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Updated: May 2, 2025
Shang-Hae, the most northern of the five ports opened to foreign commerce, is, perhaps, the most important of the whole five. I have undoubted authority for asserting, that the number of Chinese junks, of more than a hundred tons burthen, that enter this port weekly, exceeds a thousand.
The scenery at the Bogue is very pretty; and the forts, if of no other advantage, form a picturesque feature, viewed while sailing past them. Not having visited Amoy, Foo Chow, Ning-po, Chusan, or Shang-Hae, I am unable to give any description of those places. I can, however, state what I have heard about them, and give the mercantile reader some idea of their importance as places of trade.
These boys used to cluster round my table at recess and talk. Danforth Newcomb, a lovely, gentle, accurate boy, almost always at the head of his class, he died young. Shang-hae, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, Australia, I don't know what cities, towns, and countries have the rest of them. And when they carry home this book for their own boys to read, they will find some of their boy-stories here.
The same authority speaks of the busy scene that this harbour daily presents, as quite beyond his powers of description. Many British, American, and other merchants have visited Shang-Hae since it became an open port; many cargoes of manufactures have been disposed of there; and already a considerable export trade on foreign account has commenced.
In a week afterwards, every foreign vessel in the river was cleared of her cargo at remunerating prices. Shang-Hae is the principal port in the Empire for the export of raw silk. This fact is sufficient of itself to proclaim the vast importance of the place.
So long as European vessels were cooped up stagnantly in Canton river, and allowed to trade only under circumstances of great restriction and annoyance, little was effected except by the tea-drinking denizens of Great Britain; but when, by the treaty of Nankin in 1842, Sir Henry Pottinger obtained the opening of the four ports of Amoy, Foo-tchow-foo, Ning-po, and Shang-hae, and stipulated that foreign vessels should be allowed to share with those of England the liberty of trading at those ports, there was a great impetus given to ship-builders and ship-owners: those who had goods to sell, thus found a new market for them; and those who could perform the voyage most quickly, would have a quicker return for their capital.
The Missionaries have not been behind the merchants in occupying Shang-Hae; and Mr. Medhurst, so well known for his extensive knowledge of Chinese literature, had completed arrangements for removing his family thither in the early part of the present summer.
A great many foreign ships came to Canton to buy tea and silk; but the traders were forbidden to enter the town, and they lived in a little island near, and built a town there called Macao. But lately the Chinese emperor has agreed to permit strangers to come to five ports, called Shang-hae, Ning-po, Foo-choo, Amoy, and Hong-Kong.
The Shang-Hae men listened to the tales that were told them, and kept aloof for some time, till they saw that the Europeans were quite determined not to leave their harbour without effecting sales. Suddenly they changed their minds, and said to the Canton men: "If the 'Fan-quis' are such a wicked race, how comes it that you are so anxious to have their trade to yourselves?"
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