China Expedition Letters to India 1840-42
Figure 1 shows both sides of a entire letter written in mid-1842 on board the ship ‘Rustomjee Cowasjee’, at anchor off “Rugged Islands” (Chusan, today’s Zhoushan Island) during the first Opium War. Briefly, the East India Company was growing opium in India and dumping it in China. Opium was playing havoc with the Chinese –…