ABSTRACT
In 1842 the American President Tyler had cautioned his countrymen not to expect too much of the opening of China: ‘[T]he cheapness of labor among the Chinese, their ingenuity in its application, and the fixed character of their habits and pursuits may discourage the hope of the opening of any great and sudden demand for the fabrics of other countries’. But, he continued, Western products did ‘find a market to some extent among the Chinese’ (Tyler 1842). Americans had traded with China in Guangzhou, the country itself was among the first powers to enter into a treaty with China, and in the 1850s the presence of Americans in Shanghai had been significant enough for people to speak of a separate American settlement (though in fact a formal treaty with China confirming a settlement status did not exist) (Darwent 1905: 207).
