1800s "OPIUM FIRM" RUSSELL & CO., F.T. BUSH ESQ. HONG KONG & GEORGE W. BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM, 2013 ~ DRUGS & WARS NEVER TO END FOR RUTHLESS EMPIRE BUILDERS (first PUB 5/30/13)

http://www.kxxv.com/story/22077155/george-w-bush-library-dedication-begins-in-dallas

... The Portuguese arrived in China in the early 1500s and after an abortive attempt to settle near latter-day Hong Kong they were permitted to establish a trading base at Macao in 1557. They brought the first European traded opium to China from their colony of Goa. Arab traders had been bringing in opium ever since around 400 A. D. There was already some domestic production for medicinal uses, opium poppies having reached China some 300 years earlier.

SAMUEL W. RUSSELL

Samuel Russell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Russell and Phillip Ammidon came to Canton in 1824, Russell having first been there in 1818 as a business representative for a merchant house out of Providence R.I. Ammidon went on to India to serve as the firm's opium buyer. In "a series of accidents and coincidental decisions" Russell & Company acquired a "virtual" monopoly on the American portion of the trade in the 1830's. Other eastern merchants failed, died, or retired like John Jacob Astor. Perkins & Company, resident partner in Canton, Thomas T. Forbes was drown in August of 1829, and he carried a letter which gave Russell "charge of the firm's [Perkin's] business."

Robert Bennet Forbes (1804-1889) c. 1846

In Robert B. Forbes's autobiography Personal Reminiscences (1882), he talks about talking a trip to visit "constituents" in Europe, in 1841. His uncle, merchant T.H. Perkins went with him. In London they met with Forbes, Forbes and Co, Barings and the Rothschilds, "who were valuable constituents of Russell & Co."

That RB Forbes was obliged to go back to China to make another "opium" fortune—having lost his last because of financial problems brought about by the panic—is to say the least— ironic.

The "Combination", Russell & Company and the Scotch firm Jardine-Matheson, the largest opium trader, together developed a new trade up and down the China coast—the romantic opium clipper—and helped to spread the use of the opium further in China. After the first "Opium War" Russell & Co. became the third largest dealer in opium in the world.

Comissioner Lin Tse-hsu c. 1850 anon.

Lin couldn't believe that opium was legal in Britain and wrote a letter to Queen Victoria to implore her aid in stopping the trade. He disrupted the local merchants and published new edicts against the use and importation of the drug. Lin demanded that all chests of opium be forfeit as contraband and all trading houses sign a bond, pledge to smuggle no more and become liable to Chinese law which included the death penalty. Through threats, a servant walkout, giant gongs that were rung all-night and other measures, Lin was able to collect over 20,000 chest of opium (about half of that year's Indian trade). Then under orders from the emperor, he destroyed it all.

This conflagration sparked the first Opium War, made huge profits for those firms that had held on to chests and left Russell & Company the only trading firm left open in Canton.

During that first Opium War, the Chief of Operations for Russell & Co. in Canton was Warren Delano, Jr., grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt. He was also the US vice-consul and once wrote home, "The High officers of the [Chinese] Government have not only connived at the trade, but the Governor and other officers of the province have bought the drug and have taken it from the stationed ships … in their own Government boats."

John Jacob Astor, OPIUM SMUGGLER

http://www.grantboston.com/Articles/HMLitigation.pdf 

http://www.ctrl.org/boodleboys/boddlesboys2.html
 
http://blog.holachina.net/?p=584

http://hongkongsfirst.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

  
... His American Fur Company purchased ten tons of Turkish opium, then shipped the contraband to Canton on the Macedonian. (Finally, a tie in to Turkey, right?!) Mind you, the Turks and Indians had been shipping opium to China for centuries, and Astor eventually left the China opium trade and sold solely to England. With the fortune he fast-tracked from dealing in opium, he started to more heavily invest in land in New York City and ended up becoming America's first multi-millionaire.  http://20sparkles12.blogspot.com/2012/10/13-ottoman-opium-and-john-astor.html


>>to be continued ~ HENRY 'HEINZ' KISSINGER & MRS. WITH GOLD BUTTONS ON HER DRESS AT THE TRIAL OF ASTORS' "ESTATE"

Heinz & Nancy Kissinger