Page 409 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

395.

to attract the Corrunodore's attention was the opium trade.

Two days after the squadron's arrival, the Hong Kong

Gazette, an English corrunercial newspaper, published one of its

frequent shipping reports. Such reports included vessels en­

gaged in the opium trade. The report which Kearny noticed

listed an American vessel as an opium trader. Kearny quickly

addressed a note to the American vice-consul at Canton with an

admonishment to make "known with equal publicity, & also to the
Chinese authorities, by translation of the same, that the Govern­

ment of the United States does not sanction 'the smuggling of

opium' on this coast, under the American flag, in violation of

1
the laws of China. 1 The Corrunodore emphasized that any American
,,essel seized by the Chinese could not 11find support in inter­
10
position 11 from the naval squadron. This note to Vice-consul

Warren Delano hardly constituted a significant threat to the

opium trade, since it contained nothing new. Unlike English

merchants, Americans had never sought governmental protection

for their share of the opium trade.

Before Kearny could further investigate American vessels

trafficking in opium, he had to deal with another matter. In

the spring of 1841 the Chinese had seized two American merchants,

Joseph C. Coolidge and William F. Morss, who were attempting to

leave Canton. This incident occurred soon after Chinese mobs

had attacked and burned the Foreign Factories. Mistaking Cool­

idge and Morss for Englishmen, the Chinese fired on their boat.

Although the authorities released the Americans when they dis-

10
A copy of Kearny's notice of Mar. 31, 1842 is in
11Squadron Letters,11 East India Squadron, Apr. 8, 1842.