merchants had found that their firepower was an effective deterrent to Chinese pirates and customs officials. Although the naval vessels were not designed to carry cargo, opium was compact. Crews were mixed. One report gives the Jamesina's crew in 1832 as consisting of 10 Europeans, 54 Indian lascars and four Chinese staff. By the 1830s opium was the single most valuable commodity traded in the world. Though the trade was illegal, there was no shortage of suppliers. In 1830, James Matheson chartered the new steam tug Forbes, and bet $1000 that she could reach Lintin from Sandheads in a month. Forbes towed Jamesina, carrying 840 chests of Bengal opium, from Calcutta to Singapore, from where Jamesina and Forbes both proceeded under sail. Forbes could only carry 130 tons of coal; Jamesina carried another 52 tons, in addition to her opium. on 12 April, with only four days of coal left, the two parted. Forbes arrived at Hong Kong two days before Jamesina. Matheson lost his bet, but Jamesina was still the first opium vessel to arrive that season. William Jardine and James Matheson chartered four vessels to sail north to explore the possibility of new markets for opium. , Wallace, master, left Lintin on 20 October 1832 and returned on 29 April 1833. Jamesina, James Innes, master, left Lintin on 8 November and returned in early spring 1833. The next two vessels were John Biggar, William Makay, master, and Colonel Young, John Rees, master. In 1833 Jamesina sold £330,000 worth of opium at Foochow, Amoy, Ningpo and other Chinese ports. This may have occurred during her voyage north. In the mid-1930s Magniac & Co. used Jamesina, in Hong Kong, as a floating warehouse for opium. It is not clear when and what her final disposition was. Notes Citations References Akins, Thomas Beamish (1895) History of Halifax city. (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Booth, Martin (1999) Opium: a history. (New York: St. Martin's Griffin). Gleason, Hall (1929) "Old ships and ship building days of Medford", Medford Historical Register, Vol. 32, No.1, pp. 10–16. Janin, Hunt (1999) The India-China opium trade in the nineteenth century. (Jefferson, NC [u.a.]: McFarland & Co.). Kienast, Evabeth Miller & John Phillip Felt (2009) Lewis Coolidge and the voyage of the Amethyst, 1806-1811. (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press). Murdoch, Beamish (1865–67) A history of Nova-Scotia, or Acadie. (Halifax, N.S.: J. Barnes). Spears, John Randolph (1897) The history