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The Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach China, where they founded a colony on Macau in 1552. They were followed by the Spanish and later by the Dutch and the British.

I seem to recall having written something about famous clippers in a previous issue of “Barcos de Epoca”. However, if my memory does not fail me, I have never covered opium smuggling from India to the coasts of China, a practice that gave rise to two wars. Let us recall some of the aspects of this trade.

From the early eighteenth century, the Portuguese began introducing small quantities of opium into China. In 1767, England signed a treaty with China, whereby the East India Company would control all trade from the English colonies, and its ships were known as East Indiamen or “the honourable John Company”. It was a powerful shipping company, which in 1810 owned more than 100 ships totalling more than 90,000 tons. Each ship had a “husband”, who exploited the vessel with total freedom, without having to answer to the board of directors, which had appointed the “husbands”. Apparently one of the East India Company ships, the  “ESSEX”, (1332 tons, built in 1803), had the largest number of sails of any ship. With no less than 63 sails, her main mast alone boasted 21 sails.



In 1834, when India became part of the British Empire the East India Company was dissolved.  During the times of the monopoly, opium was already being smuggled into China in small sailing vessels.

In 1832, the imperial commissar Lin-Pu ordered 20,000 crates of opium to be dumped overboard, an act that sparked the UNDECLARED Opium War between China and Britain, which was naturally won by the latter. China signed a humiliating treaty whereby Hong Kong would be ceded to the United Kingdom, and international trading posts would be opened up in Canton, Amoy, Fu-Chow, Ning-Pu, and Shanghai, in addition to allowing the import of opium. According to figures, Chinese imports of opium rose from 200 baskets in 1700 to 40,000 in 1840.

According to Basil Lubbock, who most thoroughly documented the clippers of the opium fleet during its 25 years of activity, (1830-1855), said fleet never surpassed 100 ships (24 brigantines and 37 schooners) and was divided into clippers, coasters and receiving ships.

The clippers were especially built to beat to windward against the monsoon. They carried the narcotic from Bombay and Calcutta to Canton and Hong Kong via Singapore. The best opium was grown in Malwa, by the local Indian chiefs. In Patna and Benares, the opium remained exclusively in the hands of the East India Company.  American ships occasionally traded Turkish opium.

On the homeward voyage the ships carried spices and occasionally select Chinese merchandise. The opium clippers usually carried a large crew for two fundamental reasons: they were swift boats and thus needed sufficient men to man the sails and occasionally they had to beat off attacks by the many pirates that sailed those routes, especially in the Sea of China.

The clipper captains were often Royal Navy officers who, in the peace following 1816, preferred an active life at sea to the half-pay that the government offered them.

According to Basil Lubock, the “Jamesina” in 1823became the first warship of the opium fleet (382 tons), which was followed by the cutter “Louisa” in 1828  (162 tons), the “Falcon I” in 1830, and lastly the clipper “Red Rover”, in September of 1903 after the sinking of the “Louisa”.

Another particularly noteworthy boat was the brig-corvette “FALCON”, an exceptional vessel built by Lord Yarborough at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, in 1815, as an experimental warship. In addition to seeing action at the Battle of Navarino, she smuggled opium between 1840 and 1855, and was owned by the famous firm Jardine Matheson & CO.

The first American opium clippers, which competed with their English counterparts, were the schooners “Anglona ” and“ Mazeppa” built in New York in 1840 and also the “Zephyr”, built 1842 in Boston.

In the 1850s, opium trafficking on sailing vessels fell into decline, coming to an end around 1860, when the drug began to be transported in steamships. “Spray”, “Neva”, “Undine” and” Chin Chin” were the last sailing ships employed in opium smuggling.

Basil Lubbock relates how people amassed great fortunes from the trading of opium. Some were siblings of the clergy, who on retiring from these activities succeeded their parents in curing souls. Others took up politics and became Members of the Parliament.

The opinion of José Maria Martinez Hidalgo
José María Martinez Hidalgo defines the clipper as a “ swift sailing ship” and adds “Its name derives from the English clip- which as a verb means move swiftly – incorporated into the main seafaring towns’ lexicon to denominate all manner of fast sailing vessels, irrespective of their rigging. Therefore the suggestion that all clippers were schooners can be ruled out. What is more, the most famous ones, being frigates or barques, had round rigging. Master Martínez Hidalgo continues: as the English term clip also means shear, trim, snip, nip, shorten..., some maintain that the term clipper, used to refer to the English sailing ships given over to the shipping of wool from Australia- from 1852 onward – comes from shear. However, it should be noted that this same term was used before to describe the sailing ships from plying the route between Boston and California, the famous California line (1848), and even earlier, to refer to those involved in the “opium trade”, which were legendary during the war of the same name (1839). Therefore the term was applied in the sense of swiftness, speed.... a logical association given that these ships, very sleek and fitted out with many sails, cut through the water faster than the older full bowed vessels and also the first steamships, with which they competed for speed and which the latter eventually won, but not without the sailing ships putting on a gallant contest for the dominion of the seas.  For the same reason of speed the English attributed the word clipper to the fastest racehorses. In short, the most outstanding characteristics for a clipper’s success were a sharp and narrow bow, an ample set of sails and a daring and skilful captain

Ships that took part on the opium trade
Basil Lubbock, the renowned author of at least a dozen books on clippers, wrote the following on the opium clippers:
“The opium clipper fleet, which during its brief 25 years of existence never surpassed l00 vessels, was divided into three classes of boats: the clippers, the coasters and the receiving ships”.
The clippers were built to sail against the monsoons. They transported the drug from Bombay and Calcutta to Canton and Hong Kong via Singapore. In the early days the clippers delivered their cargo to receiver ships that would lie to off Macao or at anchorage. After the opium war and as a result of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, the trade was permitted in the ports of Hong Kong, Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai.



 The coasters distributed their valuable opium cargo to coastal towns and fishing hamlets. From there, it was transported upriver in small brigantines or schooners that were able to safely navigate the coral reefs and river mouths.  Possibly junks were also occasionally used to ship the opium. The junk shown here is possibly a variety of the famous Pechili junks, which were painted in lively colours and sometimes bore grotesque-looking masks painted on their bows.

One exception among the small coasters was the famous frigate “Falcon” (351 tons), which shipped the narcotic to ports that were not signatories to the treaty and belonged to the famous shipping company Jardine, Matheson and, CO.

The third class, the receiving ships, were usually boats with ample space to stow the baskets of the drug and carried arms for self-defence in the event of a surprise attack.

Classes of clippers, which took part in opium trafficking .
The shape and lines of the clippers built in Calcutta were based on two different models. The first type copied the plans of the “Red Rover”, which was an exact replica of American pirate ships and was a round-rigged brigantine built at the Cowes shipyards in 1815.  The second type, closely based on the lines of the “Sylph”, was especially designed for trade by Sir Robert Seppings, a Royal Navy supervisor.

Lastly, there was another type of opium clipper, the schooner Syed Khan, which probably had an influence on the Hooghly shipyards, which according to Lubbock was without a doubt a model of slave ship from Baltimore. Opium clippers were also built in Bombay. Some of them were held in high esteem for their seaworthiness and elegant lines. Some of the sailing ships that were active in the opium trade, which began in 1823 with the round-rigged brigantine “Jamesina” (362 tons), and ended around 1860 with the schooner “Chin Chin”  (263 tons), are reproduced here. In all, they numbered some one hundred vessels. With this we pay tribute to the master Lubeck.

Ricardo Arroyo Ruiz-Zorrilla