Page 238 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

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engaged in the opium trade at Canton realized they could not

continue their illegal operations at Whampoa. English and

At�erican opium traders had used the Whampoa Anchorage since

1815. The port of Macao, although much safer for transactions

in the illegal trade, was closed to all but Portugese opium

vessels. This exclusion on the part of the Portugese was a

competitive measure aimed at aiding the importation of Malwa
27
over Benga 1 opium. For five years the traders at Whampoa
.
managed to keep the opium trade movin g rather successfully.

But the Anchorage was too close to Canton, as an increasing

number of incidents from 1817 to 1821 indicated. Governor-

general Yuan's decree concerning bonds in November 1821 pre­

cipitated the removal of the opium trade to an Outer Anchorage.

The Imperial government claimed it had no jurisdiction out­

side the Pearl River. This move resulted in more efficient
operation of the opium trade. A further consequence was a

rapid growth in both quantity and value of opium imported to

China by the English and Americans.

Forced to leave Whampoa, foreigners chose the island

of Lintin as the center of the opium trade. Lintin (Ling-ting

or Solitary Nail) lay alone in the middle of the mouth of the

Pearl River about twenty miles northeast of Macao. The dis-

27
Legally the Chinese had restricted all Portugese
trade in China to Macao. The Portugese, furthermore, supposedly
were the only Westerners who could trade at Macao. But the
Portugese only enforced this when they pleased and the Chinese
never did. Before 1815 the center of the opium trade was Macao,
with the English merchants transacting their business with Por­
tugese partners.