James Flint (merchant)

James Flint (Chinese name: 洪任輝, Hong Renhui, ?1720–?) was an 18th-century British merchant and diplomat employed by the East India Company and noted for his role in precipitating the Canton System of Chinese trade with the West. One of the first English people to learn the Chinese language, Flint broke Qing dynasty court protocol through a direct complaint to the Qianlong Emperor, which led to three years of detention in the Portuguese colony of Macau. In later life, he was jointly responsible for the introduction of the soybean to North America.

Left in China as a teenage boy by Captain Rigby of the Honourable East India Company ship Normanton in 1736, Flint grew to adulthood speaking Mandarin Chinese. For reasons unknown, he adopted or was given the Chinese name Hóng Rènhuī (洪任辉) and in 1739 departed for Bombay and other East India Company run locations. Three years later he returned to China to continue his language studies, for which, according to scholar H.B. Morse the Company provided funding. As a result, some 136 years after its foundation James Flint became the Company’s Chinese interpreter and the first such individual in British history. In 1741 he took up a position at the Company factory in Canton where he considered British trade unsatisfactory even though at that time it surpassed that of the French and the Dutch. In 1746 Flint took passage on the Company ship Tavistock and became "Linguist to all our Supra Cargoes in general", receiving 90 taels of silver per ship and accommodation at the Company's factories. During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) the Company remained comparatively powerful and expanded its business in China. Nevertheless, its trade volume still lagged behind that of its combined European competitors. Under these circumstances the Company became anxious to expand its trade into China’s interior. With trading conditions in Canton unsatisfactory, the British decided to reopen their former trade in Ningbo and other northern ports.

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