153. "George Washington and the China Trade" in Salem

On June 26 2009 in the world famous Peabody Essex Museum Dr. Wang gave the presentation on how George Washington supported the United States trade with China in its inception in 1784, when he recommended the competent business manager for the Empress of China, the first American commercial ship owned and outfitted by the revolutionary veterans in an attempt to bring the fledgling United States to enter international commerce. When the trade started, Washington monitored its development carefully, paying attention to the Ginseng trade in Virginia and visiting the business leaders engaging the China Trade. He also invited Peter Perkins, an important businessman who was head of the China Trade, to spend a night at Mountain Vernon. In 1789, Washington stated the significance of the trade. He told Marquis de Lafayette, one of his French generals from the Revolutionary War, that "our revenues have been considerably more productive than it was imagined they would be.” Washington, in his farewell address, told his fellow American citizens that “the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations.”