The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton Before Treaty Days 1825-1844. William C. Hunter
gharrie. The novelty of everything interested me; it was as if I had landed on another planet. At that time the site occupied by the present town of Singapore was being cleared of its primitive jungle.
The Anglo-Chinese College was in every way adapted for instruction, and I continued in it as a student of Chinese until the end of December 1826. I then left in the ship 'Bengal Merchant' for Canton. She was loaded with cotton and opium, and not a fast sailer. Captain Brown was a most pleasant and agreeable gentleman, full of jokes and amusing stories with which to while away the time. We anchored at Singapore, which gave me an opportunity to see my old friends the Reads, Mr. A. L. Johnston, and to run up to Government House to make my salaam to Governor and Mrs. Crawford and their nieces, being received everywhere with a kindly welcome and the exclamation, 'How you have grown!' Continuing on our voyage, we passed through the Caramatta Passage, the Java Sea, Straits of Salayer, and into the Pacific by Dampier's Straits again. Between the Pelews and the Bashees we fell in with a typhoon au grand complet. At night the sea was as white as snow and of portentous height, coming upon us with the full uninterrupted sweep of the Pacific. We anchored at Lintin after a passage of sixty days.
Mr. D. W. C. Olyphant had arrived in 1826 as the successor of Mr. Covert; Mr. Gordon had entered the office of Messrs. Russell and Co., No. 2 Suy-Hong. The American Factory had been entirely built anew since 1825, and to it I betook myself. In addition to Mr. Olyphant were Charles N. Talbot and Charles W. King. Mr. Talbot was filling the office of U.S. Consul, and the flag was daily hoisted in the Square in front of the house. No. 1 Suy-Hong was occupied by James P. Sturgis, No. 3 by John R. Latimer, and No. 4 by John P. Cushing, T. T. Forbes, and John Hart. With Mr. Olyphant I called on, and made the acquaintance of, the Rev. Dr. Morrison, who had recently returned from England. Soon after I underwent a searching examination by him of the progress I had made in my Chinese studies at the Malacca College, and he pronounced it to be 'good.' There was no intention, however, that they should be discontinued, and in a few days I was placed under the tutorship of Le Seen-Sang. The tea season was over; all but one or two 'out of season' ships had sailed, but of those remaining was my old home and 'first cradle of the deep,' the 'Citizen,' and it was not long before Captain Keen and I again on board at Whampoa 'fought over the battles' of our voyage out together.
The year 1827 was a dull one so far as business was concerned, and I read Chinese with my teacher 'Le.' At length the tea season commenced in October. When the ships began to arrive, unpleasant news came also. My brother, of the office of Thomas H. Smith and Son (as it had become), wrote me that 'difficulties' existed in the affairs of the house. Finally it stopped payment and went into liquidation, but from causes not attributable to its China business. The Canton agency had therefore to be closed. Consulting with Mr. Olyphant in regard to myself, he advised me to return to New York, where only my position could be arranged. As usual at the time of which I write, certain indentures between employers and employés were usually drawn up. They existed between Mr. Smith and myself. In them, he engaged to send me to China for the purpose of acquiring the Chinese language, and then to be employed in his Factory at Canton, as clerk or Factor, and I was to render him service until I should have reached the age of twenty-one. It was a long time for me to look forward to in 1827. Several ships of the New York house were loading which had arrived in regular course before insurmountable difficulties had occurred. Amongst them was the 'Mary Lord,' Captain Rosseter. I left in her and arrived in a good run of 120 days. My fellow-passenger was Mr. Daniel Stansbury, whose name has become identified with the American trade at Canton from his having been the inventor of a measuring rod, by which cargoes were ever after measured. It proved to be an instrument of wonderful accuracy and rapidity, simple in the extreme, as well as the most convenient that can be imagined. 'Stansbury's measuring rod,' now proverbial, dates from our last war with Great Britain, 1812, when the inventor, being at Canton, and business with the United States suspended for some time, in his days of forced idleness he conceived the actual mode of measuring cargoes, which up to that time had been measured with the foot rule!
My interviews with Mr. George W. Bruen, the partner of Mr. Smith, led to no other result than the cancelling of the indentures, without indemnity. Not long after Mr. D. W. C. Olyphant himself returned to New York, leaving Messrs. Talbot and King at Canton, with the view of establishing a house there of his own. His first purchase was a very fine ship named the 'Roman,' Captain Lavender, of about 500 tons. He offered me a passage out in her, for the chance of being employed in the new house, which afterwards occupied for a great many years so distinguished a position in the commercial community in China. I accepted the chance and sailed in the 'Roman' in October. We were in all six passengers. The father and brother of Mr. Charles N. Talbot going out for the trip; Mr. Talbot, senior, had already been to Canton in 1802 or 1803. Two of the others were the Rev. E. C. Bridgman and the Rev. David Abeel. They were the first American missionaries to the Chinese. The former became one of the most accomplished Sinalogues of the day (which I do not attribute to my having given to both these gentlemen daily lessons on the passage out!), while Mr. Abeel was the first United States Consul appointed at any port north of Canton, being commissioned to Amoy.
We sailed in October, and anchored at Lintin in February, viâ Dampier's Straits, in 134 days. I was received by Mr. Talbot, who, from the yet uncertain advices from New York as regarded future business, could hold out no encouragement for me of office work; but, failing any other house, I was always welcome to a return passage in the 'Roman.' There were very few American houses then in Canton, and they were Agencies; moreover, they seemed provided with youngsters, and I accordingly prepared to leave again for New York. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Talbot busied himself on my behalf, but the stay of the 'Roman' was short and she was soon to be despatched. There appeared absolutely nothing to be done. A few days before the ship sailed, while in my room, occupied with my luggage, one of the Chinese servants came to me, and said, 'Mr. Talbot chin-chin you come down.' I went accordingly, and was introduced to Mr. Samuel Russell, the chief of the house of Russell & Co. He had heard, he said, from Mr. Talbot, of my probable return home in the 'Roman,' and had come to invite me to his office. I accepted the offer, and in the evening I was duly installed at No. 2 Suy-Hong. This was on March 24, 1829, and it became my uninterrupted home until December 31, 1842.
The word 'Factory' was an importation from India, where the commercial establishments of the 'East India Company' were so designated, and synonymous with 'agency.' It is well to explain this, as it is now being confounded with 'manufactory.'
The space occupied by the foreign community at Canton was about 300 feet from the banks of the Pearl River, eighty miles from Macao, sixty miles from Lintin, forty miles from the Bogue Forts, and ten miles from the Whampoa anchorage. In breadth from east to west it was about 1,000 feet. On it stood the Factories, which comprised the dwellings and places of business of each nation originally under one roof. The line of frontage was uniform, all looking due south. The distinction of new given to one of the two buildings occupied by the 'Company' applied to that one which was rebuilt after the great fire of 1822, which destroyed all the others, with a few exceptions, as well as, according to official accounts, '12,000 Chinese houses, shops, and temples in the western suburb.' Each Factory consisted of a succession of buildings, behind one another, separated by narrow spaces or courts, and running north. The front ones were numbered 1, those back of them, nearly all of three stories, No. 2, 3, and so on. The least numerous Factories were then in the American Hong, the greatest number were in the Danish and Dutch Hongs, which contained seven and eight respectively.
The Chinese word 'Hong' was applied to any place of business, but was more particularly used to designate the Hongs of the 'Security Merchants' whence Hong Merchants or any foreign Factory in its entirety. It signifies a row of buildings. By the Chinese, the places of business of foreigners were known as 'Foreign Hongs;' those of the Security Merchants as 'Foreign Hong Merchants.'
Beginning at the west, stood the Danish Factory; adjoining it were Chinese shops in its whole length, forming New China Street, which here intervened, separating it from the Spanish. Next the French, and by its side in its whole length, that of the Hong Merchant Chungqua; Old China Street here came in, and against it was the American, then the Imperial, by its side the Paou-shun, next in order the Swedish, the old English, and then the Chow-Chow.[7] Now came a small narrow lane, the renowned Hog Lane, most appropriately named. The high walls of the