Full bibliography

Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Canton was facing increasing tensions and difficulties not only with foreign officials and traders, but also with foreign sailors visiting the port. These years witnessed a marked increase in the number of Western ships trading at Canton. The increase in the number of foreign ships brought an attendant increase in the number of foreign sailors — in the thousands by the early nineteenth century — who on 'liberty days' in groups of anywhere from 12 to 50 men headed to Hog Lane alongside the Western factories for a day of whoring and drinking.