China and the West

Collins, Wilkie. No name. (London : Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1862).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1438/1438.txt.
As a consequence of this decision, it was now, therefore, proposed that he [Francis Clare] should enter the house of their correspondents in China; that he should remain there, familiarizing himself thoroughly on the spot with the tea trade and the silk trade for five years; and that he should return, at the expiration of this period, to the central establishment in London. If he made a fair use of his opportunities in China, he would come back, while still a young man, fit for a position of trust and emolument, and justified in looking forward, at no distant date, to a time when the House would assist him to start in business for himself… The final answer was to be at the office on "Monday, the twentieth": the correspondents in China were to be written to by the mail on that day; and Frank was to follow the letter by the next opportunity, or to resign his chance in favor of some more enterprising young man. Mr. Clare's reception of this extraordinary news was startling in the extreme. The glorious prospect of his son's banishment to China appeared to turn his brain…
During that year, Frank was to remain at the office in London; his employers being informed beforehand that family circumstances prevented his accepting their offer of employment in China. He was to consider this concession as a recognition of the attachment between Magdalen and himself, on certain terms only…
Michael Vanstone's merciless resolution had virtually pronounced the sentence which dismissed Frank to China, and which destroyed all present hope of Magdalen's marriage…
It is another plain truth that you can't find the money; that I can't find the money; and that Frank's only chance of finding it, is going to China…
"Will you send him to China?" She sighed bitterly. "Have a little pity for me," she said. "I have lost my father; I have lost my mother; I have lost my fortune--and now I am to lose Frank. You don't like women, I know; but try to help me with a little pity. I don't say it's not for his own interests to send him to China; I only say it's hard--very, very hard on me."…
Mr. Clare resumed his walk, and returned to his subject.
"It's your interest," he went on, "as well as Frank's interest, that he should go. He may make money enough to marry you in China; he can't make it here. If he stops at home, he'll be the ruin of both of you…
V. From Francis Clare, Jun., to Magdalen. Shanghai, China, April 23d, 1847.
My prospects in China are all at an end. The Firm to which I was brutally consigned, as if I was a bale of merchandise, has worn out my patience by a series of petty insults; and I have felt compelled, from motives of self-respect, to withdraw my services, which were undervalued from the first. My returning to England under these circumstances is out of the question. I have been too cruelly used in my own country to wish to go back to it, even if I could…
I always told you, if you remember, that Frank was a Sneak. The very first trace recovered of him, after his running away from his employers in China, presents him in that character. Where do you think he turns up next? He turns up, hidden behind a couple of flour barrels, on board an English vessel bound homeward from Hong-Kong to London…

Sekundärliteratur
Wilkie Collins, No name, and the opportunity of China in the mid-nineteenth century.
http://www.chinarhyming.com/2013/11/30/wilkie-collins-no-name-and-the-opportunity-of-china-in-the-mid-nineteenth-century/.
The story begins in 1846 at Combe-Raven in West Somerset, the country residence of the Vanstone family. The story handles the subject of illegitimacy, a serious subject in the mid-nineteenth century. Magdalen Vanstone becomes engaged to a rather feckless young man, Francis Clare. Clare is sent off to China to make his fortune. He works for a firm of traders in London and is to be sent to their 'correspondents' in China to familiarize himself with both the tea and silk trades for five years. He is based in Shanghai and arrives in 1846/47. He will return, it is expected, to a position of some rank thanks to his China knowledge and experience. The job is seen as a 'banishmen' by some of his family but as a means of making good money. It is suggested that while in China, opportunities will afford themselves for him to make his fortune. As he is engaged the marriage will have to wait though it is suggested that in one year in the East he will make enough to pay for the dowry and be able to afford to marry.