The opium clippers / by Basil Lubbock.

  • Lubbock, Basil, 1876-1944.
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The opium clippers / by Basil Lubbock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Chinese certainly relied on him to stand their friend in all dealings with the treacherous Hung-maon or red-bristled nation (British). But the latter were wont to declare that it only needed time to discover that Gutzlaff was just a bubble of self-glorification. New-comers to China regarded him with awe, and his “specious manner and assumption of omniscience” made a great impression on the young, for whom he delighted to display a kindly superiority. Yet with all this he undoubtedly possessed more intimate knowledge of the Chinese nation than any other European of his time. He seemed to have no scruples as regards the opium trade, for hardly had the Lord Amherst returned from the North before he had shipped himself as interpreter aboard the Sylph for an opium voyage of discovery to the same parts. The “ Sylph ” and “ Jamesina 99 go North. The safe return of the Lord Amherst evidently encouraged the opium merchants to see what they could do. On June 30, 1832, the firm of Magniac & Co. was wound up, and reopened under the title of Jardine, Matheson & Co. on July 1. The first act of the new firm was to despatch the clipper Sylph to the far North and the Jamesina (which since her voyage behind the Forbes had been acting as a receiving ship at Lintin), to Chin-chew Bay, Amoy and Foochow. The super-cargo of the Jamesina attempted to trade without courting observation, whereas Captain Robert Wallace of the Sylph and his super-cargo, Alexander Robertson, behaved in the boldest fashion, even to hoisting flags and firing guns in order to draw the attention of the mandarins to their presence. Both ships carried woollens and cottons besides their opium. The Jamesina returned with 330,000 dollars in specie, the result of successful trading, but her super-cargo wrote in his journal: “My mind is made up that until some important change in the relation of the two countries takes place, the only chance of pushing English manufactures on this coast is by having them as a small item in an opium cargo: at the same time it must be stated that the population of the country are most anxious to trade if they could escape mandarin vengeance.”