True Yankees by Dane A. Morrison

Author:Dane A. Morrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Macao visited by Fanning in 1798 was a global city circumscribed by a web of Chinese and Portuguese regulations. Author’s collection.

“Nothing was sufficient to induce these officers to vary or make any allowance for a case (as this) not contemplated by their laws,” Fanning lamented. The standoff had dragged on for five days when the president of the British East India Company Council arrived from Canton. Mr. Richard Hall posted bond and offered “the mandarin a handsome cum shaw”; in return, the Hoppo issued the chop that would allow Fanning to disembark his passengers. Yet, Fanning’s travails were not over. Hall asked that the Americans convey another passenger upriver. A British merchant named McKenzie had contracted fever at Batavia and desperately needed the attention of the British East India Company surgeons at Canton. Two British captains and one from Philadelphia had already refused to take on the task. Perhaps motivated by opportunism, or humanitarian concern, or a bit of both, Fanning agreed, bringing aboard the invalid along with an Armenian and a Persian merchant. The Betsey flew the federal flag, but she had become a ship of the world.46

Still more obstacles hampered the passage up the Pei-ho River. At the Bocca Tigris forts, the Hoppo’s agents again stopped the Betsey, demanding payment for another chop, one that would allow her up the next leg of the passage. But now, Fanning’s earlier generosity was rewarded, as his Armenian passenger arranged for the fan quai captain to view the imperious Chinese fortifications. The self-styled chronicler of exotic lands could not refuse his first real opportunity to record his observations of the world’s oldest civilization. But, if Fanning’s preparatory reading had led him to expect imperial grandeur or majesty, he was disappointed. Everything he saw disturbed both his anticipation of a fabulous East and his republican values. His guide advised that “the mandarin in command” would allow them to tour a fortress, but only “in consideration of the small sum, or cum shaw of a Spanish dollar.” For this compensation, the commander “not only gave permission to take our walk, but also directed the officer to show us to the fort.” The notable absence of civic virtue was matched by the disorder that the astonished visitors saw about them. The fortress was dilapidated, its great guns impotent. Fanning recorded: “In it fourteen handsome brass nine pound canon, but all very uncouthly mounted; it was besides difficult to depress or elevate these pieces many degrees.” The few soldiers he spotted presented a similar image of disarray, lolling about, napping, or gambling. “Their military discipline, so far as we were able to judge by the specimens shown, was very far from being the best in the world,” he wrote. The empire’s naval defenses were no more daunting. In 1784, during the affair involving the unfortunate gunner of the Lady Hughes, Samuel Shaw had described the Chinese navy as “not very formidable,” and the army outfitted with swords, bows and arrows, and matchlock muskets. Yet,

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