The 'Rose' subsequently foundered in a taiphoon,[45] on July 21, 1841, only one of her crew being saved, a Portuguese Sea-cunnie,[46] who was for three days on a plank. He was picked up by my old friend and shipmate, Captain Fraser, in the 'Good Success,' thirty miles from the Grand Ladrone.
This tedious review of the opium traffic, as existing during the first fifteen years of my residence at Canton, will give the reader a correct idea of the mode in which it was carried on. The confiscation of 20,052 chests by the Imperial Commissioner Lin, in 1839, checked the local trade for a time, but did not do away with it. Up to this period it had indeed been an easy and agreeable business for the foreign _exile_ who shared in it at Canton. His sales were pleasantness and his remittances were peace. Transactions seemed to partake of the nature of the drug; they imparted a soothing frame of mind with three per cent. commission on sales, one per cent. on returns, and no bad debts! To the agent each chest was worth 20_l._ sterling, one year with another.
Consequent upon the seizure of the English-owned opium, the city of Canton, lying at the mercy of Sir Hugh Gough, was ransomed, as has been said, for $6,000,000, and this sum was afterwards appropriated by the British Government to indemnify its owners, who had delivered it up, either directly, or indirectly through their Canton agents, in obedience to the command of Captain Elliot, 'for surrender to the Imperial Commissioner on behalf of Her Majesty's Government.'
The amount of the ransom was much below the ordinary market value, even of its cost; on the other hand, no one could foresee to what a low price it _might_ fall, through the measures which were being taken by the Pekin authorities to 'put an end for ever' to 'opium smoking' in their dominions, and the whole arrangement was, under the circumstances, a very reasonable one.
The largest quantity surrendered by any one house was 7,000 chests; we came, I think, third on the list, with 1,500 chests; the remainder was principally in the hands of English, Parsee, and other native of India firms. The appointment and approaching arrival of the Imperial Envoy became known at Canton in the latter months of 1838. The local Mandarins therefore began a system of harshness towards dealers in order to appear vigilant and active in the carrying out of old decrees. This led to much cruel punishment, to the execution of one man in the Square in front of the Factories, in December 1838 (by way of casting obloquy upon the foreigners), and an attempt to strangle another one there in February 1839. This latter caused an unprecedented riot, led to an attack upon all foreigners who happened to be out of their residences, several of them being injured, and to the Factories being besieged by many thousands of vagabonds, who kept up an incessant attack on windows and gates with stones and brickbats.