Apr 16, 2013 - Sale 2310

Sale 2310 - Lot 171

Price Realized: $ 4,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
VERY EARLY RECORD OF TRADE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA (MARITIME.) Donnison, Jonathan. Memoranda book of the ship General Washington's second voyage to China. 74 manuscript pages plus several additional partial pages. Folio, contemporary calf, worn; hinges split, several leaves coming loose, several pages partially or completely torn out. Vp, 1790-1806, bulk 1790-91
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The ship General Washington made the first voyage from Rhode Island to China in 1787, under master Jonathan Donnison (1752-1809). Owned by John Brown and several partners, the General Washington launched what proved to be a very profitable trade over the coming decades. A few months after the ship's safe return to Providence, it was sent back to China and India for another cargo. Much less is known about this second voyage, which extended from December 1789 to July 1791. The present volume provides a wealth of detail on Donnison's important second voyage.
Captain Donnison apparently began this volume to record ventures outside the ship's official accounts. On the front pastedown, he notes that the blank book was a January 1791 gift from one Thomas Coles of Whampoa, apparently an Englishman residing in China. On the first page is recorded a letter from Coles describing articles he wanted sold in the West Indies. Other interesting entries in this volume include: 6 pages of invoices of china bought in Canton, each marked with Donnison's initials "ID" "A Manifest of Goods Belonging to Jona. Donnison" 6 pages of daily lists of "Cargo Landed at Bombay," 9 June to 3 July 1790 "Account of Tho. Coles adventure sold at St. Eustitia, 1791 May 21" 16 pages of lists of cargo received aboard the General Washington in China, mostly tea and china, November 1790 to January 1791 12 pages of ledger accounts from circa July 1791, some apparently relating to dispersal of the cargo and payment of his crew. One note toward the end of the volume demonstrates the kinds of deals Donnison was arranging: "Bartered away a Hog'd of Tobaco for 100 gal. of New England rum with Brown & Benson. Hogshead cost two dollars. Sold that hogshead of rum in Canton for 60 dollars in teas. Could not sell it for cash or china." Interspersed are a few later mercantile accounts from 1793 to 1806, most apparently relating to the China trade. Provenance: Gift from James W. Scribner of Providence to Harry Linkin, 1903 (inscription on later page); acquired by the grandfather of the consignor circa 1940s.