Chapter 12 The Colonial Period 455city of Macao for the summer. In Macao they had rather ordinary freedoms,
but in Canton they were entirely dependent on the hongs.
Hong merchants were far from ordinary shopkeepers; their appointment
by the government entitled them to scholar-official status, though mostly of the
lowest (ninth) rank; a few had somewhat higher status, as indicated by a blue
button at the top of their hats. Relations between the “foreign devils” and the
hong merchants were surprisingly good, and the Canton trade sector was
famous for being an honest place where, aside from the exactions of the
Hoppo and predictable “squeeze” paid to smaller clerks and officials, you
could at least trust the quality of the merchandise and expect not to be cheated.
Of course, they were all complicit in the illegal drug trade, but even that was
viewed as the “safest trade in China” by people like William Jardine and
James Matheson, two Scots who established a very successful trading com-
pany in Canton. They did not consider themselves smugglers. The Chinese
were smugglers. Foreigners arrived in Canton waters with ships of perfectly
legal opium from India. Getting it into China was the illegal part. After paying
for the opium with certificates of trade or pure silver, hong merchants sent
small boats out to take the crates of opium from the merchant vessels anchored
in the river.
Selling opium in China was essential to obtaining the products of Chinese
industry—silks, sugar, porcelain, lacquerware, wallpaper, and above all, tea—
because Europe produced very little that anyone in China would pay for.
Moreover, by the late 1820s, England was importing 30 million pounds of tea a
year from China. The duty levied on tea in Britain provided the government
with revenues of three million pounds annually. In order to keep the tea flow-
ing to England, opium had to go the other way—to China; otherwise the trade
imbalance would drain Britain of silver, which was the only product the Chi-
nese government really wanted. Finally, in the 1830s, the silver flow began to
reverse. China was now buying more opium than it was selling tea. Silver was
now flowing out of the Celestial Empire. Moreover, the addiction problem was
out of control. An effort by the imperial government to discover the extent of
addiction turned up frightening news. From the imperial household to regional
governments and to workers in urban areas, everywhere but the countryside,
people were lying with their pipes in opium dreams.
The Qing emperor invoked his Manchu ancestors who would hold him
responsible for the damage done to the empire by the foreign drug. He solicited
opinions from his highest-placed officials about how to solve the problem.
These proposals were not so different from those heard today with respect to
our current drug problem. Some urged legalizing it. Others urged cracking
down on foreign suppliers. But the unpleasant reality was that the foreigners
arrived in armed merchant ships that China’s weak coastal boats could not
stand up to. It was easier to concentrate on the Chinese end of the problem and
go after the Chinese smugglers and traders. One official the emperor listened to
closely was Lin Zexu, who wrote a lengthy analysis of the situation, complete