Page 253 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

239.

corruption was becoming wide-spread throughout the Chinese
1
Empire. The Ch ing Dynasty, after reigning almost two hundred

years, was experiencing a general decline, as venality increas­

ingly permeated its administrative structure. Therefore offic­

ials at Canton gave lip-service to Imperial orders concerning
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opium but rarly made more than a show at enforcing them.

In return for their laxity, local officials demanded

1payments. Chinese opium dealers and their foreign suppliers

were "expected to maintain a proper degree of secrecy in

their mode of carrying on their trade. 11 The system of trade

devised at Lintin after 1821 satisfied this stipulation.

Foreign vessels remained outside the Empire and the dealers

themselves purchased the drug at the receiving ships. Orders

1
were sent down from Canton and picked up by smug boats, 11
1
1
known to the Chinese as scrambling dragons (p a-lung) or fast
1
crabs (k uai-hsieh). "These boats, of a peculiar build, were

of great length and beam, the latter increasing rather dispro­
portionately abaft to give quarters to brokers• agents who

always went with them. The crews numbered from sixty to

seventy men, The armament was one large gun in the bows,

swivelsu spears, and flint-lock muskets purchased from foreign

vessels." On the receiving ships the dealer and crews trans-

50
H.B. Morse, The Trade and Administration of the
Chinese Empire (New York, 1908), pp. 331-32. Chang, Commis­
sioner Lin and the Opium War, pp. 46-48. Chinese officials
made more efforts to enforce regulations and restrictions in
1
the regular trade, although by the 1830 s many of them could
be bribed to overlook foreigners• actions. The corruption in­
volved in the opium trade was the worst.