Page 152 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

138.

Cushing's talent to the irrunense profit of all. Even during

the Embargo, when many merchants in the China trade failed or at

least rechanneled their investments elsewhere, Perkins & Co.

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increase t eir pro i f't s .
d h .
By 1820 Perkins & Co., which invested in the China trade

to Europe as well as to the United States, had grown to assume
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a virtual monopoly over the European quarter of the trade.

In 1821 Cusing advised a correspondent of the Perkins' concern

in London not to accept consignments in freight on Perkins

vessels, as "it may happen that circumstances may induce us to

send the vessels elsewhere without coming further than Lintin

or ChuenpeeLJ LI/n a case there was freight on bd. iboar_g/

for others it would embarrass us very much, fl/he compensation

is no object. II The fear of embarrassment was an oblique

reference to the opium trade. As in other spheres of the Canton

trade Cushing reaped rich profits from opium. He had imported

Turkish opium from Smyrna as early as 1810 and in the 1820's
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a
t d .
'
h d . inves e in cargoes o f I dn ian opium.
Throughout the 1820's more business went through Perkins
& Co. than any other American agent or house. In 1823, when

65
Letter, J. & T.H. Perkins to Perkins & Co., May 13,
1807, Massachusetts Historical Society, J. & T.H. Perkins
Letterbooks. Seaberg and Paterson, Merchant Prince of Boston,
pp. 179, 189.

66
Letter, Perkins & Co. to J. & T.H. Perkins, Feb. 6,
1820, Perkins & Co. MSS.
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Letter, Perkins & Co. to F.W. Paine, Jan. 31, 1821,
Perkins & Co. MSS. Letter, J.P. Cushing to T.H. Perkins, 1810,
Forbes Family MSS.