Part 11

Then Congress quickly set up the machinery for the collection of the tariff. This was done in the Fifth Act, “To regulate the collection of the duties....” The bill was sent to President Washington for his signature on July 31, which fell on Friday. On the following Monday the President sent to the Senate a list of about one hundred appointments to Customs offices. The Senate advised and consented to about half this list but on the following day gave the President an unexpected jolt. The Senate, without warning, refused to consent to the appointment of Colonel Benjamin Fishbourn to be Naval Officer (auditor) at the Port of Savannah. Fishbourn had served with distinction in Washington’s command during the Revolution and apparently had a spotless reputation in civilian life.

Washington did not make a fight over Fishbourn’s rejection even though the Senate action no doubt seemed to him to be a petty and totally unwarranted assertion of veto power. He did send a message to the Senate which called to mind later clashes between Chief Executives and Congress, pointing out that at least the Senate might have done him the courtesy of inquiring into his reasons for appointing Fishbourn.

Perhaps under different circumstances Washington would not have been so mild in his reaction to the Senate veto. But the need to establish an organization for collecting revenue was imperative, and Washington perhaps felt this was no time for a fight over executive and legislative prerogatives. The most pressing need was unity in the government.

And so was the Customs Service created to help bring financial stability to the nation at a critical time. Despite all the trials and difficulties, the Customs Service collected more than $2 million for the Treasury in its first year of operation.

A PRESIDENT IS BAMBOOZLED

There was little cause for gaiety in any part of the nation in the summer of 1808. Gloom hung over the country and particularly over Washington, where even the new capital building had not been completed and the problems of getting the young government firmly established sometimes seemed insurmountable.

The reason for the gloom was the worsening relations between the United States and Great Britain and the threat of American involvement in the brawling affairs of Europe, where the British were at war with the French.

In a desperate move to avoid being drawn into the conflict, President Thomas Jefferson had called the previous year for an embargo on all overseas shipping. He felt such drastic action necessary because British warships had been seizing American vessels headed for France. Even worse, the British had been forcing American sailors from the ships on the high seas and impressing them into British naval service by the hundreds.

Under these circumstances, Jefferson decided it would be better to withdraw American shipping from the seas and deny American supplies to the combatants, rather than risk plunging the nation into another war. His proposed embargo had been fought over bitterly in Congress. But in December, 1807, the Embargo Act had been passed and shipping had come to a halt. Even trade with Canada would be stopped with the enforcement of a land embargo--except for the commerce carried on by smugglers defying Federal Customs officers.

Now, seven months after the start of the embargo, the nation was in deep trouble. New England was practically paralyzed. Ships which had engaged so busily in world commerce a few months earlier stood rotting at the wharves. The number of unemployed was alarming. Businessmen who depended on overseas trade were going bankrupt. There was scarcely anyone in the country who did not feel the depressing effects of the embargo. The nation’s economy had sunk to its lowest point since the Revolution.

President Wilson was to say of this period: “The States themselves suffered from the Act more than the nations whose trade they struck at. America’s own trade was ruined.”

Onto this gloomy stage in mid-July, 1808, strode the so-called Chinese mandarin, Punqua Wingchong, and before two months had passed this Oriental fraud had half the country hooting with derisive laughter and the other half red-faced with rage.

Punqua Wingchong. It’s a name to remember in American history because he helped to bamboozle a President of the United States in one of the gamiest confidence games ever pulled against a trusting Chief Executive. But he was only the puppet; the man who pulled the strings behind the scenery was John Jacob Astor, the merchant prince.

The hoax began to unfold in June, 1808, when Astor and the Boston firm of J. & T. H. Perkins applied to the government for permission to send a ship to Canton to bring back certain property allegedly owned by the applicants. The government refused to lift the embargo for such a venture and as a matter of policy rejected the application.

The rejection would have discouraged the average merchant, but John Jacob Astor did not build his fortune by being an average man. Soon after the application was refused, Senator Samuel L. Mitchill of New York was told a disturbing story. An anonymous informant advised him that a distinguished Chinese mandarin, who divided his time between New York City and Nantucket, was the unfortunate victim of the shipping embargo. It was said that the mandarin, Punqua Wingchong, had made the long and arduous voyage from Canton to collect several large debts owing to his grandfather’s estate. Then he had been caught by the embargo and had been unable to return to his homeland to participate in mourning rites for his venerable grandfather, who had died suddenly.

It was suggested to Mitchill that the situation was one which quite possibly could create ill feeling between the governments of the United States and China if Wingchong chose to blame the Jefferson administration for the predicament he found himself in, being a virtual prisoner in a foreign land. Wingchong was reputed to have considerable influence among the government class of China, and this influence could be used against American traders in the future if he were not permitted to return home.

The journals of the time were not clear as to whether the Senator ever met Wingchong face to face. In all likelihood he did not. But he was moved to such sympathy by the pictured plight of the hapless mandarin that he penned a personal appeal asking President Jefferson to intervene. The Senator had a distinguished background in science and literature and was a professor of natural history in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. It was later to be said that Senator Mitchill was “strangely deficient in that useful commodity called common sense,” but his motives seemed sincere enough when he wrote to the President on July 12, saying:

Sir:

Punqua Wingchong, a Chinese merchant, will be the bearer of this note of introduction. He came to New York about nine months ago, on business of a commercial nature, and has resided during that time, part time, partly here and partly in Nantucket. Having completed the object of his visit to the United States, he is desirous of returning to Canton, where the affairs of his family, and particularly funeral obsequies of his grandfather, require his solemn attention.

This stranger is represented to me as a man of respectability and good standing in his country; and is consequently entitled to a corresponding regard and treatment in ours.

The chief object of his visit to Washington is to solicit the means of departure, in some way or other to China, but he feels at the same time a strong desire to see the chief executive officer of the United States. He will be accompanied by Mr. Palmer, an inhabitant of New York, who will aid him in stating his request and explaining his meaning. This gentleman, in addition to many other valuable qualities, possesses admirable skill in acquiring languages; and he is perhaps already master of more living tongues than any person among us--as an evidence of which he has already made considerable progress in China.

While I recommend these two persons to the notice of the President I beg leave to accompany the recommendation, with the highest expression of my high and respectful consideration.

Sam’l L. Mitchill.

Armed with the Mitchill letter and dressed in the finest of silks and brocades, Punqua Wingchong journeyed to Washington and no doubt created a stir of excitement throughout the city, where visitors from the Orient were not a common sight. Unfortunately, or perhaps otherwise, Wingchong and his companion, Mr. Palmer, found they could not deliver the letter to the President in person. Mr. Jefferson had left the city for a rest at Monticello.

The Mitchill letter was then forwarded to Monticello along with a note signed by Punqua Wingchong “praying permission to depart” from the United States with his retinue and his belongings in a vessel of his own choosing.

President Jefferson was moved by Wingchong’s appeal. Not only did he feel sympathy, but he felt the situation presented an opportunity to establish better relations between his government and the rulers of China, which was becoming an increasingly important customer in foreign commerce. On July 25, the President wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin saying:

Dear Sir:

... Punqua Wingchong, the Chinese Mandarin, has, I believe, his headquarters at New York, and therefore his case is probably known to you. He came to Washington just as I had left it and therefore wrote to me praying permission to depart for his own country with his property in a vessel to be engaged by himself.... I consider it as a case of national comity, and coming within the views of the first section of the first Embargo Act. The departure of this individual with good disposition may be the means of our making our nation known advantageously as a source of power in China to which it is otherwise difficult to convey information. It may be a sensible advantage to our merchants in that country. I cannot therefore but consider that a chance of obtaining a permanent national good should outweigh the effect of a single case taken out of the great field of the embargo. The case too is so singular that it can lead to no embarrassment as a precedent....