Expanding Possibilities 389
from there. One reason for the imbalance of trade was an increasingly
large amount of opium being shipped to Canton. Since the balance of
trade was in favor of the Siamese, Mexican dollars were usually taken to
Siam by the outbound junks from Canton to offset the trade deβicit. In its
turn, this bullion formed a good remittance to Singapore.^152
Some 15 to 20 small junks of about 100 tons each were βitted out
from Canton at the beginning of the 1850s. They were in the hands of
small-scale traders or adventurers rather than the Hong merchants,
and collected cargoes from port to port. The ports they visited included
Kelantan, Trengganu, and Penang in the Malay Peninsula, Singapore,
Palembang in Sumatra, Batavia and Semarang in Java, and Banjarmasin,
Pontianak and Sambas in Borneo. Their ports of call were uncertain.
Their choice was often determined by circumstances. About two-thirds
or three-quarters of their voyages seldom went beyond the Malay
Peninsula.^153
No fewer than 57 trading junks also sailed between Canton and
many other ports in Vietnam and Cambodia, including Tonkin (βive
junks), Tsing hwa (one junk), Nge han (one junk), Fai-fo (three junks),
Quang Ngai (three to βive junks), Sinchew (ten junks), Phu Yen (two
junks), Binh Dinh (three junks), Saigon (ten junks), Ha Tien (three to
four junks) and Kampot (two junks). Some 60 junks, many of which might
have come from the Straits Settlements, were spotted off the Cambodian
coast by a European visitor. At Tik Seak in the same area, 40 other
junks were seen at anchor loading rice for the various ports of China.
Undoubtedly, there was a large trade being conducted between Vietnam
and Canton via Hainan, in what was known as “the West Coast boats”.
Among the junks that set sail from Canton, about 25 to 30 of 250 tons
each belonged to the Canton merchants. The Hainan junks might have
formed a category of their own. The number of them involved in the trade
between Canton and the two destinations of Vietnam and Siam could be
as large as the total of the junks in other ports.^154
Alongside the voyages to the main ports on the Vietnam coast, many
junks made their voyages to other smaller harbors to smuggle rice and
salt out of the country, or for what was called locally “an outside trade”.
They usually exchanged ceramics, pottery and coarse chinaware for the
contraband goods. These maritime traders were small investors, with the
cargo value for two-way voyages amounting to less than ten thousand
dollars. These junks sometimes discharged and loaded in one port, but
- Ibid., p. 67.
- Ibid., pp. 75a‒86a.
- Ibid., pp. 68‒70.