in Volages pinnace alongside several other small boats, fired at the nearest ship of the Chinese squadron of war junks. This was the opening shot of the First Opium War. While the Chinese ships were severely outdated, eventually the British began to run out of ammunition and they retreated. Smith's commanding officer, the Chief Superintendent of British Trade Captain Charles Elliot, called off any further attacks. Smith had to be persuaded not to return with Volage to destroy the junks and the battery protecting them. A frigate action was deemed less politically acceptable than a small-scale boat action. Despite the failure of Smith's action, several days later the Chinese opened trade with Hong Kong again, having received considerable damage to their warships in the attack. Relations with the Chinese continued to sour and on 11 September Smith was ordered by Elliot to blockade Canton in order to stop British trade with the Chinese while they refused to accept ships with opium on board. The Chinese then began to offer British merchantmen a bond to sign promising that they were not carrying opium, and on 14 October the first British ship bypassed the blockade to accept this. A fleet of twenty-nine junks was then sent out to the British shipping waiting at Chuenpi to enter Canton. The ships there also included refugees that had escaped Macao after the crackdown on opium sellers. On 2 November Elliot arrived there with Volage and the sloop-of-war HMS Hyacinth to negotiate the matter. This quickly led to an impasse. Volage and Hyacinth subsequently opened fire on the Chinese fleet, beginning the Battle of Chuenpi. The British claimed that this was because the Chinese were threatening the merchant fleet, and allowing them to stay there overnight could allow the ships to be attacked. The Chinese, on the other hand, wrote that the British forced another merchant ship to stop attempting to break the blockade, and fired into the Chinese when they responded to this. Volage and Hyacinth ran along the line of the junks, destroying three of them before a ceasefire was brokered and the Chinese retired. Smith did not agree with Elliot's move to stop the engagement, and was furious. On 30 June 1840 Smith was given command of another frigate, HMS Druid, in which he continued to blockade the Chinese, taking eight merchant ships as prize by 10 July as senior naval officer on