Canton who had made the voyage from thence to the United States and return in ten months.
At the time under consideration our vessels in the China trade did not always pursue a direct course between the home port and Canton. Not infrequently they took on cargo and cleared for the east coast of Africa, the Persian Gulf, the British or Portuguese stations in India, or the Dutch East Indies, where they bartered American goods for articles of those countries wanted in China, and reaching Canton, received in exchange teas, silks, and porcelains. In such voyages they were often exposed to danger from savage tribes or the pirates who infested the Pacific seas. The vessels engaged in this trade carried quite a formidable armament of cannon and small arms. Delano, who was one of the earliest voyagers to the Pacific, gives an account of the construction of a ship in Boston in 1789, the Massachusetts, "built expressly for the Canton trade." He says: "Our ship was pierced for thirty-six guns, but our armament was twenty six-pounders and musketry." He describes the outfitting of other vessels destined for Canton after a sealing voyage: "The Perseverance mounted twelve six-pound cannon, and the Pilgrim mounted six guns, from nine-pound carronades to four-pound fortified cannon, having all parts of their armament fitted in the best manner to correspond with their number of guns."[1]
An enterprise which largely interested the early Amer-
- ↑ 47 North American Review, 414; Shaw's Reports, 3 Dip. Cor. 774, 777, 778; A Narrative of Voyages, etc., by A. Delano, Boston, 1817, pp. 21, 25, 33, 420 ; Harper's Magazine, October, 1898, p. 739.
