As a natural consequence of the integrity of the Chinese merchants, we had neither receipt nor check-book. Payments were made by the Compradore of large amounts on simple scraps of paper signed with the initials of a firm. No promissory notes existed, and consequently there was no 'bill book.' There was no post office, there were no postages, and no copying machines.
We had no custom-house business to attend to; our inward cargoes were landed and stored, and our outward ones shipped off, by the Linguists, to whom we had but to intimate in which Hong the former should be landed or the ship to which the latter were to be sent. All merchandise was purchased at long price, and all sold at short price; this was the rule, and saved us an infinity of trouble. We were under no apprehension as to the outturn of the quality or weight of the teas and silks which we shipped. The ingenious process of augmenting the brilliancy of tea by a clever facing of 'Prussian blue' or 'Chinese yellow,' of adding to the bulk by an admixture of chopped willow or elm leaves, of increasing its weight by iron filings, was not yet practised by those 'heathen Chinee.' Possibly the absence of these 'industries' formed a very primitive mode of carrying on business!
On the other hand, we were obliged to make our own ink (out of powders from England), in which we resembled the Jews, who arrived in China and settled at Kae-Fung-Foo any time between B.C. 1122 and 249! Historians have not settled this point, but they have ascertained that, whenever it might have been, 'those people used split bamboos for pens, and at the Feast of Tabernacles made sufficient ink for the ensuing year'! Our letters and shipping documents were despatched under wafer or seal, as no such thing as envelopes yet existed (they had been in use in China for centuries!), nor did we enjoy the luxury of postage-stamps. Moreover every consignee of a ship was his own 'post office' for all letters brought out by her, and he delivered them to suit his own convenience. I have known cases in which outward letters were delivered when the vessel that brought them was outside the Bogue, homeward bound. This custom of not always delivering letters on the arrival of a ship from the United States was mutually understood, and considered as the privilege of any house. It can easily be imagined that a New York firm, in sending the 'Huntress' to a market 12,000 miles away for a valuable cargo, might suffer greatly in its interests if she carried letters from a rival house deliverable on arrival, informing its correspondent that it should despatch the 'Levant' shortly, give him particulars of her outward cargo and orders for a return one. Thus very reasonably, letters were detained until the agent of a ship had concluded his purchases--at least he had the privilege of detaining them. There was, of course, the chance of the passage out, and the difference that might result to the quickest ship.