12
LINDSAY RIDE
as the season was over all foreigners had to leave Canton and return to their barbarian homes. It mattered not to the Chinese officials that it was a physical impossibility for the foreigners to go to their homes on the other side of the world and be back again in time for the next trading season. When the ships sailed from Whampoa, the Factories at Canton closed, and the merchant staff called Writers, Factors and Supercargoes, all left too. They went as far as Macao, and while the cargo laden ships sailed on to Europe, the merchants waited there for the coming of the next season's ships.
One other restriction that we must mention is that no European women were allowed to go up river at all, so the annual expulsion of the men from Canton was really not so very hard to bear for most people. It meant reunion with one's wife and family for those married men whose families were in Macao, and the pleasure of European female company for the bachelors. Macao was thus the foreigners' home away from home. They worked strenuously in isolation in Canton while the season lasted, and then between seasons they repaired to the more natural abode of the families in the only equivalent of a health and holiday resort that the Far East then knew. Social life in Macao was strenuous, especially for women folk who were few in number; many of the men were either bachelors or grass widowers and for approximately six months in each year, they had very little official work to do at all; at any rate this was certainly true for the juniors.
Another significant fact which had important implications was that the Chinese, at the time of which I speak, recognized only one foreign official body other than the Portuguese- namely the British East India Company, and they made all the official contacts with the other nationalities through the controlling body of this Company in Canton -the Select Committee. As may well be imagined, this situation led to difficulties between the British and the various other foreign communities whose trade with China had increased tremendously towards the end of the eighteenth century. This was particularly true of the new maritime power, the United States of America. After their independence, the Americans were naturally no longer willing to depend on the British shipping for their foreign trade; Britain made it particularly difficult for them to retain any of their trade with their former sister colonies in the West Indies, and they were thus forced to
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12
LINDSAY RIDE
as the season was over all foreigners had to leave Canton and return to their barbarian homes. It mattered not to the Chinese officials that it was a physical impossibility for the foreigners to go to their homes on the other side of the world and be back again in time for the next trading season. When the ships sailed from Whampoa, the Factories at Canton closed, and the merchant staff called Writers, Factors and Supercargoes, all left too. They went as far as Macao, and while the cargo laden ships sailed on to Europe, the merchants waited there for the coming of the next season's ships.
One other restriction that we must mention is that no European women were allowed to go up river at all, so the annual expulsion of the men from Canton was really not so very hard to bear for most people. It meant reunion with one's wife and family for those married men whose families were in Macao, and the pleasure of European female company for the bachelors. Macao was thus the foreigners' home away from home. They worked strenuously in isolation in Canton while the season lasted, and then between seasons they repaired to the more natural abode of the families in the only equivalent of a health and holiday resort that the Far East then knew. Social life in Macao was strenuous, especially for women folk who were few in number; many of the men were either bachelors or grass widowers and for approximately six months in each year, they had very little official work to do at all; at any rate this was certainly true for the juniors.
Another significant fact which had important implications was that the Chinese, at the time of which I speak, recognized only one foreign official body other than the Portuguese- namely the British East India Company, and they made all the official contacts with the other nationalities through the controlling body of this Company in Canton -the Select Committee. As may well be imagined, this situation led to difficulties between the British and the various other foreign communities whose trade with China had increased tremendously towards the end of the eighteenth century. This was particularly true of the new maritime power, the United States of America. After their independence, the Americans were naturally no longer willing to depend on the British shipping for their foreign trade; Britain made it particularly difficult for them to retain any of their trade with their former sister colonies in the West Indies, and they were thus forced to
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