The Thistle and the Jade was an essential source for the novel Yankee Mandarin. The book is a collection of articles regarding Jardine, Matheson and Company in the China trade, some penned by company officers, but others of substantial academic merit (e.g. Yen-p'ing Hao on Jardine's compradors); the book is recommended as an introduction to what is available in the Jardine, Matheson archives at Cambridge.

The following are notes from the reading.

Presents of special old teas, 27.

A. G. Dallas, 28-9.

James Whittall (Shanghai), 33.

Opium (picture), 60-1, 64-5.

tincture of opium, 67;

Malwa molds, 68.

Palmerston, 72.

Silk, 80-1.

Takee's history of his home county, 95. "Takee" is the banker Yang Fang, who provided funding for the army of mercenaries led in the book by Fletcher Thorson Wood.

Takee would have a large household, with so many people coming and going that Fletcher never could keep them all straight, and Ch'ang-mei [Yang Fang's young daughter] was lost among them, 99.

Compradores and "limited liability" (this is an important passage that reflects on the "ethics" of compradors). Jardine's characters in 1860 Shanghai: Whittall, Keswick, compradore William Affo.

Other detail was taken from the chapter Jardines in Japan. Yokohama, Nagasaki, and Hakodate were opened for trade on July 1, 1859. Yokohama was an isolated, seaward-facing stretch of shorebacked by a swamp with rivers on either side. A canal was dug to join the two rivers, so ensuring that the only official exits from the port were via two bridges, each guarded and barricaded at sunset. To Rutherford Alcock [British consul] it looked like a prison.

Whitall was in charge of the Shanghai branch in 1859-60. "Early in 1860" [William] Keswick bought Lot No. 1 [on the Shanghai Bund] for the company [so by May it probably was already a done deal and can be mentioned in Yankee Mandarin]. It was in an excellent position on the waterfront with room for expansion to Lot Nos. 22 and 23 behind for godowns.

James Lande