"All things Don in hast and Doubt": Translation and the early English trade at Canton, 1637-1700

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This project aims to explore how the ambiguities and issues of trust and understanding occasioned by a reliance on translator-mediators (tongshi, or linguists) engaging in a translation practice very different from the modern ideal shaped the early English attempts to open a trade at Canton/Guangzhou in the seventeenth century. It therefore focusses not on the broader narratives of the historiography of China's interactions with Europe and the West, but on the micro level: the many personal intercultural encounters that lie behind these wider processes of change.Previous work on translation in Chinese history has increasingly examined the wider role of translation beyond simple linguistic transfer and of individual translators as agents with power and interests of their own, who served as mediators and agents of change (Harrison 2019; Hung 2014; Hsia 2007; Lung 2011; Shin 2014; Wang 2010). In the case of the English at Canton, however, the study of the tongshi has focussed on the period after the establishment of an English factory. This scholarship sees them as mediators or liaisons first and linguists second, with a much wider role than comparable figures elsewhere but constrained by poorer linguistic skills and the fear of being too close to foreigners (Van Dyke 2005, 2017; Yao 2013; Wang 2014). Relatively fewer studies have addressed the less formalised contacts of the seventeenth century. Studies on the 1637 Weddell Expedition have examined the central role of the linguist Pablo Noretti in detail, but only cursory attention has been paid to the linguists on the other nine voyages in this period, despite frequent references to their importance in negotiations (Fischel 1956; Eames, 1909; Morse 1926-29; Wan 2004; Wang 2012).This project therefore aims to fill this gap, considering that this period is particularly appropriate for a study of the role of translation. This is firstly because, at this time of less-formalised contact and poorer institutional knowledge, communication difficulties were acute. Understanding the way in which these translation-mediated interactions played out is therefore crucial to understanding the dynamics of the early English Canton trade, and can give us a more nuanced view of Anglo-Chinese interaction. Secondly, this early period will also give an insight into the origins of later translation practices, providing a fuller view of how the Canton trade operated and why.Drawing on work in historical translation studies to situate and justify my approach to the source material, I will examine a wide body of English, Chinese, and Portuguese primary sources including journals, diaries, correspondence, and official documents. Going beyond a surface narrative of events, I shall trace how the merchants and their interlocutors perceived the role of a seventeenth-century translator, asking how this affected both the translator's practice and others' expectations, and the effect of this on how translations were used and interpreted. This will enable a clearer view of the dynamics of interaction shaping the early English attempts at trade. Finally, I shall situate this study in wider translation discourses, both synchronically and diachronically: did the China trade reflect general views on translation, or did it give rise to its own conventions and ways of interacting and doing business? And, drawing on work on the better-studied eighteenth century, how did these early practices influence the later development of the use of linguists at Canton? Was this an exception, or was it the basis of an enduring practice that shaped Anglo-Chinese contact at Canton well beyond the emergence of modern ideals of translation elsewhere?This project will therefore both complicate our understanding of this period with a more nuanced view of how these interactions unfolded through the mediation of translation, and also give a wider insight into both the English trade at Canton and historical practices of translation.