Sylph
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.
- A Fleet Takes Shape…lk Hercules just after midnight on a March tide. The Chinese broker supervising the transfer checked his watch against the ship’s bell. The Sylph had been sighted that afternoon, beating up the river against a southwest monsoon that should have kept her out for another week. Her arriv…
- The Agency Houses Ascendant…he system would face challenge, but when. William Jardine set the letter on the desk between them. The document was a charter party for the Sylph, a schooner of some ninety tons recently arrived at Lintin with a cargo of Malwa opium. The terms were favorable. The captain would receive…
- Sylph’s Challenge…and leave the risks to the men at sea. Captain James Innes felt it in the heel of his vessel as she strained against the monsoon swell, the Sylph’s deck angling sharply as the wind caught her acres of canvas. He felt it in the shouts of his lascar crew as they scrambled to trim the sa…