HISTORY
303
number of Europeans connected with the trade were, under security paid by their Chinese business associates, allowed to reside in Canton during the trade season only, being obliged by the Chinese authorities to leave the country as soon as they had completed the year's business. Only certain Chinese merchants were permitted to trade with the Europeans, and they conducted their affairs as a monopoly guild, fixing prices arbitrarily and without regard for real market values.
As, throughout the eighteenth century, the volume of trade between China and the West continued to grow, until it reached large proportions, the various restrictions imposed on it by the Chinese Government became, in European eyes, steadily less realistic and less endurable. Although the French, Dutch, Spaniards, Danes and Swedes also traded with Canton, the volume of British trade by 1763 was more than double that of all the others together. It was the British who, having the largest stake in the trade, were the most critical of the Chinese restrictions.
=
In 1793 Lord Macartney was sent as Ambassador to Peking in an attempt either to improve trading conditions at Canton and Macau, or else to acquire from the Chinese Government some small island or minor port where Europeans would be able to reside permanently, trade with whatever Chinese merchants wished to deal with them, and be subject to their own laws while residing at the port.
These requests were unconditionally refused. A second embassy, sent in 1816, was even more of a failure, the Ambassador, Lord Amherst, being ordered to leave Peking without being presented to the Emperor.
Hitherto British merchants operating privately in the China trade had been under restraints imposed on them by the East India Company, which, from Calcutta, licensed private British shipping on the China route and, at Canton, saw to it that all British subjects obeyed the Chinese regulations. In 1813, however, the Company's monopoly of trade with India was abolished. Although the Company still in theory licensed traders to China, this lessening of its power made it easier for unauthorized private traders to find a foothold at Canton and Macau. The number of British traders increased, with little or no restraint on their
Page 360Page 361