Full Text of the 1835 Regulations As Published in the Chinese Repository and of the Hunter Abridgement Are Attached to This Study As Exhibits D and E, Respectively
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Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/20013 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Frederic Delano Grant, Jr Title: The Chinese cornerstone of modern banking : the Canton guaranty system and the origins of bank deposit insurance 1780-1933 Date: 2012-10-24 THE CHINESE CORNERSTONE OF MODERN BANKING: THE CANTON GUARANTY SYSTEM AND THE ORIGINS OF BANK DEPOSIT INSURANCE 1780-1933 Dedicated to Barbara who made it possible THE CHINESE CORNERSTONE OF MODERN BANKING: THE CANTON GUARANTY SYSTEM AND THE ORIGINS OF BANK DEPOSIT INSURANCE 1780-1933 Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van Rector Magnificus prof.mr. P.F. van der Heijden, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties te verdedigen op woensdag 24 oktober 2012 klokke 11.15 uur door Frederic Delano Grant, Jr. geboren te Boston, Massachusetts, Verenigde Staten in 1954 Promotiecommissie: Promotor: Prof. dr. J.L. Blussé van Oud Alblas Co-promotor: Mr. dr. E. Koops Leden: Prof. dr. F.S. Gaastra Prof. dr. J.J.L. Gommans Prof. dr. B.J. Ter Haar Prof. mr. dr. M. Haentjens Dr. M.W. Witteveen – DIF Amsterdam Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix! NOTE ON SPELLING xi! GLOSSARY xii! Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1! 1A.! Subject and Framework 1! 1B.! Previous Research 5! 1C.! The 1829 Crisis in the State of New York 8! 1D.! The Crisis in the Chinese Port of Canton: 1829 9! Chapter 2: SOURCES OF THE CANTON GUARANTY SYSTEM 15! 2A.! Conquest and Pacification 15! 2B.! The Organization of Merchants Engaged in Maritime Trade 21! 2C.! Official Roots of Collective Responsibility 25! 2D.! Collective Responsibility in Chinese Tradition 30! Chapter 3: EVOLUTION OF THE CANTON GUARANTY SYSTEM 47! 3A.! Official Management of Maritime Foreign Trade 47! 3B.! The Security Merchant System and Origins of Collective Responsibility 51! 3C.! The Formal Regulation of Maritime Foreign Trade 54! 3D.! Debt Collection Under the Canton System 65! 3E.! The 1780 Crisis and Imposition of the Collective Guaranty 75! Chapter 4: THE FUND IS DRAINED, 1780-1799 104! 4A.! The Hong Merchants, 1780-1799. 104! 4B.! The Demands of Government, 1780-1799. 105! 4C.! Trading Conditions, 1780-1799. 107! 4D.! The Collective Guaranty of Debt, 1780-1799. 111! Chapter 5: THREE PLAGUES: WAR, PIRACY AND LITIGATION, 1800-1814 121! 5A.! The Hong Merchants, 1800-1814. 122! 5B.! The Demands of Government, 1800-1814. 123! 5C.! Trading Conditions, 1800-1814. 125! 5D.! The Collective Guaranty of Debt, 1800-1814. 126! 5D1.! The Abortive 1810 Receivership of Gnewqua II and Ponqua. 129! 5D2.! The 1813 Receivership of the Junior Hong Merchants. 131! Chapter 6: YEARS OF REBOUND AND OPIUM, 1815-1828 137! 6A.! The Hong Merchants, 1815-1828. 137! 6B.! The Demands of Government, 1815-1828. 140! 6C.! Trading Conditions, 1815-1828. 141! 6D.! The Experience of Conseequa, 1796-1823. 142! 6E.! The Collective Guaranty of Debt, 1815-1828. 147! Chapter 7: THE LAST YEARS OF THE CANTON SYSTEM, 1829- 1842 158! 7A.! The Hong Merchants, 1829-1842. 160! 7B.! Trading Conditions, 1829-1842. 164! 7C.! The Collective Guaranty of Debt, 1829-1842. 167! Chapter 8: FROM SAFETY FUND TO BANK DEPOSIT INSURANCE 181! 8A.! Joshua Forman. 182! 8B.! The Banking Crisis in the State of New York. 185! 8C.! The 1829 New York Safety Fund Statute. 187! 8D.! Early State Bank Guaranty Programs. 189! 8E.! Implementation of National Deposit Insurance in the United States. 191! Chapter 9: EIGHTY YEARS OF BANK DEPOSIT INSURANCE 205! 9A.! Federal Deposit Insurance in the United States. 206! 9B.! The International Progress of Bank Deposit Insurance. 208! Chapter 10: EPILOGUE 214! Appendix 1.! The Original Five Regulations (1760) 228! Appendix 2.! The Original Five Regulations (1760) 231! Appendix 3.! The Eight Regulations (1831) 235! Appendix 4.! The Eight Regulations (1835) 242! Appendix 5.! The Eight Regulations (Per W.C. Hunter) 251! BIBIOLOGRAPHY 253! INDEX 268! SUMMARY: THE CHINESE CORNERSTONE OF MODERN BANKING 279! SAMENVATTING: DE CHINESE HOEKSTEEN VAN HET MODERNE BANKWEZEN 285! CURRICULUM VITAE 293! Table of Figures Figure 1. The Kangxi Emperor , reigned 1661 to 1722. 19 Figure 2. Shang Kexi, The Prince Pacifier of the South. 48 Figure 3. Chinese people reading notices posted on a wall. 61 Figure 4. The trial of the Neptune sailors. 71 Figure 5. The foreign factories at Canton in about 1780. 109 Figure 6. Porcelain pillbox in the form of a Spanish dollar. 127 Figure 7. The senior hong merchant Howqua II (Wu Bingjian), 1769-1843. 138 Figure 8. The foreign factories at Canton in about 1825-1835. 159 Figure 9. The hong merchant Mowqua II (Lu Wenjin). 166 Figure 10.! “The Broken Hong Merchant or the Empty Tea Chest.” 174! Figure 11.! Joshua Forman, 1777-1848. 183! Figure 12.! A hong merchant. 215! List of Tables Table 1 ! Hong Merchant Collective Guaranty Liabilities, 1780-1842 168! Table 2! Bar Chart: Collective Guaranty Liability, 1780-1842, By Year 169! ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The gratitude that I feel for all of the assistance that I have received on this project reaches back many years. The initial seed was planted when I was a student at Boston College Law School, from which I graduated in 1983. My law classmate, Max Kumin, who worked with Carter Golembe, brought Mr. Golembe’s work on the Chinese origins of American bank deposit insurance to my attention while we were in school. I am very grateful to Max for his direction. My college professor Geoffrey Suess Law (1944-1980), a gifted teacher who ignited the interest in Chinese institutional and economic history that I carry to this day, gave me the skills I needed to start to analyze this information when I finally made time for it. I am profoundly grateful to Geoff Law. The first steps toward this study were presented as a paper at the China Business Seminar at the John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies of Harvard University in February 2007. Comments made then helped focus my work. My initial research on guarantee process at Canton was presented at the conference “Americans, Macao and China 1784-1950: Historical Relations, Interactions and Connections” at the University of Macao (December 2008), and specific study on legal release from debt at Canton was presented in a talk at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School (October 2009). The collegiality and the intellectual support that I have received from the officers, staff and others who now are or have been associated with the Fairbank Center and the East Asian Legal Studies Program have proven helpful in many ways. In particular, I wish to thank: William C. Kirby, William P. Alford, Regina Abrami, Peter K. Bol, Lydia Chen, Jerome Alan Cohen, Mark Elliott, James R. Fichter, Jonathan Goldstein, Elisbeth Kaske, Nelson Y.S. Kiang, Linda Kluz, Elisabeth Köll, Philip A. Kuhn, Raymond Lum, John Schrecker, Elizabeth Sinn, Joanna F. Handlin Smith, Ronald Suleski, Michael Szonyi, Ross Terrill, Wen-hao Tien, Rudolph Wagner, Winnie Wong and Silas Wu. I have had much additional assistance. I am deeply indebted to my friend and mentor Jacques M. Downs (1925-2006), a scholar of the early American trade with China who was unfailingly generous in sharing his knowledge with me and with many others. Special thanks go to David A. Moss, Lincoln P. Paine, James M. Stone, Cathleen Douglas Stone and Paul A. Van Dyke, each of whom provided help at crucial moments. For their assistance, I am grateful as well to Wayne Altree, Dilip Kumar Basu, Robert A. Brink, Richard Capurso, Kuo-tung Ch’en, Patrick Conner, Carl Crossman, Peter Drummey, David Faure, H.A. Crosby Forbes, Robert Gardella, Martyn Gregory, Brian Harkins, Koos Kuiper, Richard Milhender, Diane Charipar Milhender, Stephen Z. Nonack, Vincent Smith, Christine Sullivan, Puk Wing-kin and Conrad E. Wright. I am indebted to Jayson Brooks, Robert A. Falk, James Kadlick, Jeff Lajoie, Mary McClay, Leonid Monisov, Peter and Elizabeth Shattuck, and Shawn J. Smith, each of whom made this work possible as well. It is hard to adequately express my gratitude to my entire family for their confidence and their support over the years that this study was prepared. My wife Barbara Lemperly Grant and my daughter Eva Taylor Grant have weathered much and have been helpful through all. My mother in law Bertha Lemperly has helped in many ways and I am grateful to her too. The support of my mother Madeleine x Grant, and my siblings, have also helped bring this work to fruition. I am sure that my late father Frederic D. Grant would enjoy this study. For whatever ability I have to bring the past to life, I owe much to him. Leiden tradition does not permit me to thank my promotor and copromotor in the list of acknowledgments, yet I may express gratitude to Marijke van Wissen-van Staden, secretary of Leiden University’s History Department, who has helped me at many points in this process in her ever cheerful and precise manner. Many interesting people introduced themselves to me as I worked on this study. My favorite is the anonymous Buddhist monk who was jeered at by Shang Kexi for his solitary efforts to bury the dead in the chaos after the city of Canton was taken by the Manchus in November 1650. “The priest replied that he did not look at the magnitude of the task or attempt to calculate its possibility; he merely did what was in his power and left the rest to Heaven.” Milton, Massachusetts 5 July 2012 xi NOTE ON SPELLING The pinyin system of romanization is used throughout the text of this study. However, certain proper names and titles of publications, where they are normally written in other forms of romanization, have not been uniformly changed to the pinyin system.