He turned to look at his clipper,
China Cloud, 22 guns. All of Struan and Company’s clippers were surnamed “Cloud” to honor his mother, a McCloud, who had died years ago. Seamen were painting and cleaning an already sparkling vessel. Guns were being examined and rigging tested. The Union Jack fluttered proudly aft and the company flag atop the mizzen.
The flag of The Noble House was the royal red lion of Scotland entwined with the imperial green dragon of China. It flew on twenty armed clippers scattered over the oceans of the world, on a hundred swift-sailing armed lorchas that smuggled opium up the coast. It flew on three huge opium supply depot ships—converted hulks of merchantmen which were presently anchored in Hong Kong harbor. And it flew over
Resting Cloud, his vast semi-stationary headquarters vessel that contained bullion strong rooms, offices, luxurious suites and dining rooms.
You’re a bonny flag, Struan thought proudly.
The first ship that had flown the flag had been an opium-laden pirate lorcha that he had taken by force. Pirates and corsairs infested the coasts, and the Chinese and Portugese authorities offered a silver bounty for pirates. When the winds had forbidden opium smuggling or when he had no opium to sell, he had scoured the China seas. The bullion he gained from the pirates he invested in opium.
Godrot opium, he thought. But he knew that his life was inexorably tied to opium—and that without it neither The Noble House nor the British Empire could exist.
The reason could be traced back to 1699, when the first British ship traded peacefully with China and brought back silks and, for the first time, the peerless herb called tea—which China alone on earth produced cheaply and in abundance. In exchange, the emperor would take only silver bullion. And this policy had persisted ever since.
Within fifty-odd years tea became the most popular drink of the Western world—particularly of Britain, the major trading nation on earth. In seventy years tea was the single major source of internal tax revenue for the British Government. Within a century the outpouring of wealth to China had critically depleted the British treasury and the unbalanced tea-bullion trade was a national catastrophe.
Over the century, the British East India Company—the gigantic semiprivate, semipublic firm which possessed, by Act of Parliament, a total monopoly on Indian and Asian trade—had offered everything and anything with growing desperation—cotton goods, looms, even guns and ships—in place of bullion. But the emperors imperiously refused. They considered China self-sufficient, were contemptuous of “barbarians,” as they called all non-Chinese, and regarded all the nations of the earth as no better than vassal states of China.
And then, thirty years ago, a British merchantman, the
Vagrant Star, had sailed up the Pearl River and anchored off Whampoa Island. Its secret cargo was opium, which British Bengal produced cheaply and in abundance. Although opium had been used in China for centuries—but only by the very rich and by those in Yunnan Province where the poppy also flourished—it was contraband. The East India Company had clandestinely licensed the captain of
Vagrant Star to offer the opium. But only for bullion. The Chinese Guild of Merchants, which by imperial decree monopolized all Western Trade, bought the cargo and sold it secretly at a great profit. The captain of the
Vagrant Star privately turned over the bullion to the Company’s officers in Canton and took his profit in bank paper on London and rushed back to Calcutta for more opium.
Struan remembered the
Vagrant Star well. He had been a cabin boy aboard her. It was in this vessel that he had become a man—and had seen Asia. And had sworn to destroy Tyler Brock, who at the time was the
Vagrant Star’s third mate. Struan was twelve, Brock eighteen and very strong. Brock had hated him on sight and delighted in finding fault, cutting his food ration, ordering him extra watches, sending him aloft in foul weather, baiting him, goading him. The slightest mistake and he had Struan tied to the rigging and lashed with the cat-o’-nine-tails.
Struan had stayed with the
Vagrant Star for two years. Then one night she struck a reef in the Malacca Strait and went down. Struan had swum ashore and made his way to Singapore. Later he learned that Brock had survived too and this made him very happy. He wanted revenge, in his own way, in his own time.
Struan had joined another ship. By now the East India Company was secretly licensing many carefully selected independent captain-traders, and continuing to sell them exclusively Bengal opium at advantageous prices. The Company began to make huge profits and acquire vast quantities of silver bullion. The Chinese Guild of Merchants and the mandarins turned blind eyes to the illicit trade, for they too made huge profits. And these profits, being secret, were not subject to imperial squeeze.
Opium became the inbound staple of trade. The Company quickly monopolized the world supply of opium outside Yunnan Province and the Ottoman Empire. Within twenty years the bullion traded for smuggled opium equaled the bullion that was owed for teas and silks.
At last trade balanced. Then overbalanced, for there were twenty times more Chinese customers than Western customers, and there began a staggering outpouring of bullion that even China could not afford. The Company offered other trade goods to stem the tide. But the emperor remained adamant: bullion for tea.
By the time Struan was twenty he was captain-owner of his own ship on the opium run. Brock was his chief rival. They competed ruthlessly with each other. Within six years Struan and Brock dominated the trade.
The opium smugglers became known as China traders. They were an intrepid, tough, vital group of individualistic owner-captains—English, Scots, and some Americans—who casually drove their tiny ships into unknown waters and unknown dangers as a way of life. They went to sea to trade peacefully: to make a profit, not to conquer. But if they met with a hostile sea or a hostile act, their ships became fighting ships. And if they did not fight well, their ships vanished and were soon forgotten.
The China traders soon realized that while they were taking all the risks, the Company was taking most of the profit. And, too, they were totally excluded from the legitimate—and hugely profitable—tea and silk trade. So although they continued to compete fiercely, at Struan’s persuasion they began to agitate collectively against the Company to break its monopoly. Without the monopoly the traders could convert opium into bullion, bullion into tea, then ship the tea home and sell it directly to the markets of the world. The China traders would themselves control the world tea trade and their profits would become gigantic. Parliament became their forum for agitation. Parliament had given the Company its exclusive monopoly two centuries ago, and only Parliament could take it away. So the China traders gambled heavily, buying votes, supporting members of Parliament who believed in free competition and free trade, writing to newspapers and to members of the Government. They were determined, and as their wealth increased so did their power. They were patient and tenacious and indomitable—as only men trained by the sea can be.
The Company was furious at the insurgents and reluctant to lose its monopoly. But it desperately needed the China traders to supply the bullion to pay for the teas, and by now it depended heavily on the huge revenue from the sale of Bengal opium. So it fought back carefully in Parliament. Parliament was equally trapped. It decried the sale of opium but needed the revenue from the teas and the Indian Empire. Parliament tried to listen to the China traders and to the Company, and satisfied neither.