chan-pans

Updated: April 30, 2025

The custom of this port is to disarm every ship that enters it, sending two frigates or armed vessels, called chan-pans, full of men, to ride close by the vessel, to ensure the execution of all orders from the hoppo and chief mandarin. Besides the enormous imposition under the name of port charges, already mentioned, they have other strange methods of getting money.

Robert Kerr - A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 10 : Arranged in systematic order: Forming a complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land, from the earliest ages to the present time.

Thus, though the small craft of the country are at liberty to carry all sorts of provisions on board for sale, yet every one of these must in the first place go to one of the chan-pans, and pay there a tax or consideration for leave to go to the strange vessel. By this means, though provisions are here very plentiful, and ought therefore to be cheap, the price is enhanced at least a third.

Robert Kerr - A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 10 : Arranged in systematic order: Forming a complete history of the origin and progress of navigation, discovery, and commerce, by sea and land, from the earliest ages to the present time.