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By 1833, the Chinese opium trade soared to 30,000 chests. [7] British and American merchants sent opium to warehouses in the free-trade port of Canton, and sold it to Chinese smugglers. [8] [10] In 1834, the EIC's monopoly on British trade with China ceased, and the opium trade burgeoned.
Launched in 1839, the Nemesis was deployed to China – arriving late 1840 – and used to great effect in the First Opium War by Captain William Hutcheon Hall and later in 1842 by Captain Richard Collinson. [5] The Chinese referred to her as the "devil ship". [2]
Historical accounts suggest that opium first arrived in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907) as part of the merchandise of Arab traders. [10] Later on, Song Dynasty (960–1279) poet and pharmacologist Su Dongpo recorded the use of opium as a medicinal herb: "Daoists often persuade you to drink the jisu water, but even a child can prepare the yingsu soup."
The First Opium War (Chinese: 第一次鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng), also known as the Anglo-Chinese War, was a series of military engagements fought between the British Empire and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842.
A model of the destruction of opium at Humen. Displayed at the Hong Kong Museum of History. Commissioner Lin and the destruction of opium at Humen, June 1839. The destruction of opium at Humen began on 3 June 1839, lasted for 23 days, and involved the destruction of 1,000 long tons (1,016 t) of illegal opium seized from British traders under the aegis of Lin Zexu, an Imperial Commissioner of ...
This in turn interfered with the trade of British merchantmen in China. [3] In October 1839 a cargo ship, the Thomas Coutts, under the command of captain Warner arrived in Canton from Singapore. The ship carried cotton from Bombay, and, since the captain was not trading opium, he defied Elliot's request and signed the Chinese bond. He held a ...
The number of people using the drug in China grew rapidly, to the point that the trade imbalance shifted in the foreign countries' favor. In 1839 matters came to a head when Chinese official Lin Zexu tried to end the opium trade altogether by destroying a large amount of opium in Canton, thereby triggering the First Opium War.
She then traded opium between India and China, and became an opium receiving ship for Jardine Matheson. In 1839 she was one of the vessels that surrendered her store of opium to be burned at the behest of Chinese officials at Canton. This incident was one of the proximate causes of the First Opium War (1839–1842). Her owners apparently sold ...