Page 233 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

219.
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market for Turkish opium.

Except for the "Boston Concern" and a few others who

maintained carefully organized operations, American merchants

who speculated in opium dropped the trade around 1820. Rumors

of a decline in the value of Turkey resulting from the East

India Company's interference in the trade persuaded some Amer­

icans to invest in other commodities. Though the Company

could brag that its policy was successful, other factors had

a significant impact on the American opium trade. Increas-

ingly rigorous Chinese enforcement of Imperial edicts against

opium and the Panic of 1819 limited the trade as much perhaps

as Company manipulation of the market. The Panic and ensuing

depression caused a decline in the entire American China trade
and also had adverse effects on commerce in opium. Most mer­

chants did not have the resources to remain competitive in all

branches of the trade, much less such a volatile one. The

margin of profit on opium, up to this point, had been rather

small because of the competitive nature of the trade. Even

those merchants whose commercial enterprises suffered few

severe setbacks in the depression had difficulty making profits

in opium. The drug sold for higher prices in Europe and at

Smyrna after 1821, but prices at Canton did not always corres­

pond. Supplies on the market there were sufficient to allow

20
Letters, Perkins .& Co. to F.W. Paine, Mar. 23 & Mar.
29, 1820; Perkins & Co. to J. & T.H. Perkins, Mar. 27, 1820,
Perkins & Co. MSS.