A VOYAGE TO CHINA
1855
I have already referred to my purpose of going to Japan to establish a
branch business there. This idea came to me in Australia, after
Commodore Perry had opened the country to foreigners. It has always been
my desire to be first on the ground, and I saw that Japan offered the
greatest possible opportunities for trade of all sorts. I had fixed upon
Yokohama as the place in which to open our branch house. The rapid
development of that city since then, under new conditions, and the
tremendous increase of its trade with Europe and America, as well as
with India, China, and Australasia, have well justified my early
judgment. I knew we could acquire great influence in the world of
commerce, and become, perhaps, the greatest shipping house of the globe,
with branch houses at Boston, Liverpool, Melbourne, and Yokohama.
This is as good a place as any to give the reasons for the failure of
these ambitious plans. I had gradually worked out the whole program,
giving to it hours and days of careful and painstaking examination. I
felt that the scheme was absolutely safe from every point of view. It
was big and almost grandiose; but I felt it was sure to result in vast
fortunes, in the building up of a trade that the world had never before
conceived or dreamed of, and in the development of American commerce.
In fact, I see now that I was more than half a century ahead of J.
Pierpont Morgan. I should have formed a great shipping and navigation
business that would have dwarfed anything else of the kind in the world.
My plan was not limited to a few lines of ships between Europe and New
York. It was not confined to an Atlantic ferry. I foresaw, as I fancied,
American ships dominating the trade of all oceans. I saw the American
merchant flag in every port of the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans,
and doing the carrying trade of the world. I had some such vague idea
when I introduced the fast clipper service between Boston, New York, and
San Francisco, and, again, when I organized the fast sailing-ship
service between Boston and Australia. But I did not see it all clear
before me, as I saw it in Australia. The Orient had cleared my eyes.
Of course, my first thought was for the up-building of our house. I
wanted it to take the leading part in the stupendous task, and to
become the first house of the world. All this could have been
accomplished, except that I had to contend against the conservatism of
New England, and the very easily understood desire of Colonel Train that
his house should directly own all its ships. This was, of course,
impossible. He could not own them, but he might control them. I urged
upon him the policy of retaining a controlling interest only, and
letting others come in, bringing the capital we should need for the
greater enterprise. This was my idea of "combination," of a great
"shipping combine," more than half a century before it was undertaken,
in another way, by Mr. Morgan and his associates.
Colonel Train's persistent demand that he should own all the ships, put
an end to the plan. It not only put an end to a grand project, but put
an end to his business. He was soon confronted with difficulties. The
business had outgrown him and his limited means, had become unwieldy and
unmanageable. As I had foreseen, it needed more men, more minds, more
money; and these were not forthcoming. And so, in '57, Colonel Train was
forced down, literally crushed beneath the weight of his own
undertakings, as Tarpeia was crushed beneath the Sabine shields. He was
the victim of his desire to own and dominate everything.
Two years before this collapse of a great idea, I left Australia for
Japan, by way of Java, Singapore, and China, with high hopes. I had
visions, which were to accompany me for a year or two more, and then I
had to abandon them and turn my attention to other fields. From
Melbourne, I sailed on the Dashing Wave. Has it ever occurred to any one
who writes or thinks of the old days of sailing vessels, those winged
ships, that the very names of boats have changed, indicating the
transformation from romance to reality, from poetry to mere prose and
work-a-day business? In those days we had beautiful and suggestive names
for ships, just as we ought to try to find beautiful and suggestive
names for all truly beautiful and lovable things. Now we send out our
City of Paris, or St. Louis, or St. Paul, or the Minneapolis, or the
Astoria, or Kentucky, or Blaamanden, or Rotterdam, or Ryndam, or
Noordam. Then we had such names as Flying Cloud, the clipper that
shortened the distance between the ends of the world; the Sovereign of
the Seas, the Monarch of the Ocean, the Flying Arrow, the Sea Eagle. The
Dashing Wave, Captain Fiske, carried me to Batavia in twenty-six days.
We were accompanied, for a portion of the trip, by the Flying Arrow.
At Anjer, in the Straits of Sunda, the Malays came off to the ship in
their little boats with provisions of all sorts to sell. Every one of
them had letters of recommendation, as they thought, from the English
captains and officers who had previously traded with them; but these
letters, if they could have been translated for their possessors, would
have been instantly cast into the sea and a general riot perhaps would
have followed. One of the letters read something like this: "If this
black thief brings any eggs to sell to you, don't buy them, as they are
always rotten. He may also try to sell you a rooster, but don't buy it,
as it is the same cock that crew when Peter denied Jesus." Of course
everybody on the ship roared with laughter as each letter was handed up
to us and read aloud for the edification of all. The simple Malays
guffawed loudly in their boats, thinking that we were heartily pleased
with them and their wares. When next I passed through the Sunda Straits,
Krakatoa had been at work in eruption and had completely changed the
face of the coast, and Anjer itself and the little island it stood on
were gone.
This Dutch colony was a revelation to me in every way. I had never seen
anything at all like it in any other part of the world, and was never
again to see anything quite so quaint or so delightful. The ride from
Batavia to the hotel was full of surprises. I was accompanied by a troop
of little children, all of them pressing close up to us and crying for
"doits"--small copper coins. I scattered these little coins among them
again and again, but they could never get enough, but kept on crying,
"doit, doit!" Then the color of the trees, the rich shades of the
flowers that flourished everywhere, the beauty of the scenery--all was
a delightful surprise. I have never seen elsewhere so many or such rare
flowers. The whole island of Java, as I was soon to learn, is a vast
botanical garden, far more beautiful and rare than any that science can
create. Nature, the great horticulturist, has here done her best and
final work. The air, too, was delicious. It was perfumed by flowers,
aromatic herbs, and spices. I had never realized before what was meant
by the legends of the "Spice Islands," and I fancied that here was the
place for man to live and die.
I drove to the residence of the governor-general at Buitenzorg,
thirty-five miles south of Batavia, which was situated in a tremendous
garden of flowers and trees. It was the most beautiful place I had ever
seen, and I am quite sure that I have never seen anything more beautiful
since. I was so delighted with Java, indeed, that I had a model of a
Javanese village made for me, and shipped it home to my wife with the
greatest care. What was my surprise, when I finally reached home, and
asked eagerly if the model had been received, to be told that nothing
had been seen of it. "Didn't something come from me from Java?" Oh, yes,
something had come, but it looked so big and uninteresting that it had
been put down in the cellar. And there my beautiful model of the
Javanese village had lain, in ignominy, for years! I restored it to its
proper position in the world, by sending it to the Boston Museum. It
was lost in the fire that soon afterward destroyed that building.
It was in Java that I first learned to love flowers, and I have loved
them more and more every year of my life since. The natives of that
wonderful island love to strew flowers over everything, and to garland
everything with beautiful blossoms. I soon became infatuated with the
custom of carrying flowers, and adopted the boutonniere, which I
afterward introduced in Paris in '56, in London in '57, and in New York
in '58. I have endeavored to wear a spray of flowers in the lapel of my
coat every day since my visit to Java.
There was one particularly pleasing custom, which I think should have
been long ago introduced in this country. This was the fashion of
bringing in fruit to the table covered with flowers. It is a custom that
delights three senses at once--the smell, the sight, the taste. The
first time I saw it was at the table of Mr. Whitelaw Reid, when he gave
a dinner to me and my friends. After we had finished eating, I was asked
if I did not wish for some of the fruit. I looked around and could not
see fruit anywhere. In front of me were great masses of flowers in
baskets, and I could readily detect the odor of fruits of various kinds,
but they were invisible. I had almost decided that they were outside in
the garden, and that possibly we were expected to pluck them from the
trees, which, heavily laden with their burdens, hung temptingly against
the windows. But no, the fruit was immediately before me, hidden beneath
masses of cut flowers, in trays and baskets. I thought it a beautiful
custom, and one that distinctly appeals to esthetic taste. It could well
be introduced at Newport or Saratoga, or in Fifth Avenue mansions.
I regretted that Great Britain had lost, through a piece of
carelessness, these magnificent islands now controlled by Holland;
although the Dutch have done about as well as any other people could
have done, I suppose. I believe it was because Lord Canning did not open
his eastern mail one morning, that these islands became a possession of
Holland instead of Great Britain.
I did not, on the occasion of my first visit, see anything of the
Achinese. But I passed, in '92, on my last trip around the world, the
northwestern end of Sumatra, and Captain Hogg, of the Moyune, pointed to
the little town of Achin, built on piles. He said that in the interior
the Dutch were still fighting the Achinese. They had then been fighting
these desperate Mohammedans--converted Malays--for thirty years. I have
since thought, having in view this prolonged struggle for freedom of the
Mohammedan Malays of Sumatra, how desperate is our undertaking in the
Philippines, where we are trying to subjugate a far larger population
of Mohammedans, the Moros of the southern islands of the archipelago.
Holland, I believe, has spent already something like 500,000,000 florins
to exterminate the Achinese. It may cost us far more to exterminate the
Moros.
I left Batavia for Singapore on a Dutch man-of-war, Captain Fabius. We
stopped first at the island of Banka, belonging to Holland, and I saw
there the famous tin-mines, which are greater than those of Cornwall,
England. They were the property of the brother of the King of Holland.
We did not stop at Sarawak, because of the little war that "Rajah"
Brooke, afterward known as Sarawak Brooke, was carrying on there. We
arrived at Singapore just too late to meet Townsend Harris, the first
American diplomatic representative to Japan, as he had gone up to Siam.
Harris's visit to Japan was the real beginning of a new era in the trade
of the far East, and no other diplomatic mission in the history of this
country has been fraught with greater results.
Singapore was then a port of much dirtiness and much business. All the
vessels of the world came there, and the greatest variety of cargoes
that I have ever seen. The most interesting thing I saw there was the
magnificent home of a great Chinese millionaire, who managed the largest
business in Singapore, or, indeed, in that part of the world. He had a
splendid palace, surrounded by beautiful and extensive gardens, the
whole being worthy of a king or emperor. Here he lived in the style of
some barbaric prince. This Chinaman had established in Singapore the
kind of store which we in America think we invented--the department
store. But I learned afterward when I went to China, that the department
store is common there, and had been known for hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of years. This development of the store is as old as the
civilization of the Caucasian race, and, perhaps, was known to China
ages before America was discovered. I had the pleasure of receiving an
invitation to visit the Chinaman in his palace, and was astounded by the
extensive grandeur of everything. He had a passion for animals, and
owned two tigers in cages that were the largest animals of their kind I
have ever seen.
From Singapore, I sailed for China on a P. & O. steamer. On board I met
Dr. Parker, the new American minister to China, and my roommate was
Alexander Collie, of Manchester, England, who, during our civil war,
became the chief English blockade runner. I may as well dispose of my
experiences with Collie while I have him before me. Collie operated his
blockade-running business through the London and Westminster (Limited)
Bank. When I was in England I discovered the nature of his work, and
exposed him through correspondence in the New York Herald. This led to
the breaking down of his enterprise, and to the bank's loss of L500,000
sterling. Collie escaped arrest by fleeing to Spain. I have never heard
of him since.