An English Merchant House in China After 1842

Abstract

A good deal has been written about general commerce between Britain and China in the mid-nineteenth century. But little is available to illuminate the problems of trading as they confronted particular persons or commercial Houses. The surviving records of Rathbone, Worthington and Co. make possible a study of the question: what sort of calculation did rational men attempt in order to turn to profit these new and inchoate markets?