Page 226 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

212.

officials overlooked the illegal aspects of the trade in re-

turn for financial enrichment. (This practice plagued all

attempts by the Imperial government to restrict the opium

trade throughout the nineteenth century.) Hong merchants them-

selves did not deal in the drug, although they continued to

secure foreign vessels that carried opium. Instead, foreign

merchants sold their opium to Chinese buyers through Chinese

commission agents, whose business consisted solely of acting

as middle-men in the opium trade. The actual transactions

occurred at Whampoa, including open transshipment of the con­

traband from foreign vessels to Chinese lighters.

Besides the English and Portugese, other foreigners-­

chiefly Americans--engaged in the opium trade. Although the

English dominated the opium trade in China, American parti­

5
cipation in the trade was substantial. Within a few years
after American traders entered China, they included opium

among the cargoes they shipped to Canton. Prohibited from

6
procuring the drug in India, Americans utilized the other

5
The best discussion of the American trade in opium is
Jacques M. Downes, "American Merchants and the China Opium Trade,
1800-184-0," Business History Review, XLII, 4 (Winter 1968), 418-
442. See also Charles C. Stelle, "American Trade in Opium to
China, Prior to 1820," Pacific Historical Review, IX, 4 (December
1940), 425-444, and "American Trade in Opium to China, 1821-39,"
Pacific Historical Review, X, 5 (March 1941), 57-74.
6
Jay's Treaty, concluded between the United States and
England in 1795, expressly prohibited American vessels from trade
between ports in British territories and ports outside the United
States. This stipulation was not removed until after 1815.