Worlds Apart? Merchants, Mariners, and the Organization of the Private Trade in Chinese Export Wares in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Abstract

This chapter proposes a new perspective for the study of European private trade with China in the first half of the eighteenth century, by focusing on an extended network of Scottish merchants and mariners active in the import, wholesale and re-export of Chinese export wares. It is primarily concerned with the mercantile links between a group of East India commanders and supercargoes who regularly travelled to Canton on behalf of the Swedish East India Company (SEIC), and their private contacts with dealers in northwest Europe who were key players in the trade in Chinese commodities during this period. For this analysis, it is necessary to connect two historiographies which usually operate quite separately from one another: the fields of maritime history, and what is traditionally called business history. In this pursuit, I am following in the footsteps of two doyens of East India Company research, Jaap R. Bruijn and Huw Bowen. Both historians have recently published studies on aspects of the lives of commanders of East India ships, both at sea and ashore.1 For the first time, we are able to systematically compare the social status, professional privileges and career trajectories of Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) and East India Company (EIC) commanders. Bowen’s comprehensive account of the various sources of income that commanders in the English trading company developed once they reached that prominent position is a remarkable achievement. Neither Bruijn nor Bowen, however, has explored the vital role played by commanders, and other members of the merchant marine, for distributing East India goods within Europe.