Jardine Matheson
Books
- Fast Ships, Bad Trade Opium Clippers and the Making of the China War · Liszt Think
In 1829, the East India Company’s monopoly birthed a vessel designed to outrun monsoons and defy imperial law.
- The Empire’s Last Monopoly…nts. By 1830, the enemies of the East India Company had begun to triumph, and its hold on trade with the East had noticeably weakened, with Jardine Matheson by then controlling around half of China’s foreign trade. But in 1828, the Company still held its charter, and its ships still dominated th…
- The Red Rover’s Revolution…pium. A letter arriving before the competition could mean the difference between buying at the right price and buying at the wrong one. The Jardine Matheson letter books, those massive volumes of correspondence that documented every transaction, every rumor, every piece of intelligence that pass…
- A Fleet Takes Shape…er Witch in, market up, buy. The rivalry between agency houses now expressed itself in ship design. Dent & Co., the principal competitor to Jardine Matheson in the opium trade, responded by ordering their own clipper from a Bombay shipyard. The vessel combined British construction techniques wit…