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For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications Private enterprise and the China trade: British interlopers and their informal networks in Europe, c.1720-1750 Meike von Brescius A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History University of Warwick, Department of History January 2016 Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction........................................................................................... 1 Supercargoes: commercial polymaths of the China trade................................ 7 Private trade and monopoly structures: a network perspective........................ 22 Accessing privileges.......................................................................................... 33 The supercargo in historiography: problems and perspectives......................... 35 Source material.................................................................................................. 40 Plan of the study................................................................................................ 45 Chapter II: British interlopers in the China trade, c.1720-1750: a group portrait..................................................................................................................... 47 E pluribus unum? ............................................................................................. 58 Ways into the China trade................................................................................. 63 New companies and old India traders: the demise of the Ostend and the rise of the Swedish East India Company........................................................... 82 Britons abroad, interlopers at home: transnational careers in the making…… 86 Flexible citizens: nomads of the Canton trade.................................................. 96 Chapter III: European geographies of private trade: the case of Cadiz.......... 110 Port cities, merchant communities and the study of networks.......................... 112 Cadiz.................................................................................................................. 115 Flows of silver from a network perspective....................................................... 124 The Cadiz merchant community and the China trade....................................... 128 Cadiz enters the China trade.............................................................................. 133 Cadiz as an entrepôt........................................................................................... 137 Company recruitments and passenger traffic to China...................................... 151 Cadiz as a financial centre................................................................................. 155 Bottomry loans and the cross-Company money market.................................... 161 Entangled cities of the China trade: Cadiz, Antwerp and Amsterdam.............. 180 i Chapter IV: From China with love: the special commission trade.................. 185 Merchants and the commission business............................................................. 189 Typologies of commissions in the China trade................................................... 194 Families and consumers associated with the East India Companies................... 202 Commanders and supercargoes as consumers, suppliers and entrepreneurs....... 215 Chapter V: Big business: the wholesale and re-export trade in Chinese Export wares.......................................................................................................... 223 Mariners as merchants: revisiting the Sino-European private trade................... 226 Public sales, private agreements......................................................................... 240 The re-export trade............................................................................................. 254 Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 272 Bibliography........................................................................................................... 277 ii List of Illustrations and Tables Illustrations: Chapter Two: Fig. 2.1 Portrait of Charles Irvine of Drum (1760). 49 Fig. 2.2 Portrait of Colin Campbell of Moy (1755). 56 Fig. 2.3 ‘Rese-Pass’ for Charles Irvine for his journey to Canton as SEIC supercargo in 1736. 98 Chapter Three: Fig. 3.1 Portrait of John Pike. Canton, 1743. 118 Fig. 3.2 View of the City of Cádiz, Gabriel Bodenehr, Augsburg around 1700. 125 Fig. 3.3 ‘Account of cost & charges’ payable to James Gough & Co at Cadiz, May 1741. 147 Fig. 3.4 Printed template for a bottomry contract sent out by H. P. Henssens, 1737. 163 Fig. 3.5 Payment details of a bottomry loan, dated 28 December 1741. 166 Chapter Four: Fig. 4.1 Example of a current account (1735) between Charles Irvine and Alexander Cumming. 193 Fig. 4.2 Chinese lacquered hall chair with the Child coat of arms, at Osterley Park. 204 Fig. 4.3 Model in ivory of a Chinese pleasure barge, mid-eighteenth-century, at Osterley Park. 207 Fig. 4.4 Special commissions taken on by Charles Irvine in 1745. 211 Fig. 4.5 Chinese export reverse mirror painting, circa 1750. 217 Chapter Five: Fig. 5.1 Detail of SEIC sales catalogue (1743) 236 Fig. 5.2 George Clifford III (1685-1760), merchant banker in Amsterdam. 241 iii Tables: Chapter Two: Table 2.1 Charles Irvine’s circle of intimates during his time in Sweden. 54 Table 2.2 British interlopers and cross-Company mobility, 1710s-1750s. 90 Chapter Three: Table 3.1 List of merchant bankers at Cadiz and their silver supplies for the SEIC China ship Stockholm, in 1740. 130 Table 3.2 Silver Cargoes of the Swedish East India Company between 1733 and 1765. 148 Table 3.3 Captain Francis Nelly’s Private Trade on the Hartford (1730/32). 157 Table 3.4: Irvine’s bottomry loans (1736-41): list of lenders and brokers. 172 Chapter Four: Table 4.1: Purchasers of Thomas Hall’s pacotille in August and September 1724. 214 Chapter Five: Table 5.1: Irvine’s wholesale network 257 iv Acknowledgements This project has been long in the making. While it grew, shrank, stood still, and grew again, I have incurred many debts of gratitude to people who supported and encouraged me throughout the process of researching, and writing this dissertation, and who sometimes believed in me more than I believed in myself. First and foremost, I would like to thank my exceptional supervisor Maxine Berg, who has been my rock in the midst of many changes, and who supported my project at critical moments with great vigour. During the last, difficult stages especially, she always offered clear-sighted, invaluable, and prompt comments on the development of the work. I am also immensely grateful to Maxine for allowing me to take part in her ERC-funded project, ‘Europe’s Asian Centuries: Trading Eurasia, 1600-1830’, between January 2011 and June 2014. The project allowed me to pursue a PhD from an undoubtedly privileged position, not least with regard to generous financial support for many research and conference trips – a rare and cherished chance for which I remain ever grateful. My thanks must therefore also go to the European Research Council, and to other funding bodies that supported workshops, conference, and archival trips – chiefly the Economic History Society and the History Departments of the universities of Warwick, Guangzhou and Yale. My archival missions were greatly assisted by experienced and helpful staff, including Margaret Franzen Borg and Dr. Marguerite Ragnow at the James Ford Bell Library, University of Minneapolis, and Richard Morel and Margaret Makepeace at the British Library. The ‘Trading Eurasia’ project introduced me to a circle of outstanding scholars on whose advice I could rely throughout my time at Warwick, and beyond. Helen Clifford, our museum consultant (and much more than that), an inspiring individual and scholar, has been a cheerleader for my project throughout, and I am very grateful for her contagious enthusiasm, thorough feedback, and exceptional generosity. The project’s post-docs, Felicia Gottmann, Hanna Hodacs, and Chris Nierstrasz, along with the associate researcher, Tim Davies, have all, in different ways, profoundly shaped my work and thinking. I have learnt a lot by listening to them, reading and discussing early chapter drafts, and watching them develop their monographs. Hanna, with whom I made a crucial archival trip to the States, will always have a special place in this thesis, as we shared our excitement and thoughts about the documents laid before our eyes. Anne Boneham, Sheilagh Holmes and Jiao Liu, who ran the project administration, have made my life a great deal easier and funnier. Sheilagh walked me through the Microsoft Excel wilderness with patience, enthusiasm, and great knowledge. Whatever I have picked up, I owe to her. Sheilagh was also of great help during the very last stages of the PhD, for which I am particularly grateful. The happiest diversion in the early phase of the