Page 407 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

393.
the drug, more difficult to obtain during the Opium War, in­

creased over one-hundred percent. Ironically, the War impelled

the trade to grow "more rapidly than ever before, 11 as Chinese

authorities concentrated their efforts on combatting the English

Navy. In 1841 the English merchants anchored their opium ves-

sels at Hong Kong, where they operated beyond the reach of
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local Chinese officials.

As the Opium War progressed, American merchants' atti­

tudes toward the opium trade changed. By the spring of 1842,

if not earlier, Americans once again began to speculate in the

drug. American opium clippers reappeared along the coast.

Russell & Co. and A. Heard & Co. were the first American houses

to re-enter the business, although they confined their trade

entirely to the coast to avoid the risk of apprehension at

Whampoa. Americans also sold their clippers to English houses,

especially Jardine, Matheson & Co., for use in the opium trade.

Some of these clippers continued to fly American colors in the

8
hope that the American flag would grant greater access to trade.

7
U.S., Department of State, Consular DesDatches: Canton,
P.W. Snow, Jan. 11, 1840. Letter, E.C. Bridgman to American
Board of Commissioners, Jul. 1, 1841, in Missionary Herald, XXXVIII,
3 (March 1842), 101. Bridgman wrote that the opium trade was "in­
creasing now more rapidly than ever before." American missionary
David Abeel described the English opium fleet's anchorage near·
Hong Kong in Journal of D. Abeel, Feb. 13, 1842, in Missionary
Herald, XXXVIII, 12 (December 1842), 465.

8
Letter, J.P. Cushing to R.B. Forbes, Jun.1, 1842,
Boston, Museum of the American China Trade, Forbes Family MSS.
In this letter Cushing declined an offer to join the Forbeses
in opium speculations. Letter, A. Heard to G. Lee, Feb. 10,
1842, Heard MSS.