Book Review-‘East Sails West: The voyage of the ‘Keying’, 1846–1855’ by Stephen Davie

Abstract

n December 1846, a three-masted Chinese junk sailed from Hong Kong for London via the Cape of Good Hope. Considerable subterfuge had been necessary to obtain this vessel because neither foreign ownership nor export was officially permitted by the Chinese. However this did not deter those British investors who scented the chance of making money, so she was renamed Keying, after a local Chinese official, loaded with an assortment of Chinese exhibition items, and sent off to Britain with a mixed crew of about a dozen Europeans and 30 Chinese under the command of Charles Kellett…

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Filed under: Other (Nineteenth C)
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea | Ship Handling & Seamanship | Strategy & Diplomacy