RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390
The Hoppo lived in the City, along with the Viceroy, the Governor of Guangdong, and other high provincial officials. Their relations had for long crystallised into an arrangement that ensured access to private gain from the trade as parts of one administration, in contrast to the competing rivalries of earlier times. This was in part to provide for mutual protection against interference and accusation from Beijing officials.

The Hoppo's and other officials' treatment of foreign merchants

The language used by these officials in their communications with the traders and the EIC's Select Committee - as instanced by Dr. Gutzlaff, a most useful contemporary source of information on the times - was invariably haughty and patronising, in keeping with the accepted modes of address towards inferiors of all kinds, and did nothing to ease relationships. Gutzlaff also mentions the 'governmental proclamations, detailing the infamous conduct of barbarians, [which] have been repeatedly posted up at Canton,' imbuing the minds of the people with strong antipathy against such worthless barbarians, and discouraging them from having anything to do with foreigners. "The writer has often heard the natives rehearse these accusations with self-congratulation at their own superiority."

This sort of thing was an irritant, as were the restrictions on the movement of foreign merchants whilst in residence at the Factories, mentioned above.

Far more vexing were their other complaints against the Canton System, which were listed by Morse as including the heavy taxation/impositions levied on the trade; the monopoly system of the Co-hong; the uncertainty of recovery of debts due from Chinese merchants; the diversion of the Consoo Fund (provided from the trade to cover such debts) to government use and presents to officials; and the prohibition on their making representations to any official save through the Co-hong.

To all such complaints must be added the descriptions of the general venality of the administration, the Hoppo and other senior officials included, and indeed of the whole Canton System, as described in this paper.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390
39

the officials.38 This kind of thing, plus business losses, led some to bankruptcy.

Yet the foreign traders found them to be honourable men of business. There was, says Morse 'an ease in their mutual relations' which was the best commentary on the condition of affairs. "They both had a reputation for commercial honour and integrity such as has not been surpassed in any part of the world or at any time in its history: trading operations were entirely on parole, with never a written contract: and there was much help and sympathy from one to the other.39

The servants in the factories

Earlier regulations stated that Chinese could not be employed as servants to foreigners, but this rule was normally relaxed, albeit with a restriction on numbers. Many Chinese serviced the Factories in diverse occupations, and most must have been local people, some of them long-serving. The personal servant of one head of the EIC's Select Committee had been with him for 16 years, and there were clearly others of the kind.

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However, this was a dangerous employment. It became more so at times when the high mandarins were in dispute with the EIC Select Committee, and rules were invoked and enforced for a time. Servants would have to quit, or sometimes flee, and they and their families were liable to be 'squeezed' by underlings. A striking instance of the kind was the terror inspired by the Hoppo's and Prefect's unannounced visit and high-handed actions at the British Factory in 1831, when 'every Chinese in our Employ fled from our premises in alarm for his safety.'41

The wide range of civilians employed under the Co-Hong's auspices

Associated with the Hong merchants were a large number of other civilians, functionaries licensed by the Chinese authorities, who were required to be secured by the merchants in the performance of their duties.42 These included linguists (otherwise known as "interpreters") and compradors ('negotiators of purchases', storekeepers and ship-chandlers43) who, in their turn, were assisted in their work by a variety of persons offering services to the crews and other personnel connected with the trade. There were also the pilots licensed by the authorities. Besides these were the employees of the Customs, and the naval and

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