38
The Co-Hong
The Co-Hong was the group of security merchants, not members of a guild but individually licensed, who had been made responsible to the Hoppo for the foreign trade, in all its particulars, and especially in regard to revenue. In practice, this meant that every ship and its crew had to be "secured" by one of the Hong merchants, who remained responsible for it, and them, until it quitted China on its homeward voyage.
Although domiciled in Canton for several generations, the Hong merchants were not Cantonese, but were of Fukienese origin. They were committed to the foreign trade because they had emigrated to Canton to participate in it, and it was their livelihood. By 1740, their group was already in control of the trade.34
Their responsibilities were heavy and wide-ranging. In 1836-37, they were responsible for the trade and good behaviour of 307 foreign residents, 55 foreign firms, and over 200 foreign ships and their crews, with total tonnage in excess of 100,000.35
On the domestic front, they had policing powers over house and ships' compradors, linguists, the more than one hundred shopkeepers who enjoyed limited right to carry out a retail trade with foreigners, and up-country suppliers. Above all, the merchants had good relations to maintain and their goodwill to purchase.36
Their notion of social advancement remained conventional or became so - to escape from the merchant class into the scholarly or landed gentry class. Their methods were traditional, namely the purchase of property, ranks, degrees and titles. This is why their portraits invariably show them in official dress, as in Plate 6.37
The Hong merchants' life was not a bed of roses. Quite apart from being held responsible by the senior officials for everything from sailors' disorderly behaviour to foreigners' debts, they were milked unmercifully for public and private causes. Donations towards a famine, a Yellow River flood, the ransom paid to the British for not attacking Canton in 1841, paying off Chinese debts to foreign traders, were typical of what Morse called the 'supplementary exactions' practised upon them by
38
The Co-Hong
The Co-Hong was the group of security merchants, not members of a guild but individually licensed, who had been made responsible to the Hoppo for the foreign trade, in all its particulars, and especially in regard to revenue. In practice, this meant that every ship and its crew had to be "secured” by one of the Hong merchants, who remained responsible for it, and them, until it quitted China on its homeward voyage.
Although domiciled in Canton for several generations, the Hong merchants were not Cantonese, but were of Fukienese origin. They were committed to the foreign trade because they had emigrated to Canton to participate in it, and it was their livelihood. By 1740, their group was already in control of the trade.34
Their responsibilities were heavy and wide-ranging. In 1836-37, they were responsible for the trade and good behaviour of 307 foreign residents, 55 foreign firms, and over 200 foreign ships and their crews, with total tonnage in excess of 100,000,3
On the domestic front, they had policing powers over house and ships' compradors, linguists, the more than one hundred shopkeepers who enjoyed limited right to carry out a retail trade with foreigners, and up-country suppliers. Above all, the merchants had good relations to maintain and their goodwill to purchase.36
Their notion of social advancement remained conventional or became so - to escape from the merchant class into the scholarly or landed gentry class. Their methods were traditional, namely the purchase of property, ranks, degrees and titles. This is why their portraits invariably show them in official dress, as in Plate 6.37
The Hong merchants' life was not a bed of roses. Quite apart from being held responsible by the senior officials for everything from sailors' disorderly behaviour to foreigners' debts, they were milked unmercifully for public and private causes. Donations towards a famine, a Yellow River flood, the ransom paid to the British for not attacking Canton in 1841, paying off Chinese debts to foreign traders, were typical of what Morse called the 'supplementary exactions' practised upon them by
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