Mr. Smith Goes to China: Three Scots in the Making of Britain's Global Empire by Jessica Hanser (review)

The British Empire had created a global system that spanned over three centuries from the sixteenth century. Commercial ambition was one of the key factors driving the empire's global maritime expansion in Asia and other regions. Jessica Hanser's new book Mr. Smith Goes to China: Three Scots in the Making of Britain's Global Empire reveals the story of three Scottish youths, all named George Smith, who went on their way to India and China for wealth, granting us access to a world of British private traders in maritime Asia. Unlike other scholarship focusing on the East India Company, Hanser's appealing book is centered on individuals and clearly defines the term "private trader" that refers to "those individuals who conducted business in Asia but did not work for the East India Company" (EIC, p. ix).

This monograph consists of six chapters. The first chapter centers on tea and the trading world in which the Smiths lived, providing a background of the world of various trade networks and complex financial services. Hanser begins by introducing tea and its background stories—where a widespread social practice, and thereby a new social identity, was defined in Britain. She provides a new interpretation of the crucial role the private traders played in the British global economic system, arguing that they "facilitated new intra-Asian financial networks that kept silver and tea flowing" (p. 28) by offering financial services, such as payment or liquid funds. Hanser further explores how British individuals like the George Smith of Madras (now Chennai) sought and transferred wealth from Asia to Europe and the difficulties they encountered due to the control and monopoly of EIC. The chapter allows us to understand the world of trade and finance in which George Smith of Madras lived and pursued his fortunes and his lucrative business of the tea trade.

Migration, cultural factors, and global adventuring, as Hanser introduces at the beginning of the second chapter, motivated the Scottish youths to go overseas. However, George Smith of Madras was driven to the East Indies to a great extent, as were many other Scots, out of their own poverty and search for wealth. Smith spent twenty years in India and China: He was at Canton and Macao in China from 1754 through 1765; then, he was at Madras, India, until his retirement back to England in 1779. Throughout his career, he built an extensive business partnership with companies (e.g., the Danish Company and the Swedish East India Company) and local influential persons (e.g., the Indian rulers and nawabs) in both China and India. Drawing from the commercial communities he established stretching over Madras, Canton, Macao, Manila, and present-day Indonesia, Smith provided financial services and "managed for the most part to move large sums of his clients' money around the globe" (p. 50).

Just as China was a principal place of George Smith of Madras' remittance business, so also was it necessary to George Smith of Canton who did business in China from 1771 to 1782. In the third chapter, Hanser indicates that "like Smith of Madras, Smith of Canton used the EIC's network of treasuries, located in its settlements in India, Southeast Asia, China, and London, to move his clients' money around the globe" (p. 69). In other words, they linked the commercial communities among Madras, Macao, Canton, and Britain. Like other British private traders, George Smith of Canton was finally forced to leave Canton by the EIC. As a result, both George Smith of Canton and George Smith of Madras did not enjoy their wealthy life and experienced bankruptcy after they returned to Britain.

The fourth chapter is centered on the financial crisis in Canton that led the two George Smiths to bankruptcy as both the Smiths loaned money at high...