There are countless examples of this search for new markets: stories of men long since forgotten – so commonplace was adventure in their day – and of commodities hardly remembered. As good as any is the story of Major Samuel Shaw and the marketing of ginseng.
New Englanders had soon appeared everywhere in the East, but it was Canton, the world’s greatest tea market, that became the center of their attention. The Revolution was barely over before Robert Morris, whose hands were everywhere and in everything that promised a profit, had made plans to send a ship to China; in order to receive official recognition for such a voyage, he asked Congress for letters worded in “ample terms.” His captain, John Greene, was a naval officer of the United States, and Mr. Morris thought this deserved “peculiar notice.” Congress responded with a letter of introduction, addressed to the “most serene, serene, most puissant, high, illustrious, noble, honorable, venerable, wise, and prudent Emperors, kings, Republics, Princes, Dukes, Earls, Barons, Lords, Burgomasters, Councillors, as also judges, officers, justiciaries, and regents” of all places where Captain Greene might visit. The letter also certified him as a citizen of the United States and his vessel as the property of American citizens.
While these preparations were under way, an adventurous captain from Massachusetts set out in a 55-ton sloop loaded with ginseng. He got only as far as the Cape of Good Hope when he met with a British East India trader. The Englishmen were well aware of the danger of American competition in this market, and rather than see him make contact with the Orient, they bought out the captain’s entire cargo for twice its weight in tea and sent him happily back to New England.
Captain Greene’s expedition did not get away that easy. On February 22, 1784 he sailed from New York with his vessel, the Empress of China, loaded mostly with ginseng, a rare herb found in North America, prized by Chinese physicians as an aphrodisiac and a prolonger of life. In charge of the business end of that voyage was Major Samuel Shaw, Boston-born veteran of the American Revolution. Shaw had fought at Trenton, Princeton, and Brandywine; he had suffered with General Washington at Valley Forge, and he had heard Washington deliver his tearful farewell to his officers in December 1783. And like so many other veterans, he re-entered civilian life without property and burdened with debt. But when the Boston businessmen purchased the Empress of China, and organized the venture to export ginseng to Canton, they appointed Shaw supercargo of the voyage.
The vessel sailed eastward to the Cape Verde Islands, where Shaw saw whale and swordfish, enjoyed the jovial ceremony of his first crossing of the equator; after six months they reached the exotic shores of the islands of Java and Macao, and by the end of August arrived at Canton. There they stayed for the next four months, trading and preparing for the long way back home, and on May 11, 1785 reached New York harbor. The Massachusetts Centinel announced the return of the Empress of China and declared that “this passage is one of the greatest nautical prodigies we ever recollect hearing . . .”
The voyage was a great accomplishment for the nation’s merchants, and the rumored profits excited interest everywhere. Before the end of the year, several more ships set out for China, including the Empress again, as many a New England merchants joined in the profitable trade. Until these New Englanders carried the American flag to China, it had been assumed that the whole annual Chinese consumption of ginseng would perhaps amount to four tons. But the first American ship alone carried ten times that amount, and within another year Americans had more than doubled their ginseng exports to China. The demand and the price long kept up. In exchange for ginseng, the merchants secured tea and other marketable products of China which, in turn, produced considerable profits back in America.
