Page 243 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

229.

American speculators were beginning to forge into the trade

in Indian opium. In the few years after the trade settled

at Lintin, the quantities of Indian opium imported to China

rose steadily. The greater ease in procuring the drug at

Lintin made possible larger sales to the Chinese. During

this same period English merchants began importing Malwa as

well as Bengal opium. The East India Company sought unsuc­

cessfully to restrict the English to Company Bengal. By the
1
end of the 1820 s the English bought Malwa at Bombay without
. . 35
oppos1 tion. While Indian opium imports increased, American

residents at Canton followed the English into the Calcutta and

Bombay markets.

These Americans acted primarily as commission agents

and for the most part did not themselves speculate in the drug.

Their major consignors in fact were native Indian or Parsee
merchants. The Parsees preferred transacting business through

American agents who offered them cheaper rates and better

service than other Parsee or English agents. By 1830 two

American establishments at Canton had garnered the majority

of the American opium trade, both in Turkey and India. Although
1
other American residents at Canton in the 1830 s also dealt in

opium, they never matched the volume and profits of Russell & Co.

and John R. Latimer. These two concerns amassed their consign-

35
English trade in Malwa was carried on under the name
of Portugese merchants from the port of Damao to bypass Company
restrictions. The Company finally allowed Malwa to be trans­
ported through Bombay for a transit fee. Greenberg, British
Trade and the Opening of China, pp. 124-30.