A three-masted, 800-ton Foochow Chinese trading junk sailed from China around the Cape of Good Hope to the United States and Britain between 1846 and 1848.
Keying had been purchased in August 1846 in secrecy by British businessmen in Hong Kong, defying a Chinese law prohibiting the sale of Chinese ships to foreigners. She was renamed after the Manchu official Keying. Keying was manned by 12 British and 30 Chinese sailors (the latter all Cantonese). She was commanded by Captain Charles Alfred Kellett, also British.
P. T. Barnum had a copy of Keying built in Hoboken (Barnum claimed he had it towed from China), and exhibited it with a crew which may have included some of the Keying Chinese. However the Brooklyn Eagle described Barnum's crew as "one third white and two thirds negroes or mulattoes", so probably no real Keying crew were present.
