense of paternalistic obligation

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Chinese social networks are founded on this centrality of family bonds and therefore it is more suitable to classify Chinese relationships into three categories according to the degree or intensity of familiarity – family bonds, other acquaintanceship outside family bonds, and strangership.47 “Strangership” is beyond the scope of this study. It is important to note that the boundaries between these three social groups are permeable and flexible. The family bond is a special and the most stable form of acquaintanceship, because relations within a family or clan were most strongly impacted by familiarity when it came to Confucian familism and patriarchalism. For example, through marriage, Mowqua as an acquaintance was integrated into Houqua’s family bonds. As for the Hong Merchants’ dinner parties and other entertainments, as well as Houqua’s portraits as gifts, they were all aimed at transforming “strangership” into an acquaintanceship. Houqua’s relationship with Cushing shows that even under extremely challenging conditions of intercultural communication, a strangership could become acquaintanceship and friendship, and familiarity, confidence, and trust play an indispensable role in this process. But in order to better understand this intercultural process, it is necessary to understand familiarity, confidence and possibly trust in the aforementioned three categories of relationship in imperial China. Until today, the most “natural” and fundamental social relationship for a Chinese individual is the family bond, which has the strongest familiarity. Since the family relationship is not the focus of this study, I shall explain two integral features related to it briefly. The first one is that inside family bonds in imperial China, social relationships were regulated by patriarchal hierarchy, particularly through Confucian moral principles like the Three Bonds. These

between lord and peasant that existed in the European manorial system, however inconsistent and hypocritical it often was, did not have a counterpart in China. In the course of time, a peasant could trust – or be familiar with – only members of his own family, because those on the outside like officials, bureaucrats etc. felt no reciprocal sense of obligation to him and felt no constraints about treating him rapaciously. Cf.: Fukuyama, Trust, 87–88. Considering the theoretical Confucian morals that indicated that a “father-mother-official (父母官)” should treat his people like his children, this “distrust” of peasants toward the state and bureaucracy outside family is somewhat radical. Nevertheless, it indicates again the influence of pragmatic thought in social relationship to deal with the uncertain environment outside family bonds. 47 I borrowed this categorization (家人，熟人，生人) mainly from Yang Guoshu (杨国枢), who introduced this categorization originally to classify the different social behaviors of Chinese. Cf.: Yang, “The mode of joint capital,” 105.

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principles provided shared values that were foundational, upon which family “trust”, or in Seligman’s words, “familiarity” was based on.48 Secondly, whereas familiarity was the condition for the familial patriarchal hierarchy, confidence ensured security. It is significant to point out the vital importance of the family or clan laws (家法，宗法), upon which the lineage was organized. Up to now many historical and anthropological studies show the manner in which family laws were strictly enforced through control and sanctions within a clan especially in south China.49 Well-defined social roles with duties and rules to obey anchored in official laws and family laws, in particular, functioned until the early twentieth century as legal reference of social behaviors for every individual. As protective measures, the sanctions were also well defined. For instance in the “Qing Code (大清律例)” about the relationship between younger members and elders in a family or clan, the sanctions, i.e. the punishments the younger members had to pay for their disobedience toward the elders, are summarized in the “Ten Evils (十恶)” with extremely serious penalties.50 The fact that these penalties in the Qing Dynasty were more complex and better defined than those in former dynasties,51 indicates a more sophisticated system of sanctions that worked to secure role expectations as well as build confidence. Thus, relations within a family bond in imperial China were strongly patriarchal and hierarchical, non-voluntary and secured by sanctions. The desirable peace (安) was based on the familiarity or acceptance of Confucian patriarchal hierarchy and confidence in its obedience. The next relevant group of relationships – central to the present study on Houqua – is acquaintanceship outside family bonds, including all possible social connections, such as partnership, friendship, neighborhood, patronage,

48 When Fukuyama refers to “trust”, he means largely the “traditional” type of familiarity derived from Seligman. For the sake of a better distinctive perception of “trust” outside Chinese family and in the intercultural context, I prefer to use “familiarity” instead of “trust” to describe relationship inside a family bond. 49 Particularly in Guangdong and Fujian, the kinship during the Qing Dynasty was so powerful that “the state law was less important than the family law (国法不如家法).” However, the relationship between government and local kinship was not hostile or competitive. The enforcement of family laws was supported by the government, as long as it benefited the local security. The government was essential to the local families and kinship because of the adoption of orthodox state rituals that indicate the families’ acceptance as a legitimate social actor. Feng, Erkang 2005, 46. Cf. also: Zhao, A dream of the home, 88–89. 50 Moreover, even in case of “Great Amnesty (大赦)” for instance because of the Empress’ birthday, as all of the crimes would be released, the punishment due to the “Ten Evils (十恶)” could not be pardoned. Cf.: Zhang, Customs, Law, Society, 90–91. 51 Zhang, Customs, Law, Society, 92–95.

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etc. In Houqua’s network, almost all the Chinese players in the Canton system belonged to his acquaintanceship. As indicated in section 2.1.2, familiarity was relevant in acquaintanceship, as it formed the most important distinction between strangers and acquaintances. Familiarity outside family bonds was not only based on common language and cultural background, but the acknowledgement of social hierarchies. Theoretically, the most dominant hierarchies were the patrimonial hierarchy with the emperor as the patriarch, the hierarchy of the four social strata with the merchant class at the bottom, and the bureaucratic hierarchy of officialdom. In practice, patronage based on pragmatism also played a central role. As illustrated in section 3.3, although all these hierarchies originated from Confucian ideology, there were tendencies of personalization and pragmatization over the course of time, which was more noticeable in acquaintanceship outside family bonds. In other words, outside of family ties, the type of social relationship in acquaintanceship was determined not only by faith in Confucian moral values, but also through personal bonds and pragmatic thoughts. Confucian moral values were acknowledged and people were familiar with them but they were not necessarily implemented in reality. The tendency toward pragmatism instead of Confucian moral ideology is already illustrated in Houqua’s dealings with local officials and his “Hong friends”. But how did the hierarchies influence “confidence” in Chinese acquaintanceship? “Confidence” was perceived and developed quite differently in imperial China compared in the West. As Seligman noted, confidence is a standard phenomenon in pre-modern societies in form of well-regulated and heavily sanctioned role expectations of a prescribed nature.52 Since the early modern era, with the increase in social complexity and role conflicts, trust was required. However, this did not mean a decrease in confidence. In contrast, confidence was increasingly realized in Western societies by scientific and technological improvements, the growth of information, increasing possibilities to assess knowledge, and advancement in institutions, infrastructures and so on.53 Through these changes an individual was not only better informed about the past, the present and the future happenings, but also more confident and independent to determine his own destiny. But in imperial China, particularly during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1911), there was no advanced technology compared to what was available

52 Cf.: Seligman, The Problem of Trist, 36–37. 53 Cf.: Greif and Iyigun, “Social Organizations,” 535.

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in Western Europe at the time.54 Similar to confidence in family bonds, it was social control, especially the use of sanctions that beneficiated confidence in acquaintanceship in the Chinese context. This is evident in Houqua’s position in the Canton System. In Houqua’s patronage relationship with local officials, the appropriate expectations from both roles were clearly defined. As a client, Houqua had to fulfill two kinds of expectations: firstly his administrative service in Canton trade and foreign affairs since the Chinese Confucian officials were not willing to deal with the traders or foreign barbarians; and secondly, the financial often personal expectations – be it official taxes and donations, or private bribes. As illustrated in chapter 3.1, although both his roles were extremely unpleasant, Houqua still tried his best to satisfy his official patrons. This was because of Houqua’s fear of sanctions, since the Hong Merchants, as well as Houqua’s family, had already experienced many tragedies.55 But more importantly, the increased possibilities available to local officials to control and punish the Hong Merchants, were the consequence of increased duties for the Hong Merchants. As mentioned in chapter 2.3, in course of time more duties combined with sanctions were legislated, such as the regulation of the Security Merchants since the 1740s and the prohibition of credit relationships with foreigners since the 1760s etc.56 In other words, 54 Some scholars such as Mark Elvin and Joseph Needham assume that the scientific and technological progress in imperial China came to a halt around the fourteenth century and thus the Song Dynasty (960–1279) is regarded as the “peak” of technological development. Cf.: Brandt et al. “From Divergence of Convergence,” 49. Although this claim has been refuted by many, such as from Kenneth Pomeranz who shows in his “The great divergence” remarkable similarities between China and Europe in economy during the eighteenth century, the perspective of an early stop or the “Needham Puzzle” is an important view on the general development of Chinese society. In this study, I view the last centuries of imperial China as a period of a slow development in technology and science. 55 The most serious sanctions for the Hong Merchants were the loss of all the purchased titles as well as family properties, being exiled to Eli (伊利), an extremely remote region of Xinjiang Province where living conditions was incomparably harder than in Canton. Most of the Hong Merchants would not be able to survive there. Moreover, the sanctions were to be inherited by relatives or associates, who were forced to clear the debts left by the punished Hong Merchant. Even suicide was not uncommon in tragedies of bankrupt Hong Merchants. For more details about the sanctions cf.: Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 25, 491–502. Houqua’s father had initially refused to become a Hong Merchant in 1782, he was forced by the local officials in Canton into the salt trade and paid 80,000 taels to get in and out of it. Cf.: Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 263. 56 After the 1760s, borrowing money from foreigners was prohibited and the punishment for anyone disobeying this rule was exile to Ili. Most of the Hong Merchants got punished because of their foreign debts. Yngshaw (颜时瑛) and Kewshaw (张天球) in the 1780s, and Eequa (吴昭平) in the early 1790s were all examples of merchants who failed to pay back their foreign debts and

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the more legislated duties the Hong Merchants had to take on, the more opportunities the local officials had to punish the Hong Merchants. Based on this power of sanction, a local official could confidently expect Houqua’s obedience. Obviously, the confidence in this patronage between Houqua and the local officials was asymmetrical, since it was not possible for Houqua in his position as a Hong Merchant to punish his patrons. In return, his patrons gave him rewards for his service like official titles that gave Houqua social respect, continued authority in foreign trade, and most importantly protection.57 However, unlike the power of sanctions held by the local officials in their hands, such rewards could not be decided by Houqua himself, and thus did not work to build his confidence toward officials. Even his red cap – his most valuable symbol for his social honor – was withdrawn in 1821 by the Governor Ruan Yuan (阮元), because of his involvement in opium traffic.58 Thus, this lack of confidence on Houqua’s side, at least during the first two decades of his career, made him timid and extremely careful.

were exiled to Ili. Cf.: Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 255 and 264. Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), Volume 25, 492. 57 About the potential protection the local officials could provide for Houqua, it is worth mentioning that at least in my research up to now, I have not found any evidence showing a good relationship between Houqua and any local government officials. As illustrated in chapter 3.1, in the most important affairs, in which Houqua’s position was extremely awkward, the local officials were obviously not on Houqua’s side. Therefore, the “protection” was mostly passive, i.e. “leaving alone”. For instance during a foreign affair in 1820, the local government in Canton withdrew the chops, or the trading allowances from almost all the Hong Merchants. But Houqua, as well as Mowqua and Puankhequa who had “good” relations to local officials were left alone with their trading activities. Cf.: S.R. & Co. to Ed. Carrington & Co. & Cycus Butler, on 12th November 1820, in: Russell & Co. Records, Oversize Letterbook, LC. 58 The most serious sanction Houqua received from his official patrons was the withdrawal of his red cap. In the report from the Governor Ruan Yuan in 1821, Houqua’s guilt was that he – together with other Hong Merchants – had hidden information due to his personal needs (“与众商通同徇隐”). However, this inference is based on the general fact that Houqua knew the foreigners very well, not on any details of his illegal activities in the opium traffic. Cf.: Official report of Ruan Yuan to the Emperor Daoguang on 4th day of the 10th month, 1st year of Daoguan (November 8th 1821), in: Selected Imperial Documents concerning the Thirteen Hongs of Canton (清宫广州十三行档案精选), 187–188. Also: Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海 关志), Volume 18, 360. It is also significant to remark that this anti-opium campaign began in 1821, the first year of emperor Daoguang’s reign. Remembering the Amherst ships that surveyed the China coast just a few years before, and in view of the intelligence brought by the traders that the British were already in control of both Kashmir and Afghanistan, the new emperor Daoguang was more willing to adopt a hardened policy towards the British in Canton. An anti-opium campaign offered the best facility for Ruan Yuan to strengthen his foreign policy and establish a positive impression on the emperor. Cf. Wei, “Juan Yüan,” 162.

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Nevertheless, as illustrated in section 3.1.4, in the late 1830s, there was a noticeable increase in Houqua’s confidence in his position as a client of local officials. While he was described as a “timid” by the EIC in 1811,59 in March 1839, when he was forced to be appear publicly wearing iron chains, Houqua appeared to be “calm & dignified” despite the humiliation the officials put him through.60 Houqua’s business ability and wealth kept him safe from foreign debts, as well as many other potential problems with his official patrons, and gave him honors through purchased official titles. More importantly, having a large part of his fortunes overseas, safe from the sanctions imposed by his patrons in China, increased his confidence. Nonetheless, although there were signs showing that his faith in Confucian social values concerning his patronage relation to local officials began to fade with this increase of confidence, he still could not free himself from the paradox between the desiderated prestige and the inferiority determined by his social roles. In fact, Houqua – despite his outstanding ability in an outstanding trading condition in Canton – was still a representative figure of Chinese merchants in imperial China, whose confidence in their relationship with their Confucian official patrons was never strong enough to free them. Instead, the belief in the Confucian sense of “peace (安)”, which required everyone to act according to his role in the social hierarchy, led even a wealthy merchant like Houqua who desired a better life to work toward this only in a pragmatic and passive way. This means that gaining a peaceful life meant any drastic change such as fighting against the bureaucrats for more rights and decisive power in their patronage to officialdom was not a possibility, since such change might disturb the desirable “peace”. Also, in Houqua’s acquaintanceship with his “Hong friends” the effect of “peace” is noticeable. Between Houqua and other Hong Merchants, the confidence was less asymmetrical despite Houqua’s position as the senior Hong Merchant, which because of the duties connected to the position gave him more trouble than benefits.61 Therefore, on Houqua’s side, his confidence toward his “Hong friends” was based not really on his official position as the senior Hong Merchant, but rather 59 IOR, Volume R/10/26, Secret Consultations, Season 1811/12, 21. 60 Forbes, Letters from China, 109. 61 According to the records of the EIC, before he became the Senior Hong Merchant in 1813, he tried to escape from this position many times, and even tried to retire. In 1821, due to the problems and duties he had to face as a senior Hong Merchant, Houqua complained that he was “sick” of being a Hong Merchant. Cf.: Samuel Russell & Co. to Edward Carrington on 13th November 1821, In: Oversize, Russell & Co. Records, LC. Cf. also: IOR, Volume R/10/26, Secret Consultations, Season 1811/12, 4 and 21. Despite having the position as the senior Hong Merchant, Houqua was not even able to force other Hong Merchants to appear in the official meetings. See Houqua complaining to the EIC in 1828 in: FO, 1048/28/31.

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as creditor. In 1813, it was noted by the EIC that “[Houqua’s] immense wealth given him a decided superiority over the other Merchants in every commercial transaction.”62 Obviously, what Houqua possessed was the power of financial sanction, which surely contributed to his confidence in the obedience of his weak colleagues whom he nursed. But, on the other side, this obedience was very limited due to several factors. The first being the Confucian sense of “peace (安)”: Everyone, particularly local officials, would be pleasant to bring about a “peaceful” situation in their administrative district without any conflicts. While Houqua was fearful of officials’ sanction in his patronage relationship, in his relationship to other Hong Merchants he feared a disturbance in the “peace”. As illustrated in section 3.2.2, Houqua tried to avoid a direct confrontation especially in dealing with his competitors, since any kind of conflict between him and his “Hong friends” was counter to “peace” being cultivated and should not be noticed by the local officials. Secondly, the other Hong Merchants were able to punish Houqua as well. The fact that the local officials were the direct patrons for all the Hong Merchants, and Houqua was not the only one who was personally connected to local officials, made the Hong Merchants somehow “equal” in front of local government. As the EIC observed, the relationship among the Hong Merchants was characterized by “jealousy and distrust”.63 Using the power of the officials in their competition with each other through petition or accusation was common. Also, his colleagues such as Conseequa often leveled accusations against Houqua. Due to the lack of evidence, it cannot be ascertained whether Conseequa’s accusations against Houqua were purely a tactic to hurt his business. But there are cases proving that not maintaining good relationships with his fellow Hong friends could ruin a Hong Merchant’s life.64 After all, “to avenge oneself in the name of public interests

62 IOR, Volume R/10/26, Secret Consultations, Season 1813/14, 61. 63 IOR, Volume R/10/26, Secret Consultations, Season 1813/14, 57. 64 One of such tragedies proving the other Hong Merchants’ power of sanction and the importance of building good relationship with competitors happened in the 1790s which Houqua must have witnessed as a young man: In 1780, as a Hong Merchant Coqua was in prison due to his foreign debts, he paid local officials a large bribe, which freed him from prison and the charge of bankruptcy. The bribe was so large that the claims against Coqua, amounting to $1,428,128 were disallowed by the Hoppo. Later, one of Coqua’s “Hong friends” named Munqua had agreed to complete some of Coqua’s unfulfilled contracts with the EIC in 1775, in order to get more business and do the EIC a favour, not to undertake all of Coqua’s debts. However, partly due to the Senior Hong Merchant at that time, namely Puankhequa’s fear that Munqua might enlarge his business and become a threat to Puankhequa’s supremacy, partly due to the lack of Munqua’s care of good relationship with his “Hong friends” and local officials, Munqua was pressed by almost all sides – i.e. from other Hong Merchants led by

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(公报私仇)”65 was a popular term used in Ming and Qing novels, which also reflects again the unclear and problematic differentiation of “private” and “public” and the manner in which public interest could easily be abused for private purposes. Thirdly, even in the credit relationship, Houqua could be the absolute patron over other Hong merchants. His confidence was limited due to the official dealings with bankrupt Hong Merchants and his own pragmatic thought. Sometimes Houqua was forced to assist weak Hong Merchants, because it probably cost him more in case they went bankrupt than his financial help to them would cost him. In summary, the limited confidence of Houqua toward the other Hong Merchants made his patronage relationship to his Hong friends less asymmetric. This was due to his limited power of sanction, which was weakened by the power of local officials. In other words, the asymmetrical power of sanctions, be it formal or informal, decided the degree or the stability of a hierarchy.

5.1.4 “Trust” under the shadow of sanctions The previous analysis about Houqua’s acquaintanceship demonstrates the importance as well as the differences in the perception of confidence in the Chinese context. Whereas confidence in social relationship in the West can be identified as systematically based role expectations, in the Chinese context of the early nineteenth century, confidence was de juri Confucian morally and hierarchically based role expectation, but de facto sanction-based obedience. It cannot be denied that the fear of sanctions also plays a role in the Western understanding of

Puankhequa, the local officials and the EIC – to clear up Coqua’s debts. Otherwise, the debts would be paid by the remaining Hong Merchants collectively. As a result, although Munqua became the Senior Hong Merchant after the death the Puankhequa in January 1788, his fortune was exhausted by paying Coqua’s debts. Ironically, Coqua was reported in 1791 to be living in luxury, to the consternation and frustration of his English creditors. In 1795, Munqua became ill. In 1796, as he declared insolvent, he did not have any property left. In the same year he committed suicide. More details cf.: Cheong, The Hong Merchants of Canton, 171–172 and 259–260. This case also uncovers the power of local officials like the Hoppo, who was able to use his official position to free Coqua from his debts at Munqua’s expense. Such strongly personalized execution was rather common in the execution in Qing era and led to further personalization of social relationship in general. Moreover, the fact that Munqua could become a Senior Hong Merchant in such an awkward situation shows that the position of Senior Hong Merchant was not always connected with power de facto. As Houqua’s case shows, to be a Senior Hong Merchant meant rather burden than benefit. 65 “on the public interest” also means by using the power of government or officials.

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confidence and trust. In Luhmann’s concept, for instance, it is decisive for trust that the sanction should stay “latent” and develop its generalizing impact merely as assurance. Otherwise the sanction might be contra-productive for building trust.66 Seligman once categorized sanction as a sufficient means but not the only way of obtaining confidence.67 And thus, both Luhmann and Seligman view sanctions as being unfavorable for trust, but the absence of sanction is not the only criterion for the emergence of trust. In early nineteenth century imperial China, sanctions had far more importance in confidence and social relationship in general than it did in Western perception.68 During the course of the imperial era, sanctions in Chinese social relationships in the early nineteenth century were personalized and pragmatized and this move was accompanied by the development of personalization and pragmatization. These tendencies were closely connected with the increased power of informal sanctions. As explored in section 2.1.3, due to the personalization of social relations, imperial China was “governed by person (人治)”, rather than “governed by law (法治)”. The decision of imposing sanctions was controlled by the person in charge, not by law. This meant that formal sanctions, which were legal sanctions anchored in laws and that served social hierarchies based on Confucian ideology, became useless. In contrast, informal sanctions, which could be non-legal or in form of laws and were in the hands of local officials and this was crucial to daily lives of the Chinese.69 In order to understand these sanctions in Chinese society, it is necessary to begin with the problems of the Qing administration.

66 Luhmann, Vertrauen, 36–38. 67 According to Seligman, confidence is predicated on the knowledge of what will be. And this knowledge many in turn be based either on the ability to impose sanctions, or the familiarity in the sense of “sameness”. Cf.: Seligman, “The Challenge of Ambiguity,” 1998, 392. 68 In the imperial Chinese bureaucratic system, the ministry referred to the “Ministry of Justice” in the Western sense, and was the “刑部”, which literally means the “ministry of sanction”. This shows in another way, how important sanctions were in Chinese bureaucracy. 69 Cf.Zhao, A dream of the home, 77f. Moreover, a formal sanction could be easily transformed into an informal one through the personalized execution. For instance, one of the penalties used quite frequently since the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) was “strokes” or “beating with a bid stick at court (廷杖)”. In the Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海 关志), this penalty is the most frequent way of legal sanctions. Depending on the “technique” of beating, the results under the same legal sanctions, i.e. the same number of beats, could be very different: If the imperial guard in charge received enough briberies, the prisoner might not have to suffer much. If not, the prisoner might even die. Cf. Bo, History of the Chinese People, vol.2 (2008), 549. Cf. also: Liang, Customs Records of Guangdong Province (粤海关志), volumes 17, 18 and 19, 336–393.

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It is well known that the geographical size of imperial China expanded immensely in the Qing Dynasty and the population also increased, particularly during the eighteenth century. However, the number of bureaucrats remained almost the same and the system of governance did not change to meet the increase in population.70 Therefore, despite attempts by the emperor to keep several essential economic branches under his control by sending his bondservants, it was unavoidable that his patrimonial authority and central control were no longer effective or present on a local scale, such as in a place far away from Peking like Canton. In the early nineteenth century, the execution of laws, or the power of formal sanctions, lays de facto in the hands of local officials. Therefore, informal sanctions could easily be employed pragmatically by personal motivation under the guise of formal sanctions. In other words, while the ideology of Confucian patriarchalism combined with family-law was still effective inside the clan and family ties, when it came to acquaintanceship outside the family, formal sanctions which were theoretically based on conviction in Confucian values and legislated in law, were increasingly replaced by personalized and pragmatized informal sanctions. For the common Chinese man, avoiding informal sanctions instead of following the laws, was of vital importance.71 This was precisely Houqua’s central concern and fears regarding his Chinese social network. The degree or the intensity of sanction governed the degree of asymmetry in a hierarchy based on obedience. Following this, it can be assumed that while the increase of social complexity since the early modern era played the decisive

70 Rowe, China’ s Last Empire, 49. This was also a serious problem in Qing local administration. According to a research by William Rowe, there might easily be a million people in a populous county in the 18th and early 19th century. The magistrate was responsible for knowing everything that went on within its borders and for all aspects of local defence and policing, maintenance of public works, popular livelihoods, education and local culture, and, most pressingly, civil litigation within his jurisdiction. Cf.: Rowe, China’s Last Empire, 37. Due to this impossibility of these tasks and the remoteness to central government and the emperor, the local administration depended heavily on the personal interest of local officials. 71 The common Chinese in imperial China were usually not able to resort to the law for protection, even when the legal codes supported their claims. To resort to civil courts often meant disaster (incarceration, financial ruin, etc.) for the defendant, accuser and witness, especially if they were of low social standing and had no means of extra-legal influence over the court’s decision. Magistrates themselves – who did not come from the region they governed – were unfamiliar with legal precedence and could lose their positions and even more for “mistakes” and therefore tried to avoid delivering judgements. As a result, people did not trust justice and had to build up networks of alliances and pragmatic friendships as a form of insurance against informal sanctions, degradations, false accusation by enemies and officials, and the extractive demands of the government and of its formal and informal representatives at the local level. Cf.: Eisenstadt and Roniger, Patrons, clients, and friends, 140.

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role in the development and distinction between familiarity, confidence and trust in the West, in imperial Chinese society, personalized and pragmatized sanctions, or the absence of sanctions, was the central criterion for differentiation of Chinese social relationships. This absence of sanctions could happen in two scenarios. The first scenario, which I define as “blind trust”, occurs because of the lack of familiarity or lack of information about the person or situation. In other words, the possibility of imposing sanctions in case of betrayal or disobedience might be unknown to the person who was betrayed, in the case of dealing with a stranger in a “strangership”. In cases such as this, “blind trust” is vulnerable, but not necessarily voluntary, because there is no other choice in certain situations other than to trust a stranger. Due to cultural and language barriers, such “blind trust” was undesirable but sometimes unavoidable in business transactions between the Hong Merchants and foreign traders, especially during the early stages as they barely knew each other. In the early years of Houqua’s career, he was conducting a lot of business with the “newcomers”, the American traders with whom he had virtually no prior experience.72 Moreover, due to the slow transmission of information at the time, Houqua could never be informed in time about his shipments managed by these American “strangers”. But, over the course of time, in order to avoid blind trust, Houqua did his best to stay informed about international trade and let Cushing teach him about business. Besides, he also successfully transformed the strangership with some foreigners into acquaintanceship and even friendship, so that his trust did not have to be blind and this is the second scenario in which the fear of sanctions was absent. In this case, sanctions are not ignored unconsciously but in a conscious manner, i.e. it is clearly known for both sides that there are no sanctions in case of betrayal. Based on this understanding, in Houqua’s network, this was the type of trust that his business partnership with the Americans was based on. Unlike the partnership with the EIC, which was mostly secured by control and sanctions on the spot in Canton, in his partnership with the Americans Houqua had to experience the “dark” phase of the business transaction, in which Houqua was not able to impose any sanctions. It is noteworthy that in this case, the American traders were not strangers to Houqua anymore. The most obvious example of Houqua’s trust is his relationship with John P. Cushing. As mentioned in section 4.3.4, a large portion of Houqua’s fortune,

72 As noted by the EIC in early 1812, Houqua had already conducted significant business with the Americans, i.e. long before his stable partnership with Russell & Co. . Cf.: IOR, Volume R/ 10/26, Secret Consultations, Season 1811/12, 93–94.

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especially the part transported in the early 1840s or earlier to America in form of shipments, was under the name of John P. Cushing. In other words, it was Cushing, who had legally possession of Houqua’s significant fortunes. There was no legal contract and only unofficial agreements in private letters between them, that indicate the “real” owner of these properties. Moreover, since these properties were transported abroad, Houqua would not be able to manage them by himself, and provided the power of attorney to John Cushing and his family members like John M. Forbes. As illustrated in the Coolidge Affair, the only sanctions that Houqua could impose was to withdraw his power of attorney and stop all future business transactions. However, even in this controversy caused by Coolidge’s actions, John M. Forbes was punished. However, Houqua’s did not impose sanctions on Cushing, although Cushing had some involvement in the problem. In other words, Houqua consciously gave up the possibility to impose sanctions on Cushing, because he believed from the very beginning, that Cushing was not responsible for Coolidge’s mischief. Furthermore, according to the last private correspondence between Houqua and Cushing, it was Houqua’s last wish for Cushing to have the final say on matters to do with managing Houqua’s properties and securing the lives of his heirs in China.73 Instead of allowing his sons to manage his fortunes after his death, Houqua trusted Cushing to not betray Houqua’s family and take care of the huge legacy even when Houqua would not be alive to impose any sanctions. Without this trust, Houqua – who was an extremely careful businessman – would never make such a decision. To sum up, social relationships in imperial China can be classified into three concentric circles based on the degree of familiarity. Strangership had little to no familiarity while the strongest familiarity based on Confucian patriarchal hierarchy was observable in family bonds. This study focuses on acquaintanceship in which ideological familiarity based on Confucian patrimonial hierarchy was increasingly replaced by personalized and pragmatized familiarity based on shared experience. Besides familiarity as the basic criterion to differentiate strangership and acquaintanceship, the power of sanctions provided the foundation in building and characterizing various acquaintanceships.

73 As illustrated in section 4.2.2, it is significant here to recall that, during the 1810s in credit relations with American traders Houqua used legal mean to secure the power of sanction. The notes were often sign by John P. Cushing as “consular agent” and even with an official seal. But in the early 1840s, such legal mean was not used in agreement between Houqua and Cushing. Houqua could trust Cushing so much, that he could leave fortunes in Cushing’s hand after his death. At least according to the findings of my research till now, this testament about Houqua’s fortunes abroad is only founded in private letters without mentioning any sanctions, not in any legal documents or formal contracts between Houqua and Cushing.

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In social hierarchies, influenced by the processes of personalization and pragmatization, the degree of asymmetrical power to impose sanctions governed the degree of asymmetry in confidence, and thus the stability of a hierarchy. Therefore, while confidence is perceived in Western contexts as systematic role expectations, in the Chinese context, confidence is realized through the power of imposing sanctions. Furthermore, with the strengthening of hierarchies, social roles are better defined and increasing possibilities of imposing sanctions could be legislated. Following this argument, theoretically there would be lesser chance for developing trust. In practice, the execution of sanctions increasingly served pragmatic and personal purposes. This did not, however, decrease the chances of building trust, but made it personal and pragmatic. In other words, in Chinese imperial society, “trust” was not necessarily free of utility. Houqua’s decision to trust Cushing was a result of Houqua’s pragmatism in knowing that he needed to protect his properties from the demands of local officials. In the nineteenth century, as the system of social hierarchies, particularly patronage developed, “trust” meant expecting someone’s loyalty, or to be able to believe someone, although it was accepted that there are no sanctions in the case of betrayal. Following this perception, trust in the Chinese context is not necessarily a modern phenomenon, since the absence or even conscious waiver of the ability to impose sanctions did not depend on social development. Due to the diverse perceptions of trust in the Chinese and Western context, friendship is also perceived differently. Obviously, “friendship” as it was understood by the philosophers during the Enlightenment, in which “freedom” and “equality” played an important role, would be impossible in the hierarchical social context of imperial China. Thus, the next section explores the perception of friendship in Chinese society, and the “special” nature of the intercultural friendship between Houqua and Cushing.

5.2 Houqua and his “friends”: Friendship in imperial China Friendship (友谊) as a form of social relationship has a long history but problematic perception in Chinese society. There are records of the Chinese term for “friend” – “you (友)” – appearing in oracle bone script more than three thousand years ago in China.74 Originally “you” meant brothers in the same clan.75

74 Qian, “On Friends,” 272. 75 Qian, “On Friends,” 272 and 282. Wang, “Transformation of Friends,” 48–49.

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In a manner similar to Europe, “brotherhood” in China took the place of friendship at first.76 “you” in the Chinese context was also used as a verb to describe the ideal relationship between brothers, namely older brothers were expected to take care of their younger siblings, and younger brothers were expected to respect and obey their older siblings.77 Different from filial piety (孝), which regulated relationships between generations vertically such as those between children and parents, “you” regulated horizontal relationships within a generation. These two virtues, filial loyalty (孝) and ideal brotherhood (友), were considered to be the foundation of social relationships in ancient China till the period of Warring States (403–221 BC).78 Later, with development of communication outside family bonds and clan, the reference of “friend (友)” was enlarged, so that persons with similar hobbies or interests were also referenced as “friends”.79 In early Confucian thought, friendship referred to relationships between unrelated individuals who sought each other’s company because of mutual compatibility, shared interests and ideals that were not necessarily family bonds or clan based.80 After Confucianism was established as state philosophy during the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), as discussed in section 2.1.4, social relationships in imperial China were determined by social and political hierarchies according to Confucian ideology.81 The main relations in this concept were summarized as the “Five Cardinal Relationships (五伦)”, i.e. relation between the ruler and his subjects, between parents and children, between husband and wife, between brothers and between friends. Friendship was now officially integrated into Confucian system of social relationships and had its own place after brotherhood. This indicates that friendship was viewed as an essential part of social life. Confucius affirmed the positive affective aspect of friendship in the first Analects saying (论语): “To have friends coming from far places: is it not delightful?.”82 However, this was only the start of the conception of “friendship” in Chinese society, because among the five cardinal relationships, friendship is unique: The other four relations are based on patriarchal or patrimonial hierarchies, or more specifically, on enforced obedience. Only friendship was cultivated outside the

76 Cf.: Aymard, “Freundschaft un Geselligkeit,” 475. 77 Wang, “Transformation of Friends,” 49. 78 Wang, “Transformation of Friends,” 50–51. 79 Wang, “Transformation of Friends,” 49. 80 Vervoorn, “Friendship in Ancient China,” 4–5. 81 Luo, Guanxi and Business, 13. 82 Confucius, Analects, 1:1, in: Confucius, The Original Analects, 145.

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structural confines of hierarchies.83 Thus, a serious problem in “friendship” was dealing with hierarchy. Since hierarchies were central to Confucianism and social life in China, friendship was doubtless a potential danger due to its non-hierarchical character. Making friendship compatible with hierarchy was difficult, because unlike in a family, where the prescribed position and birth order made the hierarchy clear, a hierarchy between two friends was neither clear nor absolute.84 Therefore, the most direct solution was to make friendship subordinate to and supportive of other hierarchical relations.85 This is clearly how friendship was perceived in the early stage of Confucianism. The inferiority of friendship to other social relations was clearly emphasized by Confucius himself.86 For instance, on the one hand “When the ruler’s command summons him, he does not wait for the horses to be yoked, but simply goes.”87 On the other, “When a friend sends a gift, even a carriage and horses, unless it be sacrificial meat, he does not bow before it.”88 In other words, one should respect and obey his ruler but should not be thankful while receiving a present from a friend. These different reactions towards the ruler and a friend imply the priority of loyalty towards ruler, for ruler deserved special deference.89 Relations within a family were also more important than friendship. Since the family was considered by Confucianism to be the basic unit of a society, the hierarchy in a family – son obeyed father, younger brother obeyed older brother and wife obeyed husband – was transferred in the society or state to outside the family. Obedience was fundamental for the effective functioning of state governance, because a Confucian society functioned only when filial piety (孝) or the obedience of children to their parents was transformed into loyalty (忠) – the devotion of son to ruler.90 In this equation there was no place for

83 Cf.: Huang, “Male Friendship and Jiangxue,” 147. 84 Cf.: Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1619. 85 Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1628. 86 Cf.: Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1620. 87 Confucius, Analects, 10:14, in: Confucius, The Original Analects, 63. 88 Confucius, Analects, 10:16b, in: Confucius, The Original Analects, 64. 89 Not only the Confucianists, but also philosophers of other schools in ancient China sought to undercut the emotional side of friendship and to make it hierarchical by emphasizing the loyalty towards ruler. Han Feizi (韩非子, ca.281–233 BC) for instance, the founder of the Legalists, wrote that “If one had a strong sense for helping friends, he would neglect his work (i.e. his duty to his ruler and state)” (“有侠者，官职旷也”) Jiao, The human relationship in ancient China, 76–79. 90 Within the family all relationships were hierarchical, and this arrangement was carried over into society, especially in the form of elder to junior, based on generations. Therefore the Chinese term of state “guo jia (国家)” is translated as “state (guo)-family (jia)”. The ethical

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friendship based on equality and voluntariness. Furthermore, it was considered to be a friend’s duty to help an individual serve his ruler or parents and maintain their reputation for filial piety and loyalty – which were, considered more important than friendship.91 This echoes Confucius’ suggestion to his disciple Zigong (子贡, 520–456 BC) about making friends: “Inform them (i.e. your friends) with loyalty and guide them with goodness, but if that does not suffice, then stop. Do not cause yourself embarrassment.”92 Later in the Song Dynasty, in an essay “On Party (朋党论)” written by the famous Confucian literati Ouyang Xiu (欧阳修 1007–1072), the author emphasized the distinction between “party” of “villains (小人)” and of “gentlemen (君子)”. Namely, gentlemen were united as a party by common principles, whereas villains were united by common interests.93 Since the “common principles” being referred to were the Confucian ethics of filial piety and loyalty and the “common interests” shared by the villains was typically economic profits, the friendship between merchants like Houqua and his “Hong friends” or any foreign traders would never be classified being Confucian. Beside the inferiority of friendship and its aim of serving Confucian hierarchy, another solution to make friendship compatible with Confucian ideology was to keep it hierarchical per se. In this understanding, since Confucian friendship functioned to perfect one’s morality and to serve the needs of the hierarchical state-family,94 paradoxically it meant that a man should make friends only with those better than himself.95 This asymmetry is confirmed by a study on Confucian friendship that states “it is difficult to think of two more distinct conceptions of friendship than those of Plato and Confucius.”96 For Plato, true friendship is based on equality expressed by the search for beauty, truth and goodness in common. But for Confucius, friendship is a one-directional relationship in which one extends oneself by association with one who has attained a higher level of realization.97 This asymmetry or hierarchy in friendship created two ways that friendship began to be expressed in imperial China. Firstly, over the course of time under hierarchy in a family is also transferred in a society. Cf.: Folsom, Friends, Guests, and Colleagues, 17. Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1620. 91 Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1618. 92 Confucius, Analects, 12:23, in: Confucius, The Original Analects, 96. 93 Original in Chinese: 君子与君子以同道为朋，小人与小人以同利为朋. In: Wu and Wu, Selective Chinese Classics (古文观止), 375. 94 Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1618–1620. 95 Vervoorn, “Friendship in Ancient China,” 19. 96 Hall and Ames, “Confucian Friendship,” 91. 97 Hall and Ames, “Confucian Friendship,” 91.

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the influence of pragmatization, friendship also served the material and pragmatic advancement of the individual.98 Especially in the competitive atmosphere of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, hierarchical, asymmetric friendships focused on advancement in career, rather than on moral improvement or cultivation of shared interests. To seek “equal” friendship – i.e. not necessarily equal in morals, but equal in social hierarchy – implied stagnation in social relations and lagging behind in competition.99 Secondly, when a friendship developed to a stage of high emotion, it was usually transformed into ritualized brotherhood or “sworn brothers (结拜兄 弟)”, or, depending on the difference in the ages, father-son relation (义父子), so that the friendship could be integrated into a ritualized family bond and Confucian patriarchal hierarchy.100 There are plenty of examples that showcase this transformation. The most famous one might be the story of “the oath of brotherhood in the Peach Garden (桃园三结义)”, recorded in the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义)”.101 The friendship between the three sworn brothers – Liu Bei (刘备), Guan Yu (关羽) and Zhang Fei (张飞) – in the Chinese classic is viewed till today as the ideal friendship. However, even this ideal friendship was characterized by hierarchy determined by age: Zhang Fei as the youngest among the three obeyed his brothers Liu Bei and Guan Yu. The three brothers followed the Confucian virtue of obedience. Therefore, the “friends” were not equals and the hierarchy of brothers was legitimized by the Confucian relationship of brotherhood. However, it is important to point out that despite the strong influence of hierarchy, it was not a pre-requisite for building friendship. The fact that a friendship based on equality was not praised by Confucian ideology does not necessarily mean that there was no such friendship in imperial China, only that it is difficult to find one.102 In an intercultural context of Canton trade, which

98 Cf.: Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1622. 99 Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1624. 100 Cf.: Folsom, Friends, Guests, and Colleagues, 17. 101 The “Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义)” belongs to the Four Great Classical Novel of Chinese Literature. It was written by Luo Guanzhong (罗贯中 ca. 1330–1400) and is a historical novel about the period of the late Han Dynasty, namely ca. 169 till 280. The “oath of brotherhood in the Peach Garden (桃园三结义)” is one of the central scenes in this novel. With the help of his two friends or sworn brothers, Liu Bei established one of the three kingdoms. 102 Among the male relations among Confucian literati since the Ming Dynasty, friendship free from hierarchy might be possible. Cf.: Huang, “Male Friendship and Jiangxue,” 146–178. One of the fundamental works of Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), the founder of Jesuit China Mission is noteworthy and is titled “Treatise on Friendship (交友论)”. Although friendship is considered superior to the parent-child relation in the work, Ricci’s treatise was accepted

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was at least partly far away from Confucian ideology, the friendship between Houqua and Cushing was an exception. Their shared experience, values and secrets, as well as their mutual dependence in partnership, made the equality between Houqua and Cushing a necessity. Unlike the Confucian literati, Houqua never regarded the foreign traders as “barbarians” or “devils”. In their correspondence, Houqua and Cushing exchanged not only business information, but also personal feelings, such as Houqua’s sadness due to the death of his wife.103 Also the favors and gifts exchanged between them particularly during the war indicate mutual care between equal friends. It is noteworthy that while the term “friend” was used by Houqua in his English correspondence to refer to a foreign – usually American or English, sometimes Indian – trader or trading partner, in his Chinese correspondence Houqua commonly used the term “brother” to address his “Hong friends”.104 As mentioned in section 4.2.2, Dr. Morrison, the translator of the EIC in Canton, adapted the Chinese way and addressed Houqua often as “the third brother Wu (伍三兄)”.105 These terms – “friend” or “brother” – did not necessarily indicate a friendship in the Western sense, or a hierarchical Chinese friendship in the form of sworn brotherhood. Rather, these terms mostly indicate either an existing close relationship or even an alliance like the one between Houqua and Mowqua, or the expectation of the writer to be treated like a “friend” by the recipient. Nevertheless, based on the difference in the terms, the closeness of a business relationship was perceived and performed differently in imperial China (“brother”) and the West (“friend”). This also indirectly shows the effect of hierarchy in friendship realized through hierarchical brotherhood.

and welcomed by the Literati class within a surprisingly short time after it was completed in 1595. This positive reception of Ricci’s treatise had a lot to do with the degeneration of friendship in the late sixteenth century. Numerous complaints were lodged against the disappearance of genuine friendship. Nevertheless, later, when the compilers of “Complete Library in Four Sections (四库全书)” in eighteenth century reviewed Ricci’s “Treatise on Friendship”, the peculiar ethos of friendship in the late Ming presumably had subsided. Lo, “My Second Self,” 237–240. 103 See for example Houqua to John Cushing on December 17th 1840, in: HL, MHS. In another letter Houqua stated to Cushing that “I think you will always feel an interest in whatever relates to me,” in: Houqua to John Cushing on April 25th 1833, in: HL, MHS. Such expressions, though being translated from Houqua’s Pidgin English, still indicate a strongly personal connection between two equals. 104 For example, Houqua mentioned Mowqua as his “second brother Lu (卢二兄)”. Cf.: Houqua to Plowden on the first day of the fourth month (according to Chinese calendar), 1828, in: FO, 1048/28/17. 105 See for instance Urmston to Houqua on May 18th 1822, in: FO, 1048/22/11.

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Due to this effect of hierarchy, another problem of “friendship” in imperial China, particularly in early nineteenth century, was “personal loyalty (义 气)” – an indispensable condition for building friendship. In the ideal friendship in the story of “the oath of brotherhood in the Peach Garden (桃园三结 义)” the younger brother must obey his elder brother. This obedience in Chinese friendship – in contrast to Houqua’s obedience toward local officials – was voluntary personal loyalty. This voluntariness makes the friendship fundamentally distinctive from other hierarchical relations. Meanwhile, exactly due to the voluntary personal loyalty, upon which not only friendship but also the “parties (朋党)” could be formed, friendship especially between politicians or literati was not welcomed by absolutist rulers, who saw such “friendship” or rather “parties (朋党)” as a great danger to their absolutistic rule. Only because of the unstable situation of the early Qing, the emperor Kangxi (康熙 reign: 1662–1722) had tolerated the formation of parties under Songgotu (索额图 1636–1703) and Mingju (明珠 1635–1708) – the most powerful bureaucrats in Kangxi’s court – and allowed them to fight against each other in order to keep a balance under his rule. But Kangxi’s son and heir, emperor Yongzheng (雍正 reign: 1722–1735) held a far more negative view on friendship or any type of formation of parties. In his “On Parties (朋党论)”, Yongzheng strictly criticized the previously mentioned essay “On Parties” with the same title by Ouyang Xiu from the Song Dynasty and pointed out that parties that were based on friendship and voluntary personal loyalty were dangerous. In Yongzheng’s thinking, a subject or server of the ruler should never have any “private will” including that of friendship, and only have “public interests”.106 In other words, one should be loyal only to the emperor, not to his friends. This problematic loyalty in friendship is reflected in Houqua’s loyalty in the Napier Affair. Despite Confucian ideology, which requires – as Yongzheng desired – everyone to be voluntarily loyal to the ruler, it was impossible for Houqua to be “loyal” to his superiors in a patronage relationship, since he was forced to obey them. His voluntary loyalty was towards his American partners and friends. In his relationship with the Americans, Houqua’s loyalty manifested not only in keeping secrets about the opium trade, but also in his help or favors for

106 Original in Chinese “[. . .] 朋友为私情，人臣当以公灭私[. . .],” in: Emperor Yongzheng (雍正 reign: 1722–1735), “Records of Shizong (世宗实录). Factual Record of Qing Dynasty (清实录), Volume 22,” accessed 8th November, 2018, https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&chapter= 583315&remap=gb. This shows clearly why it was problematic to differentiate between “private” and “public” in the Chinese tradition.

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his friends during difficult times. As illustrated in section 4.2.4, without Houqua’s help, the remaining members of Russell & Co. might not have been able to survive the rebellion against “foreign devils” in December 1842.107 All these favors and help that Houqua had offered was voluntary. Moreover, he even took the risk of having sanctions being imposed on him by local officials. At the same time, the Americans, especially John Cushing and John Forbes, proved their loyalty through their management of Houqua’s legacy for more than half a century after his death.108 Besides this mutual loyalty that was voluntary, another indispensable element of Houqua’s friendship with Cushing was mutual trust. In fact, “friendship”, though often not welcomed in the Confucian system of social relations, was the only relationship that connected to trust among the “Five Cardinal Relations (五 伦)”.109 Moreover, Confucius once admitted that he had three goals in his lifetime, namely “to bring peace to the old, to have trust in my friends, and to cherish the young.”110 This shows that during the early stages of Confucianism, friendship based on trust was cherished positively as one of the joys of life. But over the course of time, as illustrated in last section, trust in the Chinese context, which was already personal, became pragmatized. As the imperial Chinese society developed toward its last period, the most significant criterion of trust became the absence of sanctions, which included formal, legal, as well as informal personal sanctions. Meanwhile, “friendship” appeared to be pragmatic and increasingly “disconnected” from trust, in accordance with the development of society. Even among some of the Confucian literati of Ming and Qing Dynasties, who did not see the utility of friendship as advancement in hierarchy or even as a refuge away from hierarchy, the most important criterion in choosing friends was not trust, but intellectual recognition and companionship.111 A successful bureaucrat, Chen Hongmou (陈宏谋 1696–1771) viewed the responsibility of true friends as being to upbraid and correct each other’s conduct and believed that the only proper basis

107 Cf.: Delano Diary on December 7th 1842, in: Roosevelt Papers, FDR. 108 Due to incomplete documents available today, it is impossible to reconstruct how John Cushing and John Forbes managed Houqua’s properties. But there are sources showing evidence of how John Forbes endeavored to make Houqua’s credit profitable through various investments. For more details see next chapter. 109 The other four relations were connected to obedience. Cf.: Vervoorn, “Friendship in Ancient China,” 3. 110 He, “Confucius and Aristotle,” 296–297. 111 Huang, “Male Friendship and Jiangxue,” 177. Cf. also: Kutcher, “The Fifth Relationship,” 1624–1625.

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of friendship was common moral purpose.112 In other words, shared Confucian values was regarded as important for friendship and not mutual trust.113 However, this understanding of friendship illustrates only the views of Confucian literati and bureaucrats. For a merchant like Houqua, who was trapped in various social hierarchies and his own pragmatism, friendship was a luxury but also a necessity in achieving greater success. Due to the vulnerable environment of international long-distance trade in early nineteenth century, the most serious problem that Houqua had to face in his business relationships was dealing with risks. The most effective method of risk management was to foster mutual trust, through which a business relationship or partnership could be transformed into a reliable friendship. Thus, the type of friendship desired by Confucian literati was neither realistic nor understandable for an “outsider” like Houqua who was beyond the circle of cultivated Confucianists. But it is precisely this factor that made it easy for Houqua to establish his friendship without sharing Confucian values. In fact, in Houqua’s network in Canton trade, with all other Chinese players, namely the local officials and other Hong Merchants with whom Houqua shared the same language and cultural understanding, it seems to have been much more challenging to establish friendships than to transform the “foreign devils” into friends.114 This friendship between Houqua and Cushing was astonishingly “modern”. It began in an extremely difficult political, economic and cultural atmosphere, but developed to an intercultural friendship based on equality, loyalty and trust.115 All these qualities that are not really valued by the privileged social class, did not eradicate Houqua’s Chinese nature in his pragmatism and personalized social relations. Instead, they provide a portrait of a successful “bridge” between two cultures with very limited access to the outside world. Nevertheless, Houqua – though befriended by the outside world – remained in his Chinese world till he died. Unfortunately, despite this intercultural and “modern” friendship bringing him extraordinary success and wealth, it was also a lifelong burden. 112 Rowe, Saving the World, 83. 113 This kind of friendship is comparable to Christian friendship in medieval Europe, according to which true friendship was only possible “auf dem Weg Gottes, indem sie sich gegenseitig ihre Sünden und Geheimnisse bekennen und sich im Glauben festigen.” Cf.: Schinkel, Freundschaft, 399. 114 It is not to be forgotten that Houqua did have friendship based on trust with the Chinese, particularly with Mowqua (卢文锦). Unfortunately, due to the lack of Chinese sources available today, it is hard to find any evidence to prove his Chinese friendship. 115 In Seligman’s concept, friendship based on trust is a modern phenomenon. Thus, Houqua’s friendship with Cushing is not only intercultural, but also modern. Cf.: Seligman, The Problem of Trust, 36–37.

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On December 23rd 1842, four months after the settlement of the “Treaty of Nanking” and the end of the First Opium War, in his letter to Cushing, Houqua expressed his relief: It is said the Hong system will be abolished & I heartily hope so & I look forward with pleasure to the time when I shall be a free man. If I were a young man now, I should think seriously of embarking for America, to settle down – somewhere near you.116

Less than ten months later, on September 4th 1843, Houqua died in Canton.

5.3 Houqua’s legacy and descendants With the end of the First Opium War and the signing of the “Treaty of Nanking (南京条约)” in August 1842, just as Houqua foresaw, the Canton System and the Old Canton Trade had come to an end. For Houqua, this meant loss in business, unusually huge sum of donations,117 and being finally free from his status as a Hong Merchant.118 Shortly after Houqua’s death, the first official diplomat of the United States to Qing China Caleb Cushing (顾盛 1800–1879), a cousin of John Perkins Cushing, arrived at Macao. In 1844 he signed the “Treaty of Wanghia (望厦条约)”, which forced the Qing government to guarantee the American merchants the same favorable trading conditions as the British.119 In

116 Houqua to John P. Cushing on December 23rd 1842, in: HL, MHS. 117 Due to the British attack in May 1840, Houqua had lost more than one and a half million dollars. About 800,000 dollars was paid by Houqua “for the ransom of the city” as required by the British. In 1842, Houqua had to clear old debts of his Hong friends, and make several millions of donations for the Qing government as a part of the indemnity according to the “Treaty of Nanking”. Cf.: Houqua to John P. Cushing on November 21st 1841. Houqua to Robert Bennet and John Murray Forbes on April 5th 1843. Both letters in: HL, MHS. 118 According to the traditional understanding in Chinese studies, represented by Zhang Wenqin’s study, Houqua’s death was caused not only by the large amount of donations and payments that he had to make, but also because of the abolishment of the Canton System and the loss of his role as a Hong Merchant. Cf. Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 64. My research till now shows that Houqua was indeed very disturbed and unsatisfied with the renewed oppression of the government. However, there is no evidence proving that Houqua was against the abolishment of the Canton System. Instead, he seemed to be relieved by this change. This can be seen in many of his letters to his foreign friends and acquaintances in 1842 and 1843. For example, in his letter to Plowden, Houqua expressed his delight regarding the end of the Old Canton Trade, because “the responsibilities placed upon us [the Hong Merchants] hitherto have been almost insupportable.” Houqua to Plowden on April 2nd 1843, in: HL, MHS. 119 Li and Lin, Chronicle of the Hong Merchants in Canton, 117.

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the decades that followed, since Canton no longer enjoyed the monopoly of foreign trade anymore, Hong Kong and Shanghai became the new trading centers and replaced Canton’s position. As mentioned at the beginning of this book, the evaluation and comments about Houqua after his death were highly distinctive. Though honored as an oriental merchant prince in America, Houqua appeared to be an extremely negative figure in Chinese history. In 1850, when the famous Commissioner Lin Zexu died accidentally in Chaozhou (潮州) near Canton, rumors spread alleging that it was Houqua’s family or his son Wu Chongyao (伍崇曜) who poisoned Lin Zexu.120 According to a study by Zhang Wenqin, this rumor that Houqua’s family killed Lin Zexu was not plausible. However, the unpleasant relationship between Lin Zexu and Houqua’s family was well-known due to Lin’s antiopium campaign and Houqua’s close relationship with the foreign devils.121 The negative comments and reputation, which can be found in unofficial histories (野史) of Canton and popular literature throughout the nineteenth century, was Houqua’s legacy for his descendants in China.122 Wu Lingli (伍凌立 born in 1956), one of the eighth successors of Houqua, did not even know about his connection to Houqua, until shortly before his father Wu Pishun’s (伍丕舜 1916–2001) death, because this blood-tie to Houqua was extremely dangerous under the rule of the Communists. Particularly during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), to admit a connection to Houqua would mean a death sentence.123 Nevertheless, beside the burden of Houqua’s negative reputation, Houqua’s properties, especially those reserved abroad guaranteed that his descendants lived luxuriously till the early twentieth century. Till today the extent and value of the properties Houqua reserved in the United State is not really clear. As mentioned, Houqua transported most of his properties abroad in 1840. In April and May 1840 alone, Houqua shipped to New York and London a huge sum of tea worth about a million dollars. Meanwhile he also had funds reserved under the Forbes’ name.124 According to a study by John D. Wong, Houqua’s family remained an important stakeholder in Russell & Co. throughout the 1860s. In 1865, the house

120 This rumor was written in an article by an anonym, which was even compiled into the official local history of Dongguan County (东莞县志) of Canton. Cf.: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton,186. 121 Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 187–191. 122 In a Chinese novel of late 19th century, one of Houqua’s son, who helped the foreign barbarians’ invasion in Canton, was killed by lightening, since even the sky was furious about Houqua’s family. Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 63–64. 123 This information is gained from my personal interview with Mr. Wu Lingli in October 2011. 124 Houqua to John P. Cushing on November 21st 1841, in: HL, MHS.

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recorded liabilities of 200,000 dollars towards Houqua’s account and this loan remained outstanding into the 1870s.125 According to Downs’ study on American traders in Canton, from 1828 till 1881 Russell & Co. paid Houqua’s family 30,000 dollars a year, and from 1881 till 1890 this went up to 45,000 dollars a year.126 But what is more important than the amount of Houqua’s funds is that because these properties were reserved in the United States and managed by John P. Cushing and John M. Forbes, the descendants of Houqua as the owners of these properties became unknowing participants in the financing of the American Civil War (1861–65) and of several of the most important industrial projects in America such as the railroads and insurance.127 Meanwhile, since these funds were the main financial source for Houqua’s descendants, they were also devices for the Qing government to finance the Chinese civil war during the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64).128 In other words, a large part of the fortunes made by Houqua’s throughout his life became financial sources that supported various war machines in the second half of the nineteenth century in the world. After the sustained consumption of Houqua’s legacy for half a century by around four generations after Houqua, the once wealthy merchant family Wu had fallen into decay. Ironically, those who guarded Houqua’s last properties and funds were not his own sons but the American “barbarians”. Among Houqua’s descendants, no one was able to take charge of his commercial imperium. Among Houqua’s seven sons, only two of them survived after Houqua’s death, namely his fifth son and later his heir Wu Chongyao (伍崇曜 1810–1864), and his seventh son Wu Chonghui (伍崇晖1828–1880). His other five sons died

125 Wong, “Global Positioning,” 261. 126 Downs, The Golden Ghetto, 82. 127 It is well known that John M. Forbes was a stanch supporter of the Republicans and Lincoln. Cf.: Forbes, “Extracts,” 175. About his management of Houqua’s funds, John M. Forbes wrote in his “Reminiscences”: “[. . .] upon somewhat exaggerated ideas on the part of my correspondents due to my having the management of about half a million of my friend Houqua’s money. This, at his special request, was held in my own name, though the ownership was indicated in my books by the initials `A. S. I.` which meant `American Stock Investment`. This account was kept carefully unmixed with my own investments although I made it a rule never to buy anything for it which I was not able buying for myself.” Cf.: Forbes, Reminiscences of John Murray Forbes, vol.1 (1902),273f. This shows again John M. Forbes’ loyalty and Houqua’s trust toward his American friends. Although it is impossible today to trace back every detail of the investments of Houqua’s funds, an account book of “A.S.I.” in “Houqua Accounts & Memoranda 1865–67” reserved in FDR reveals that John M. Forbes made investments of 306,118 dollars in 1866 in various railway projects and insurance companies. Cf.: “Houqua Accounts & Memoranda 1865–67” in: Delano Papers, Container 34, FDR. 128 Cf.: Wong, “Global Positioning,” 264. Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 68–70.

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at relatively young ages.129 The eldest son Wu Yuanzhi (伍元芝) died in 1829 at the age of 41. The second son Wu Yuanlan (伍元兰), who died in 1820 at the age of 29, was adopted by Houqua’s brother Puiqua, since Puiqua died without any sons. The third son Wu Yuan-E (伍元莪) died in 1825 at the age of 31. The sixth son Wu Yuansong (伍元菘) died in 1843 at the age of 28, just a few months before Houqua’s death. All of them had Confucian education, purchased honorable Confucian titles and were well connected to the local literati like Tan Ying (谭莹 1800–1871).130 All sons of Houqua were famous for their luxurious living style.131 As mentioned in section 4.2.3, it was Houqua’s eldest son Wu Yuanzhi who bought the mansion of Conseequa. This “palatial residence and gardens” of Wu Yuanzhi are located “in the most aristocratic street of Canton”.132 Besides, the names of Houqua’s sons appeared often as generous donors for local charitable projects like the reconstruction of the dam near Canton in 1813 and 1817.133 But among the five sons who died before Houqua, there was one, who Houqua seemed to be quite proud of and who would have taken over the family business. This son was Houqua’s fourth son Wu Yuanhua (伍元华 1801–1833). When Houqua retired officially in 1826 due to the escalation of the “Topaze Affair”, Wu Yuanhua was announced as the new chief of Houqua’s firm Ewo Hong (怡和行). Although Houqua never really retired from business and managed his partnership with Russell & Co. all the time, his work must be considerably relieved due to Wu Yuanhua’s management. In dealing with local officialdom, Wu Yuanhua was Houqua’s “protective shield”, since he was more than once punished by local

129 The following information about Houqua’s sons is based on Wu Lingli’s version of Wu family genealogy. According to my personal interview with Prof. Zhang Wenqin in October 2011, he was of the opinion that the cousin marriage – which was still very popular in nineteenth century China – was the reason for the short lives of Houqua’s sons. In my assessment, the extravagant lifestyle possibly including opium smoking and visiting prostitutes might also have led to their short lives. 130 Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 80. Luo, “A brief introduction,” 43. 131 According to William Hunter, the family of Houqua’s eldest son Wu Yuanzhi included nearly fifty members. About the clothes of Wu Yuanzhi’s wives Hunter wrote: “The dresses of the ladies were of silk, in many cases lined with fur of those subdued colours in which the Chinese show so much taste, such as plum, chocolate, pink, or pea green, the sleeves and edges of the outer garment being embroidered in bright colours on a broad black or blue ground.” Hunter was obviously fascinated by the Chinese style of living a life of luxury. Cf.: Hunter, Bits of Old China, 226. Whereas the descendants of Puankhequa were seen as Confucian literati, the descendants of Houqua – though most of them had Confucian education and purchased titles – were more famous for their luxurious lifestyle. Cf.: Zhou, The Merchants of Canton involved in foreign trade, 84 132 Hunter, Bits of Old China, 226. 133 Every time each son of Houqua donated 30,000 taels of silver. Cf.: Luo, “A brief introduction,” 43.

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officials so that his father could be spared.134 In business, Wu Yuanhua seemed to be an able trader and qualified successor of Houqua. Wu Yuanhua’s “intelligent and commercial talent” impressed even the EIC.135 In 1831 it is noted that: [. . .] by his integrity and abilities he had raised in the affairs of this Hong from a state of Insolvency to great Prosperity, and for the last few years had conducted a larger share of the Company’s business than even Howqua, in a manner which left nothing to be desired.136

Moreover, Wu Yuanhua also was a very well-educated Confucian literati, who was an expert in painting and writing poetry. Some of his poems count even as classics of local literature of Canton.137 Together with Houqua’s eldest brother Wu Bingyong (伍秉镛), Wu Yuanhua’s name appeared in a famous list of most important painters of Lingnan region138 since the Tang Dynasty (618–907) (“岭南画征略”) compiled by a late Qing literatus Wang Zhaoyong (汪兆镛 1861–1939).139 In 1833, as Wu Yuanhua gained an honorable title from the emperor due to the Wu family’s generous donations for the government, Houqua could not hide his delight in his letter to Cushing: [. . .] it will afford you pleasure to know that my no. 4 son, in whose name is the Hong, has within a few days received from the Emperor the highest evidence of his favor, namely, a Peacock Feather !!!140

Unfortunately, just a few months later, Houqua had to inform Cushing of Wu Yuanhua’s death, which had “taken away nearly all the little courage that time had left me & destroyed the main support of my house.”141 These emotional words show again the friendship between Houqua and Cushing, and that Houqua wanted to share his deep sadness with his friend. But the loss of his son was so serious that even another American trader in Canton, who was not

134 In 1831 for instance, the EIC built a dock for their own use outside the English factory. Since the foreigners were forbidden to build anything, the Governor threatened Wu Yuanhua – the Security Merchant of the EIC – stating he would cut off his head. Wu Yuanhua had to kneel in the public for several hours. Cf.: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 84–85. Morse, Chronicles, Volume IV (1926), 279. 135 For the following citation cf.: Consultation May 4th 1831, in: IOR, Volume G/12/246, 67. 136 As illustrated in chapter 3.1.2, Houqua and his business experienced a crisis in 1826 due to the “Topaze Affair”. But the EIC had obviously overstated mentioning this crisis was “a state of Insolvency”. 137 Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 93. 138 The region Lingnan (岭南) refers normally the two provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, sometimes also South China. 139 Cf.: Wang, A brief list of the most important painters of Lingnan region, 178–179. 140 Houqua to John Cushing on April 25th 1833, in: Forbes Papers, Volume F–5, BL. 141 Houqua to John Cushing on December 6th 1833, in: Forbes Papers, Volume F–5, BL.

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particularly close to Houqua, could observe the awful change of Houqua’s life. In his letter to Cushing, this American wrote: Houqua has buried his son, the Hong Merchant. The poor old man is much depressed and looks miserable, he now walks with a cane, and shows but little of his former energy when conversing on business.142

After Wu Yuanhua’s death in 1833, Houqua’s fifth son Wu Chongyao (伍崇曜 1810–1864) was announced as the new chief. But this son was rarely mentioned in Houqua’s correspondence. As Houqua died in 1843, Wu Chongyao became logically the successor of Houqua in business. The only other son Wu Chonghui was only fifteen years old. Compared to his brother Wu Yuanhua, Wu Chongyao made more obvious efforts to present himself as a Confucian literati or at least as the financial patron of local notable literati such as Tan Ying (谭莹), than as a Hong Merchant. In fact, it seems that he tried rather hard to get rid of the spiritual and social legacy left by his father. His lifetime achievements had nothing to do with the foreign trade, but are in a project – initiated by Tan Ying – of compiling local literature in Canton, namely the collection of “Surviving Works of Lingnan (岭 南遗书)” that included six volumes. From the time the first volume was printed and published in 1831 till the last volume was finished in 1863, Wu Chongyao spent more than three decades patronizing this project.143 Meanwhile, another project “Collection of Yue Ya Tang (粤雅堂丛书)”, which was patronized partly under Wu Chongyao’s son, Wu Shaotang (伍绍堂 1834–1890), was initiated around 1850 and ended in 1875. Both collections belong to the classics of local literature of Canton. Through such endeavors and his close relationship to the local literati like Tan Ying, Wu Chongyao earned his reputation as a “literatimerchant (绅商)”, though he still could not get rid of his status as a merchant and a middleman between Qing government and foreigners.144 Even Zhang

142 J. R. Latimer to J. P. Cushing on November 10th 1833, in: Latimer Papers, Part II, Oversize 2, LC. 143 Tan, “Wu chongyao’s activities,” 81. 144 After Houqua’s death, although the Canton System was abolished, Wu Chongyao as Houqua’s successor was still required by the Qing government to participate in foreign affairs. During the Second Opium War (1856–1860), Wu Chongyao was again the middleman, who was in charge of mediation between the Qing government and the British and French generals. It is reported that Wu Chongyao was humiliated and slapped in the face by Sir Henry Parkers. Cf.: Liang, The Thirteen Hong of Canton, 398–403. Moreover, he was forced to finance various civil wars. Cf.: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 70–76. Thus, it is understandable that Wu Chongyao suffered no less than his father under the status as a merchant and continued to be the money source of the Qing government.

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Zhidong (张之洞 1837–1909), an eminent Confucian bureaucrat and politician of the nineteenth century, had praised Wu Chongyao stating that his name would be remembered for the next 500 years due to his contributions to local literature.145 Once Wu Chongyao died in 1864, the end of the once glorious merchant family became inevitable. Since none of his descendants had the desire or ability to manage Houqua’s legacy and lifetime achievements, his network of social relationships including his singular intercultural friendship became “masterless” as soon as he died. His sons and grandsons inherited or wished to inherit only material properties, not his reputation as a “merchant prince” or a traitor of the fatherland.

145 Original in Chinese: “南海之伍，可决其五百年后姓名必不湮没,” in: 张之洞《书目问答·劝刻 书说》, quoted from: Zhang, The Thirteen Hongs in Canton, 93.

6 Epilogue: How open was China? In view of global intellectual history, Siep Stuurman advanced two ways of thinking across frontiers, namely “common humanity” and “anthropological turn”. While common humanity seeks to transcend cultural difference by abstracting from it, the anthropological turn concentrates on difference.1 In other words, common humanity is an abstract, general and subjective way of judging or conceiving strangers, which is often found in religions or imagined universal humanities. The anthropological turn makes comparison and tries to understand the customs of strangers as an interlocking and functioning whole instead of random series of outlandish oddities. In this sense, as Stuurman himself noticed, the Confucian tradition in China presents a model case of the invention of common humanity.2 Due to the influence of Confucianism, the Chinese people esp. the intellectuals were deeply convinced that the strangers outside their cultural circle were “outlandish oddities” or even barbarians. This might also explain why the geographical and ethnographical knowledge of the Chinese in history was so poor since the Chinese were not eager to discover the world outside before 1840. However, Houqua as a cultural and ethnic frontier during his time was an exception. It is questionable if and how far the anthropological turn was important in his intercultural relationship because of the lack of sources. But his way of dealing with the West definitely was not similar to that of the common humanity. Therefore, in closing the narrative about Houqua, some questions from the very beginning still seem unresolved: Since he was so singular, especially with regard to his career and relationships with foreigners, how representative was he as a Chinese man? How should we judge the openness or isolation of China based on his story? More than a century ago, a widely read American book on China, “Chinese Characteristics”, was published in Shanghai in 1890. Its author, Arthur Smith (1845–1932, Chinese name: 明恩溥), was an American Protestant missionary from New England, who spent 54 years in China. The impact of this book was not limited to Western readers, but also reached Japan and China.3 Moreover,

1 Stuurman, “Common Humanity and Cultural Difference,” 35. 2 Stuurman, “Common Humanity and Cultural Difference,” 38. 3 In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Smith to the White House to hear his views on U.S.-China relations. Based on this book, Smith helped shape American public opinion. The Japanese elite became interested in Smith’s racialized portrayal of the Chinese people which played into their claim of being the superior race or token “whites” of Asia. Liu, “The Ghost of Arthur H. Smith,” 406–408. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-006

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Smith’s idea of the Chinese national character profoundly influenced intellectuals in China during the early twentieth century like Lu Xun (鲁迅 1880–1936). Due to Smith’s experience with the lower classes of Chinese like servants, coolies etc., he noted various details of their daily lives, such as “total lack of any kind of under-clothing,”4 so that the “Chinese Characteristics” are represented in his book in an interesting and authentic manner. Of all the characteristics observed by Smith, there was one which seemed to be most difficult for a Westerner to understand, namely the indifference of Chinese: not only in sense of physical indifference to pain,5 comfort and convenience, but also mental indifference to the change of Dynasty, emotions and even suffering of others.6 For a contemporary Chinese observer like Lu Xun, however, such indifference, which he described as “ma mu (麻木)”, was one of the reasons that caused China’s tragedy in the nineteenth century.7 In Houqua’s case, since he had a comfortable and rather luxurious lifestyle compared to the poor classes of Chinese people, he did not need to cultivate physical indifference. But in the case of national affairs, despite his position as a middleman, his indifference to the destiny of his country was obvious. Regardless of whether such indifference should be categorized as a Chinese national characteristic, it was doubtless an important aspect of Chinese behavior. Nevertheless, Houqua was not always indifferent. As a Hong merchant, he cared about those controversies that connected to him. In other words, his behavior was conditional: In a manner similar to how he managed his social network, personal interest and pragmatic benefit were decisive in determining his indifference. These two factors are also the basis for Chinese behavior everywhere: The poor classes had to be indifferent to pain and illness, since they had no other choice and being sensitive was of no use. The rich Chinese practiced their virtue “without heart” and indifferently if this virtue had nothing to

4 According to Smith’s observation, the Chinese were not conscious of any need of woolen under-garments, since “Their burdensome wadded clothes hang around their bodies like so many bags, leaving yawning spaces through which the cold penetrates to the flesh, but they do not mind this circumstance.” Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 161. 5 According to Smith, this is due to the “absence of nerves” of Chinese, cf.: Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 115. 6 Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 219–220. However, not all of Smith’s observations correspond to the social reality in China. His comments on the indifference of parents to their children seemed to be rather excessive: “Not one parent in fifty has any care what his children are about, when their help is not needed in work. Few fathers have the smallest thought as to what their children are learning, if they are at school, or ever think of visiting the schoolhouse to ascertain.” Cf.: Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 218. 7 Cf.: Foster, Ah Q Archaeology, 120–129.

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do with them personally.8 Also the problem of trust was usually personal and pragmatic. In fact, Smith recognized the importance of personal interest and the pragmatic side of the Chinese.9 But he did not realize that this pragmatism and personalization were the reasons for the indifference, a significant facet of “Chinese Characteristics”. A century after Smith’s book, a Chinese scholar Sun Longji (孙隆基) published his most important work “The ‘Deep Structure’ of Chinese Culture (中国文 化的深层结构)”, which attracted attention in Chinese intellectual consciousness in the late 1980s. In contrast to Smith, Sun focuses not on Chinese behavior, but rather on the deep, long-lasting reasons. In his opinion, Chinese culture is constituted of two shifts: The surface shift like behavior has various appearances due to various environments and contexts. Under this surface, there is a “deep structure” containing different elements which interact with each other, like pragmatism and personalization. This deep structure stays stable and roots itself in the Chinese mind, regardless of varying times, social groups, geographical places, political forms etc.10 Thus it is no wonder that the conclusion of a test done by Elizabeth Hellersberg in the late 1940s refers to an American-born Chinese woman who “on a deeper level is still a Chinese.”11 Houqua might not be representative when it comes to his material life and his singular position in the confrontation with the West during the early nineteenth century. Also, he might appear different compared to those Chinese, who did not behave like a timid lady. And surely not every Chinese was as serious as Houqua, who was reported as never having cracked a single joke in his life. But what he shared with his fellow countrymen was something more substantial, his pragmatic thinking and personal interest, as well as his perception of peace and social hierarchy and his way of dealing with trust. His final decision to stay in China, despite his preparations including the huge reserve abroad and invitations by his foreign friends, reveals that he was still Chinese “on a deeper level”.

8 Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 73. 9 This can be found in Smith’s comments like: “There are no objects of general, and human interest to attract attention, except what is local arid personal.” He described Chinese as “an intensely practical people”, “an eminently practical people” and “a most practical people”. Cf.: Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 13, 35, 84, 107, 184. 10 Sun, The deep structure, 9. 11 Sun, The deep structure, 20. That every Chinese could be potentially representative does not mean that we should relativize the significance of daily life. Only based on the manifold facets of daily lives can we figure out the “deep structure”.

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Regarding this “deep level”, how far was Houqua westernized or open-minded? As mentioned, in contrast to most of his countrymen, Houqua belonged to the very few Chinese who had the chance to be informed about the outside world. Without being open-minded towards foreigners, his extraordinary success in foreign trade would be unthinkable. He gladly accepted gifts from his Western partners and friends. He was also willing to learn and make use of the products from the West. He let himself be portrayed in a Western style and sat in a cross-legged position, which was against Chinese tradition and quite uncomfortable for him. Just before the outbreak of the war, he even rescued his American partners and friends, and helped them return home at his own risk. He respected his closest friend, John Cushing as an equal partner, since he went so far as to trust him to manage his inheritance abroad and take care of his family after his death. The list of examples from Houqua’s life that prove his open-mindedness is very long. However, there are several aspects of his behavior that are noteworthy: Firstly, these instances occurred only in his personal dealings with foreigners and other close relationships. As a middleman in foreign affairs, he officially stood on the side of his Chinese patrons. In contrast, he even tried to hide his personal relationship with foreigners from other Chinese. In other words, being related to the West in some way or the other way seemed to be something for him to be ashamed of and thus kept secret as far as possible. This shows that his interest in the West was not strong enough to overcome his fear of sanctions being imposed on him and his belief in Chinese social hierarchies. Therefore, his openness was politically and ideologically limited, and personal rather than official. He could be as open as his position in Chinese society allowed him to. Secondly, his openness was affected by his pragmatic thinking. His acceptance of Western culture and his willingness to learn from the West was primarily to do with foreign trade. Compared to other Hong Merchants, the key to Houqua’s singular success in the Canton trade was his relationship with the West, respectively his huge commercial network across three continents based on personal trust. On the one hand, this indicates his courage and insight. On the other hand, it also shows that his openness was beneficial and necessary for his business to flourish. Even his intercultural long-lasting friendship with John Cushing and the Forbes brothers, which was atypical in Chinese social networks of the nineteenth century, was still connected with utility and pragmatism. The risks he had to take for trusting the “foreign devils” and being friends with them were finally rewarded through his success in business. Based on Houqua’s case and his manner of being open, how can we judge the isolation of China? As mentioned at the very beginning, there were roughly two kinds of social groups which had the privilege of being in touch with the West, namely the ruling classes including the emperor in the capital city, and the

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tiny group of Chinese involved in foreign trade. If China’s isolation is viewed as a refusal to enter the family of nations, i.e. to have exchanges with other countries especially with the Western world in various areas, to be informed about them and to respect them as equals, Houqua was not a Chinese who was isolated. In fact, he was informed about the West more than other Chinese, especially about trading conditions, and very possibly about the advances in Western technology and science. However, he kept such information, which might harm the image of his patrons, to himself, since he did not realize the significance of this information. Neither did the ruling classes in Peking. But in contrast to the merchants in Canton, the emperor and his leading Confucian bureaucrats consciously kept themselves isolated and were satisfied with their isolation. Except for these two groups, the other Chinese, who made up of the majority of Chinese people, stayed uninformed and isolated. It is however important to note that even after 1840, as the access to the West gradually became open, most Chinese were still unaware and indifferent about the happenings in the outside world. As Arthur Smith observed, the interest of the Chinese about the West was still facile: How profoundly indifferent the Chinese are to the wonders of steam and electricity practically applied, an army of disappointed contractors who have been in China, have discovered. With few exceptions the Chinese do not wish (though they may be forced to take) foreign models for anything whatever. They care nothing for sanitation, for ventilation, nor for physiology. They would like some, but by no means all, of the results of Western progress, without submitting to Western methods, but rather than submit to Western methods, they will cheerfully forego the results.12

Among this Chinese public, there were also Confucian bureaucrats and intellectuals, who were not only indifferent to which Dynasty was ruling, but were also stubborn and arrogant. Their minds were described by Smith “like a rusty old smooth-bore cannon, mounted on an old decrepit carriage, which requires much hauling about, before it can be pointed at anything, and then it is sure to miss fire.”13 In sum, most of the Chinese population was hopelessly isolated from the outside world. The privileged classes who had the power to interact with the West, remained satisfied with their isolation and did not intend to change their style of living at all. Others like the merchants in Canton, who might have been aware of the changing world, were too deeply trapped in Chinese social hierarchies and too weak to undertake any serious public interactions. Every social

12 Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 128–129. 13 Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 133.

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group living in this society had its own way of being pragmatic and indifferent. No matter how differently they behaved, they were not willing to make any profound changes that may cause “chaos (乱)” and disturb their “peace (安)”. Although Houqua had obviously gone further than his countrymen to be open, he did not take on the difficult task of changing the destiny of his country. The implications of his openness was limited to himself. Therefore, it is no wonder that even in an open port city like Canton, the result of centuries of encounters with the West was – like that in Peking – also fruitless. As Smith noted in late nineteenth century, “it is difficult for the European traveler who visits the city of Canton for the first time, to realize the fact that this Chinese emporium has enjoyed regular intercourse with Europeans for a period of more than three hundred and sixty years.”14 However, the primary reason for the existence of Canton trade was for profits and to keep the peace in southern China, where a big part of the population earned their living directly or indirectly through foreign trade. Canton trade did not exist to welcome the West. Furthermore, Houqua’s case shows that China was not completely isolated: It was open for limited periods, in limited areas, and for certain practical purposes. The tedious progress of opening after 1840 reveals the challenges in making intercultural communication work, gaining mutual trust, and building friendships.

14 Smith, Chinese Characteristics, 124.

Bibliography Archival Sources Boston Anthenaeum, Boston:Journal of occurrences at Canton during the cessation of trade at Canton by William C. Hunter Baring & Co. Archive, London:The Baring Archive, Series HC Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston:Bryant & Sturgis (Boston, Mass.) Records 1801–1872Forbes Family Business Records 1658–1968Heard Family Business Records 1734–1901Russell and Co. / Perkins and Co. Collection British Library, London:India Office Records Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford:Wolcott, Oliver Jr. Papers Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park:Delano Family Papers 1568–1919Roosevelt Family Papers 1469–1962 Library of Congress, Washington D.C.:John Richardson Latimer PapersRussell & Co., Guangzhou, China, Records Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston:Edward King Papers 1835–1842Forbes Family Papers 1842–1898Houqua LetterbookSamuel Cabot Papers 1713–1858 National Archives at Boston, Waltham:“Houqua, Master vs. Perkins, James et. al” Textual Records from the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of MA (1789 – 01/01/1912), File Unit from Records Group 21; Records of District of the United States, 1685–2004 National Archives, Kew, London:Foreign Office Records National Archives of the Netherlands, the Hague:Nederlandse Factory in Canton Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence:Carrington PapersCarter-Danforth PapersSullivan Dorr Papers Guangdong Provincial Zhongshan Library广东省立中山图书馆, Guangzhou (Canton)：Wu Ziwei (伍子伟) (ed.): Genealogy of Wu Family’s entering in Guangdong Province (安海伍氏入粤族 谱), 1956Wu Yaoguang (伍瑶光) (ed.): Genealogy of the entire Wu Family (伍氏合族总谱), 1934Pan Jin (潘进): Posthumous work of Pan Zizheng (潘资政公遗稿), 1880 (光绪六年) Private Possession:Wu, Lingli (伍凌立) (ed.): Genealogy of Wu Family, branch of those involved in the Thirteen Hongs (广州十三行支脉族引谱), 2011.

Primary Sources von Braam, Andre Everard. An Authentic Account of the Embassy of the Dutch East-India Company to the Court of the Emperor of China, in the years 1794 and 1795. In 2 volumes. London: 1798. British Parliament. Correspondence relating China. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by Command of Her Majesty. London: 1840. British Parliament. Report from the Select Committee on the Trade with China. Together with the minutes of Evidence taken before them, and an appendix and index. Ordered to be printed 2nd July 1840.

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Index acquaintances 24, 25, 128, 129–236 acquaintanceship 3, 4, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22–23, 24, 26, 156, 196 Adam Ferguson 23 Allom, Thomas 164 “alienable” and “inalienable” possessions 175 Bao Qingtian (包青天) 27 Baojia-System (保甲) 51 Baring Brothers & Co. 58, 141, 155, 215, 218, 220, 221, 224, 225, 229, 232 blockage 134, 172 blood-connection (血缘) 25 Bryant & Sturgis 201, 207, 219, 228 Bryant, Thomas 151, 152, 154 Bumstead 208 bureaucratization 57 Cabot, Handasyd 132 Canton (the city) VIII, XI, XII, 3, 4 Canton System 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 19, 34, 48–59, 96, 99, 102, 105, 122, 125 Canton Trade 4, 6–9, 42, 48–50, 56, 57, 68, 90, 101, 103, 107, 128, 140, 142, 144, 145, 148, 157, 198, 201, 202, 209, 232, 252, 266, 270, 282 Cantonese theater 158, 159 chaos (乱) 6, 9, 10, 11, 233 chaste women (烈女) 38 Chen Hongmou (陈宏谋) 33, 269 Chinese origin of Western culture (西学中源) X Chinnery, George 179, 180, 182, 184 christian thought 21–22, 33 Christianity 5, 8, 11, 26, 27 Chunqua 66, 67, 104, 158 civic consciousness 2, 3, 4, 9 Cohong 25, 26, 50, 53, 55, 101, 102, 105, 106 Collection of Yue Ya Tang (粤雅堂丛书) 39 Colledge 83, 84, 85, 86, 183 commercialization 3 confidence X, 1–9, 11, 12–20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 30, 94, 96, 97, 115, 117, 138, 192, 197, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629644-008

209, 218, 225, 229, 230, 235, 237–241, 248–254 Confucianism 17, 26, 27, 34, 36, 88 Confucius 11, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34, 37 Conseequa 14, 19, 37, 56, 58, 104, 107, 108, 109, 110, 116, 164, 168, 169, 211 Consoo Fund (行用) 44 Consoo Fund 44 Coolidge, Jeseph 1, 24, 201, 218–236 cross-legged pose 185, 186, 191 Cudgin 45 Cushing, Caleb (顾盛) 35 Cushing, John P. 3, 8, 9, 23, 26, 35, 36, 62, 97, 98, 136, 144, 151, 152, 173, 174, 181, 191, 194, 201, 202, 204, 205, 208–218, 225, 235, 236 Cushing, Robert 201 customary law (习惯法) 31 Customs at Canton (粤海关) 50, 53 Delano, Edward 63, 160, 173 dinner 13, 19, 134, 156–161, 166, 168 Doctrine of the Mean (中庸) 35 Dong Zhongshu (董仲舒) 36, 125 EIC (East India Company) 5–8, 18, 19, 23, 30, 38, 49, 52–58, 61, 64–69, 71–75, 99–108, 111–116, 118, 135, 138, 143, 146, 147, 148, 150, 154, 171, 172, 177, 181, 191, 192, 193, 195, 197, 209, 210, 229 Eli (伊利) 110, 116 Elliot 202 Elphinstone 108 Enlightenment VIII, 3, 11, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 33, 89, 119, 138 equality 3, 8, 21, 22, 25, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 119, 128 Ethic House (四夷馆) 137 Ewo Hong (怡和行) 5, 6, 7, 38, 75, 99, 108, 149, 162, 196 Exchin 67, 113, 115, 116 familiarity 1–9, 11, 12–20, 23, 24, 25, 95, 197, 201, 237–241, 248–251

300

Index

family bond 2, 3, 9, 11–16, 24, 25, 26, 29, 123, 124, 127, 196, 200–203, 210 Fan Kwae 52, 212 Fatqua 104, 113, 115, 117, 118 Fei Xiaotong (费孝通) 24, 28, 31 filial piety 26, 28, 34, 35, 36, 37, 119, 121 Five Cardinal Relationships (五伦) 26, 27, 35 Forbes, John Murray 24, 32, 36, 97, 98, 132, 133, 134, 153, 166, 174, 179, 199, 202, 206, 207, 209, 210, 215, 217, 218, 219–231, 235, 236 Forbes, Paul Siemen 1, 144, 145 Forbes, Robert Bennet 62, 92, 93, 97, 98, 134, 137, 144, 145, 146, 154, 166 Forbes, Thomas Tunno 132, 202 foreign devil 4, 32, 33, 35, 52, 86, 89, 90, 93, 129–136, 172, 173, 200, 203, 209 four categories of people (四民) 39, 40, 125 friendship 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26–34, 38, 39, 40, 128, 136, 144, 154, 170, 176, 177, 181, 191, 194, 197, 200, 202, 262–270 Fu Yin Yuan (馥荫园) 163 Fukuyama 3, 12, 123, 200 gentlemen (君子) 28 Geowqua 8, 100, 104 gifts 4, 10, 13, 19, 30, 61, 99, 170–179, 181, 182, 184, 185, 187, 189, 191 Goqua 66, 106, 107, 115, 116 Gu Xiancheng (顾宪成) 40 guanxi (关系） 10, 11, 13 Guanyu (关羽) 27 Guo Songtao (郭嵩焘) 89 Hai Zhuang Temple (海幢寺) 161, 162 Hamilton, Gary G. 9, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124 Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) 3, 26, 27, 35, 36, 37, 125 Han Fei (韩非) 27 Han Feizi (韩非子) 27, 35, 36 Han Wu Di (汉武帝) 27 Heard & Co. 219, 234 Heard, Augustine 118, 153, 165, 207, 219, 220, 228, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235

Henry Ellis 158, 165, 166 Herder, Johann Gottfried 138 hierarchization 36, 38 hierarchy 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33–39, 40, 46, 49, 53, 57, 63, 96, 97, 116, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 173, 218 Higginson 202 Honam (河南) 161, 164, 170 Hong (行) 13, 50 Hong friends 15, 18, 19, 20, 28, 30, 99, 101, 105–110, 112, 114, 116, 117, 118, 127, 160, 165, 203 Hong Merchants 3–7, 9, 13–20, 23, 26, 33, 34, 39, 44, 45, 46, 61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 77–86, 88–96, 99–119, 125, 129, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 140, 142, 146, 150, 153, 155–172, 176, 178, 179, 183, 187, 188, 191, 192, 203, 205, 210, 211, 213, 225 Hoppo 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 64, 67, 106, 107, 112, 114, 117, 118, 122, 125 Houqua’s father 5, 6, 7, 15, 104 Howqua 74 Hua Di (花地) 161, 163, 164 Huang Zongxi (黄宗羲) 32 Hunter, William 8, 94, 95, 96, 130, 132, 133, 137, 138, 140, 141, 145, 155, 160, 165, 167, 172, 201, 212, 213, 232 imperial exam (科举) 27, 41, 42, 125, 126 indifference 2, 3, 278, 279 insurance 36, 61, 194, 198–199, 200, 218 isolation VII, VIII, IX, XI, 1, 4, 5, 277, 280, 281 James Flint 52 Jardine Matheson & Co. 93, 95, 235 Jardine, William 84, 93 Jeejeebhoy, Jamsetjee 155 Jesuits VIII, IX, X, XI John C. Green 201, 220, 226 John Sartain 182 Johnson, Samuel 138

Index

Kangxi (康熙, reg.1660–1720) IX, X, 31, 267 Kant, Immanuel 22, 33 King, Edward 132, 159, 160, 173, 174, 184, 201 King, W.C. 204 lac 63, 140 Lamqua 178, 184, 186, 187 Legalist (法家) 31, 35, 36 Li Hongbin (李鸿宾) 54 Liang Qichao (梁启超) 31 Liang Shuming (梁漱溟) 28 Lin Zexu (林则徐) 35, 63, 91, 94, 97, 127 linguists 50, 95, 142, 143, 146, 150 Lintin island (零丁洋岛) 205 Liquan Hong (丽泉行) 107 literati X, XI, 11, 16, 17, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 52, 87, 162, 166, 178, 187, 203 Liu Bei (刘备) 29 Liu Song Yuan (六松园) 163 Locke, John 22 Lopqua 162 Low, A.A. 173, 175, 232 loyalty 19, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 61, 63, 75, 90–99, 117, 125, 126, 218, 267, 268 Lu Guanheng 10 Lu Kun (盧坤) 77, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 127 Lu Wenjin 10 Lu Xun (鲁迅 1880–1936) 2 Luhmann, Niklas 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, 21 Macao 35, 72, 76, 77, 83, 84, 86, 94, 132, 133, 134, 154, 172, 179, 205, 231 Macao Pilots 50 Macartney Mission (1793) VII Magniac 114, 115 Malcom, Howard 156, 166 Matheson, James 93 Ming dynasty (1368–1644) 9, 37, 38, 42, 43, 121, 137 Mingju (明珠) 31 Morrison, John 30, 82, 138, 143, 146, 147, 148 Mowqua 8, 13, 31, 67, 78, 80, 82, 84, 91, 92, 93, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 127, 165, 166, 183, 200

301

Napier, William John (9th Lord Napier, 1786–1834) 76–86, 102, 132, 138, 143 necessitudo 23 occupational connection (业缘) 3, 25 oikos 121, 122, 124 On Party (朋党论) 28, 267 openness XI, 1, 4, 6, 9, 19 opium trade VIII, 92, 96, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208 Opium War VII, 2, 3, 9, 19, 34, 53, 61, 91, 161, 216 Ouyang Xiu (欧阳修) 28, 31 Paine 202, 220 Pan Changyao 10 Pan Shicheng (潘仕成) 167 Pan Youdu (潘有度) 52 Pan Youwei (潘有为) 163 partnership 14, 19, 23, 30, 33, 38, 57, 59, 99–105, 110, 111, 115, 116, 136, 155, 168, 171, 191–197, 199, 200, 203, 208, 210, 215, 218 patriarchy 119–128 patrimonialism 119–128 patronage 11, 15, 18, 19, 53, 61, 62, 63, 86, 87–90, 91, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 115, 116, 117, 119–128 peace (安) 6, 10, 11, 14, 18, 19 Perkins & Co. 144, 202, 207, 211 Perkins, James 151, 201 Perkins, Thomas 151, 201, 209 personalization 3, 11, 15, 21, 25, 26–32, 33, 90, 124, 125 Peter Parker (伯驾) 63, 64, 188 Pidgin English 136–146, 149, 150, 151, 153, 187, 192 Pigott 67, 68, 69 Plowden 106, 107, 115, 147, 172, 181 Poonequa 105, 106, 113, 115 portrait 4, 13, 34, 61, 99, 176–191 pragmatization 12, 15, 125 private (私), Chinese perception of 29 Puankhequa 6, 8, 14, 52, 58, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 116, 157, 163, 164, 168, 211 public (公), Chinese perception of 29

302

Index

Puiqua 7, 8, 37, 67, 69, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 111, 115, 116, 123, 162 Qianlong (乾隆, reign 1736–1795) 8 Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) 31, 37 Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) X, 14, 15, 17, 22, 38, 40, 41, 43, 55, 61, 122, 137 Records of the Grand Historian (史记) 27 regional connection (地缘) 25 risk 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 19, 32, 33, 57, 88, 138, 154, 173, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 211, 218, 223, 243 role expectation 6, 7, 14, 15, 20, 25 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 138 Ruan Yuan (阮元) 17, 167 Russell & Co. 1, 9, 18, 26, 32, 36, 38, 118, 134, 136, 138, 144, 145, 148, 153, 154, 160, 161, 165, 172, 173, 174, 184, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 213, 216–233, 235, 236 sanction 4, 6, 7, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20–25, 30, 32, 90, 101, 116, 117, 125, 126, 127, 152, 154, 173, 192, 208, 215, 221, 222, 256–261 School for combined learning (同文馆) 137 security 1, 2, 9, 14, 30, 51, 112, 151, 154, 193, 197, 199, 218, 236 Security Merchants (保商) 16, 51, 53 Self-Strengthening Movement (洋务运动) X, 2 Seligman, Adam 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 21 Shang Yang (商鞅) 31 Shaw, Samuel 6, 156 Sima Qian (司马迁) 27 Sino-Japanese War (1895) 46, 89 Sinophile VIII, 138 Sinophobe 138 Smith, Adam 23 Smith, Arthur (明恩溥) 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 Songgotu (索额图) 31 South Song Dynasty (1127–1279) 36 Speakman Esther 180, 181 St. Thomas Aquinas 21

strangership 13, 22–23, 24, 26, 200 Sturgis Russell 201 Sturgis, William F. 201, 219, 228 Sui Dynasty (581–618) 50 Sully, Thomas 181 Sun Longji (孙隆基) 3 sworn brothers (结拜兄弟) 29, 31 sympathy 3, 23, 93, 94 Tang Dynasty 3, 27, 38, 195 Taylor, Jeremy 22 Ten Evils (十恶) 14 Thirteen Hongs (十三行) XII, 13, 25, 26, 50 Three Bonds (三纲) 32, 34, 35, 36, 119 Tilden 153, 157, 159 Tingqua 159, 163, 186, 188 Treaty of Nanking (南京条约) 34, 173 Treaty of Wanghia (望厦条约) 35 trust 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20–25, 26, 32, 33, 35, 63, 115, 123, 134, 135, 144, 151, 153, 154, 155, 158, 161, 168, 169, 176, 192, 196, 197, 237, 245, 256–261 villains (小人) 28 VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) 52 Wan Song Yuan (万松园) 163 Wang Zhaoyong (汪兆镛) 38 Weber, Max 25, 36, 119, 120, 121, 124, 126 Western City (西关) 164 Whampoa 65, 66, 68, 71, 77, 87 Wilcocks 4, 181, 213, 214 Wolcott, Oliver Jr. 150, 151 Wu Ancestral Hall (伍氏宗祠) 162 Wu Bingjian (伍秉鉴) 4 Wu Bingyong (伍秉镛) 38 Wu Chonghui (伍崇晖) 37, 39 Wu Chongyao (伍崇曜) 35, 37, 39, 40, 168, 169 Wu Shaotang 39 Wu Yuan-E (伍元莪) 37 Wu Yuanhua (伍元华) 4, 38, 39 Wu Yuanlan (伍元兰) 37 Wu Yuansong (伍元菘) 37

Index

Wu Yuanzhi (伍元芝) 37, 164 Yang Wenqian (杨文乾) 54 Yongzheng (雍正, reg. 1722-1735) 31 Yuanshun Hang (元顺行) 5

Zaizhen (载振) 47 Zhang Fei (张飞) 29 Zhang Zhidong (张之洞) X, 40, 46 Zhu Xi (朱熹) 36 Zigong (子贡) 28

303