Page 244 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

230.

ments through the death or failure of most major American
36
speculators during the 1820's. Actually by the late 1820's

the only Americans left from former years of the trade were

the "Boston Concern, 11 including the Perkinses and Bryant &

Sturgis, and Benjamin C. Wilcocks. Because of the limited

demand for Turkey opium the only source open to further

speculation had become India.

Russell & Co. and John R. Latimer ventured into the

opium trade at about the same time. Both, furthermore, were

beneficiaries of the opium business which other American resi-

dents had already developed. Latimer invaded the trade through

B.C. Wilcocks, who had pioneered the American opium trade

(both in Turkey and Ind:iarl at Canton. Before he joined Wil­

cocks, Latimer had been a supercargo and then resident agent

for Smith & Nicoll of New York. Although he was the house's

"exclusive agent," Latimer looked after Wilcocks' business

when the latter traveled to India in 1824 to drum for opium

consignments. When Smith & Nicoll were forced out of business

in November 1925, Latimer joined Wilcocks who planned to

depart China shortly for good. He did so in 1827 and consigned

his business to Latimer. Wilcocks had dealt almost exclusively

in opium and ginseng. Within a year Latimer was very success­
ful, trading more in opium than in ginseng. His correspondents

36
By 1830 John Donnell and Stephen Girard, two of the
original merchants in the American opium trade had died.
Edward Thompson of Philadelphia and Thomas H. Smith of New
York had failed. Edward Carrington failed in 1834. Downs,
"American Merchants and the Opium Trade," pp. 435-38.