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C H A P T E R S I X  ADMINISTRATIVE INITIATIVES AND SHORTCOMINGS AFTER THEIR INCEPTION, MANY CHANGES were made to the customs procedures to help the Hoppos control and monitor smuggling and corruption. Moving the Junminfu to Qianshan in 1731 and licensing the pilots, compradors and linguists was part of this effort to tighten up the ranks. In 1744, the first vice-prefect (tongzhi 同知) was established in the village of Mongha near Macao.1 These measures helped to bring Macao and the delta under closer administrative control, which, in turn, brought greater security to the regulation of commerce. In later decades, the Hoppos and governors-general continued to experiment with other methods and policies to control trade better. Hoppos knew that, given the opportunity, some customs officers would be inclined to accept payments privately to let merchandise go unreported and ‘duty free’. This was one of the ways in which foreigners could get around the silk quotas that limited the quantity and quality of certain types that could be exported. The Dutch, Swedes and English, among others, regularly exceeded their silk quotas by bribing customs officers.2 The Chinese merchants who sold the textiles arranged the connivances.3 This subversion of the silk regulations became such a problem that by 1759 the tollhouse keepers made a bold initiative to charge all foreigners ‘[Spanish] $100 to every ship for the privilege of sending silk aboard’, regardless of whether they were smuggling goods.4 The English and Danish supercargoes complained to the new governor-general about this latest practice. The Danes were not smuggling silk this year, so they resented having to pay this connivance fee. Their complaints resulted in the arrest of all customs officers in the three tollhouses between Whampoa and Canton. Several of the officials managed to flee downriver, but were caught near Macao.5 The crackdown was apparently effective because, a few 96 The Canton Trade months later, the English ships were inspected and found to have yellow and crimson silk on board: colours forbidden for export because they were reserved for the exclusive use of the emperor.6 The renewed interest in cracking down on corruption in 1759 encouraged the foreign supercargoes to send a long list of complaints to the Canton authorities. In addition to ending the connivance payments to tollhouse officers, their demands included the withdrawal of compradors’ engagement fees, abolition of the emperor’s present (the 1,950 taels charged to each ship) and settlement of all outstanding debts with Chinese merchants. Besides the arrest of all the tollhouse officers and the problem of how to settle Chinese debts, none of these other demands appear to have been acted upon because the fees were legitimate. From the early years of trade, the Hoppos had been closely monitoring the chop boats hauling goods to Whampoa, and they continued to grow more stringent in regulating their movements. In the late 1750s and early 1760s the Danes and Dutch both tried to obtain permission to unload four sampans per day from each ship, but the Hoppos would allow only two.7 Limiting the cargo sampans was a way to check smuggling. In July 1766 the officers at the tollhouses caught a Danish and English captain trying to smuggle watches and other articles into Canton via one of the Chinese sampans from Macao. This led to more complaints from the foreigners, who sent protests to the governor-general reminding him of the long-established right of company officers to pass tollhouses unhindered and unmolested. In other words, never mind the smuggling, just remember our rights.8 In the late 1760s the Hoppos made it mandatory for every chop boat to have one of their most trusted deputies aboard. As expected, this new policy greatly hindered the smooth and timely conduct of trade. Foreigners often had to wait several days for a deputy to become available before they could ship their goods to Whampoa, which was cause for much complaint. It is not certain how long this new policy was in effect because it does not show up regularly as a problem in later records. It may have been only temporary because it did not accommodate efficiencies of time. Other stipulations were introduced in the 1770s to ensure appropriate duties were paid on all imports and exports, and the collection of funds owed to the government by failed merchants. In 1772, the Hoppo abolished the old practice of allowing struggling merchants to pay the import and export...

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