Series 4 > William Melrose in China, 1845-1855

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WILLIAM MELROSE IN CHINA
papers say, that he may take office again.1 There seem to be few
people at present that the nation has confidence enough in, to put
in Lord John’s place.
I am staying as usual at Mr Scare’s. He is talking of going home
with his family in a year or so. He arrived in China September ’42
and I in October ’42. He has never been home but has always had
good health. He came out here for Hyde Lenox & Co.2 but had
some disagreement with them and left them after being about four
years in their business. His leaving was entirely the fault of Hyde, L.
& Co. They did some very shabby trick to say the least of it (Mr
Maccaughey knows all about it); and poor Mr Scare, being their
agent out here at the time, has got his name mixed up a little in the
affair although he had nothing to do with it, one of the partners
being in China at the time it was done and taking all the manage¬
ment of the matter in his own hands. I think Scare left them in
consequence. He is himself the last man that would do anything
dishonourable and it is only a pity he ever had anything to do with
the aforesaid house. I am glad I had nothing to do with them. You
may remember I was thinking of coming out here and joining a
young man, Cooper,3 to open a house here under their auspices.
There is a great deal of tea gone this year, I am afraid too much;
and unless the Exhibition helps a lot of it away or the consumption
greatly increases there will be low prices.
The weather here just now is beautiful; dry and bright, with a
1 Lord John Russell, Prime Minister, resigned in Feb. 1851 but quickly returned to
office over Palmerston’s failure to show diplomatic despatches to the Queen.
2 Hyde Lenox & Co.: merchants, London, owners of the ships Hashemy and William
Hyde in the East India trade. The company imported raw cotton, lead, opium and
pepper to China from India, and exported rhubarb, silk and tea from China to
England. Besides using the agency of J. M. & Co. in Canton, the firm in 1833 had
Fletcher Alexander & Co. as their agent. In 1842-3 [Samuel?] Hyde travelled between
Bombay and Canton, exporting goods and remitting credit from India to China and
hence to London through J. M. & Co. From Feb. 1843 onward, much of Mr Hyde’s
activities was transferred to Benjamin Scare in Canton. The individual transactions
amounted to as much as $79,000 in Dec. 1842 but more frequently between $16,000
and $18,000 thereafter. J. Lenox to J. M.&Co., njuneand 17 July, 1833, jma, Corr.
In: London, Bl/159, fos. 956, 1028; Smith, Hyde, Lenox to J. M. & Co., 5 Aug.,
17 Oct., 3 Nov. 1835, ibid. Bi/162, fos. 2052, 2108, 2125; J. M. & Co. to Hyde
Lenox & Co., 5 Sept., 8 Nov., 5 Dec. 1842, 10 Jan., 10 Feb., 8 Apr. 1843, jma,
Europe Letter Book, B6/iv, fos. 37,135-6,158, 240-1, 322-3, 439. The correspondence
ceased after the end of 1843.
3 Matthew Cooper, Hong Kong. CR, xiv (1845), 3.