'China materials' from 1672 to 1683 (compiled 1821) : Trading journal; Memorandum 1672-1683
- Published:
- Marlborough, Wiltshire : Adam Matthew Digital, 2019.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource
- Additional Creators:
- Adam Matthew Digital (Firm)
Access Online
- Summary:
- Description: IOR/G/12: Factory Records: China and Japan, 1614-1843. Materials for a history on Company relations with China and Japan, 1596-1759; ship diaries, 1721-1751; Canton diaries and consultations, 1751-1834; Canton agency consultations, 1834-1840; China select committee's secret consultations, 1793-1832; Letters received from China, 1823-1834; Secret letters received from China, 1821-1830; Despatches to China, 1829-1832; and various miscellaneous records.310 volumes.IOR/G/12/1-14, Compilations from the Company's archives, 1596-1830 (14 volumes) were put together mainly by Peter Pratt, a clerk in the Register Department of the Company's library, employed in June 1817 to make catalogues, indexes and extracts. After the Company's charter renewal of 1813 reduced its monopoly to China, Pratt's work was intended to provide the historical background for any future defence of the China trade. His main compilation (G/12/1-8) was finished in 1821 and was followed by supplementary volumes. This sub-sub-series, 'China materials', 1596-1725 (8 volumes), is described as 'Materials for a history of the rise & progress of the trade to China consisting of extracts and abridgments from books and papers in the Indian Record Office and from the Court's Letter Book, with a few passages from Purchas his Pilgrimes citing papers in the Company's Records of which all the articles referred to have not been found or identified, including also abstracts of all the passages in Bruce's Annals relating to the subject or references to them.' The volumes consist of extracts written on slips of papers and then pasted up, with some margin annotations and summaries between the slips. Pratt notes that 'incidental notices of Japan, Tonquin, Cochinchina, Bantam and other places exterior to China and not dependencies of it, are admitted during the period which preceded the acquisition of a direct trade to China, and while the Company were aiming only to establish a circuitous trade to China, by intermediate stations in the neighbouring archipeligo and continent'.Japan: To supply funds for its trade at Bantam, the Company set out to sell large quantities of English woollens in Japan. The Clove, a ship of the Company's eighth voyage, visited the port of Firando in 1613. A factory was established there and factors were sent to neighbouring islands and ports including Nangasaki, Edo, Osaca, Shrongo, Miaco and Tushma. As the Dutch and Spanish were already supplying woollens, however, trade did not flourish. Conflict with the Dutch and the increasing hostility of the Japanese to foreign trade led to the factory's closure in 1623.China: From an early date the Company had made efforts to trade with China to obtain silks and porcelain. Voyages were attempted intermittently over the first half of the seventeenth century but the first foothold on mainland China was not gained until 1676, when Company merchants were given permission to trade at Amoy. A little later, ships were allowed to trade at Canton and tea began to be purchased. Trade began on a fairly regular basis at Amoy, Canton and Chusan to the north of the country. Ships were despatched yearly with a supercargo appointed to each ship; the supercargoes stayed in the same house at Canton and organised the country trade from there. In 1757 an imperial edict confined all foreign trade to the one port, Canton. The Company, its activities officially acknowledged, obtained permission to establish a factory there in 1762. The main product purchased was tea, which quickly came to dominate the Company's trade, its value by the end of the century almost equalling the value of all other commodities put together. The Company's monopoly on the China trade was finally abolished in 1833. An agent remained at Canton until 1840.Publications: Anthony Farrington, The English Factory in Japan, 1613-1623, 2 vols (London, 1991); Chang Hsiu-Jung et al, The English Factory in Taiwan, 1670-1685 (Taipei, 1995); Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, 1635-1834, 5 vols (Oxford, 1926-1929).
- Other Subject(s):
- Note:
- IOR/G: East India Company Factory Records (1608-1858). A 'factory' was a trading post where a number of merchants, or factors, resided. When company ships arrived at the factories, ships' merchants were thus enabled to exchange goods for trading immediately instead of having to wait to make deals with local merchants. Factories were run by a chief factor and a council of factors. The 'Factory Records' is an artificially created sub-fonds; the records of individual Company factories consist mainly of consultations (records of administrative decisions and of correspondence), diaries (records of daily activities), letters received, copies of letters sent and collections of papers on particular subjects.
AMDigital Reference: IOR/G/12/2. - Original Version:
- Reproduction of: 'China materials' from 1672 to 1683 (compiled 1821) 1821.
- Location of Originals:
- The British Library
- Copyright Note:
- The British Library Board
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