Jardine Panama Papers

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.

Jardine Matheson is one of the oldest names in East Asia, and Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited is the parent company for the Jardine Matheson Group, an international array of diverse companies with operations mainly in Asia, centered around Hong Kong and China. Of British origin, Jardine Matheson played a key, and rather dubious, role in the founding of Hong Kong, where the group was headquartered until 1984, when it relocated to Bermuda in anticipation of the July 1997 transfer of control of Hong Kong to China. Controlled through a complicated set of minority holdings by the Keswick family (descendants of cofounder William Jardine), the group is headed by Jardine Matheson Holdings, owner of an 80 percent stake in the publicly traded, Bermuda-incorporated Jardine Strategic Holdings Limited. The latter, in turn, owns 53 percent of Jardine Matheson Holdings. This cross-shareholding structure was adopted in 1986 to thwart hostile takeovers.

The Jardine Matheson Building is located in the Bund in Shanghai, Communist China. Perhaps the greatest 'hong' of them all, JardineMatheson was founded by two Scottish tea exporters, William Jardine and James Matheson, who shifted their original tea trade to the more profitable trade of opium importation into China from India. Having established a foothold in China at Canton, it became the impetus for the British acquisition of Hong Kong, where British and foreign merchantmen could trade freely unfettered by inconsistent Chinese governance based upon a well-founded suspicion of foreigners. Jardines (known as 'Ewo' in Chinese) grew to become the dominant trading company in Shanghai, Hong Kong and the Treaty Ports; by the Inter-War years, Jardines were involved in shipping, warehousing, engineering, mining, silk,cotton, insurance and perhaps most importantly, the EWO brewery. The Shanghai headquarters were built to reflect its premier position. The top two floors were later added. (Architect: AW Graham-Brown of Stewardson & Spence) Jardine Matheson Building Formerly: Shanghai Foreign Trade Commission, formerly housed the then-powerful Jardine Matheson company.
Architect: Location: No. 27, The Bund, Shanghai, China
Date:Style: Beaux-ArtsConstruction: steel frame, stone cladding Type: Office Building

William Jardine
On 1 July 1832, Jardine, Matheson and Company, a partnership, between William Jardine, James Matheson as senior partners, and Hollingworth Magniac, Alexander Matheson, Jardine's nephew Andrew Johnstone, Matheson's nephew Hugh Matheson, John Abel Smith, and Henry Wright, as the first partners, was formed in China, taking the Chinese name 'Ewo' (怡和) pronounced "Yee-Wo" and meaning 'Happy Harmony'. The name was chosen as it had been use by the former Ewo Hong run by Chinese merchant Howqua, a business with an impeccable reputation.[3] The firms operations included smuggling opium into China from Malwa, India, trading spices and sugar with the Philippines, exporting Chinese tea and silk to England, factoring and insuring cargo, renting out dockyard facilities and warehouse space, trade financing and other numerous lines of business and trade. In 1834, Parliament ended the monopoly of the British East India Company on trade between Britain and China. Jardine, Matheson and Company took this opportunity to fill the vacuum left by the East India Company. With its first voyage carrying tea, the Jardine clipper ship "Sarah" left for England. Jardine Matheson then began its transformation from a major commercial agent of the East India Company into the largest British trading hong (洋行), or firm, in Asia. William Jardine was now being referred to by the other traders as "Tai-pan" (大班), a Chinese colloquial title meaning 'Great Manager'. In a thunderous tribute to Jardine, Matheson wrote, "I am sure none can be more zealous in your service."
The respect shown by other foreign opium traders to Jardine before his departure can be best illustrated in the following passage from a book by William C. Hunter.
“A few days before Mr. Jardine’s departure from Canton, the entire foreign community entertained him at a dinner in the dining room of the East India Company’s Factory. About eighty persons of all nationalities, including India, were present, and they did not separate until several hours after midnight. It was an event frequently referred to afterwards amongst the residents, and to this day there are a few of us who still speak of it.”
The farewell dinner to Jardine was held on January 22, 1839 with several members of the Foreign settlement in Canton mostly traders. Among the guests were the Forbes brothers of the prominent Forbes family and Warren Delano, a senior partner in the trading firm Russel & Co. and maternal grandfather of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The Qing government was pleased to hear of Jardine's departure, then proceeded to stop the opium trade. Lin Zexu, appointed specifically to suppress the drug trade in Guangzhou, stated, "The Iron-headed Old Rat, the sly and cunning ring-leader of the opium smugglers has left for The Land of Mist, of fear from the Middle Kingdom's wrath." He then ordered the surrender of all opium and the destruction of more than 20,000 cases of opium in Guangzhou. He also ordered the arrest of opium trader Lancelot Dent, the head of Dent and Company (a rival company to Jardine Matheson) since the Chinese were more familiar with Jardine as the trading head and were quite unfamiliar with Matheson.

Lin also wrote to Queen Victoria, to submit in obeisance in the presence of the Chinese Emperor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jardine_(1784 - 1843)

First Person Information about the Opium Wars

MIT Visualizing Cultures -- PDF

Register of the Opium Fleet

Harvard in the 17th and 18th Centuries