became the norm in the new comprador system. The guarantor might simply agree to compensate for losses to a firm caused by its comprador.' While the foreign firm depended on the guarantee system to ensure a comprador's trustworthiness, the comprador himself relied heavily on personal and regional ties in recruiting his own staff or keeping their own posts as hereditary.
Wong Kong, a Cantonese native of Shunde, serving in a compradorship to Messrs. Smith, Archer & Co. in Hong Kong, showed in his will his intention for his sons to become compradors in the future. He had arranged that trustees of his properties should provide a sum of not more than five thousand dollars as the sureties ordinarily requested by foreign firms. He wrote,
Should any of my said sons become compradores or assistants in any Mercantile Houses or places of business; It is my desire that my said trustees shall become his or their sureties in any sum not exceeding five thousand dollars and that my said trustees if they shall think proper so to do; shall so long as they continue such sureties retain in their hands so much of the principal money and property to which such son or sons shall be entitled under this my will and shall amount to such sum or sums for which they may so become sureties but in such case or cases the income arising on such property so retained shall be payable to my said son or sons.4
Although Wong had not stated which foreign firm his sons were going to enter or whether he had recommended them to Messrs. Smith, Archer & Co. or not, from the above we can see that a surety of about five thousand dollars as well as a personal guarantee were usually required.
Cantonese Predominance
Foreign firms doing business in China relied upon their local compradors, and before the rise of Zhejiang and Jiangsu compradors in the early twentieth century, most of these compradors were Cantonese. From scholar Yen-p'ing Hao's study, whose data were mainly based on archives of American and British firms, all of the 24 compradors employed between the 1850s and 1860s by Augustine Heard & Co. were