At the end of a fortnight I decided to return to Capshuymun and Canton. My friend Mr. N---- was agreeable, but the question was, how and when? The 'Rose' had still a considerable quantity of opium to dispose of, and would not probably be ready for a month. In this dilemma two days went by, when the schooner 'Harriet'[44] came in from the northern stations. She was a small fore and aft craft of nominally 100 tons, built at Macao by Hamilton, an American ship carpenter, and was commanded by a friend, Captain Hall, who consented to take us back to Capshuymun. After she had received treasure from the three Namao vessels, her entire freight consisted of $430,000 in value of gold bars and Sycee-silver. We went on board with our traps and servants, and were soon under way. The cabin being, of course, of preposterously small dimensions, and overrun with ants, cockroaches, and centipedes, with which we should have interfered, we made ourselves comfortable on deck--dining, smoking, and joking _al fresco_. We anchored at Kow-Lung just in time to escape an unusually heavy taiphoon. We rode it out there; then sailed to Capshuymun, and from thence direct to Canton by fast boat. The 'Rose' subsequently foundered in a taiphoon,[45] on July 21, 1841, only one of her crew being saved, a Portuguese Sea-cunnie,[46] who was for three days on a plank. He was picked up by my old friend and shipmate, Captain Fraser, in the 'Good Success,' thirty miles from the Grand Ladrone. This tedious review of the opium traffic, as existing during the first fifteen years of my residence at Canton, will give the reader a correct idea of the mode in which it was carried on. The confiscation of 20,052 chests by the Imperial Commissioner Lin, in 1839, checked the local trade for a time, but did not do away with it. Up to this period it had indeed been an easy and agreeable business for the foreign _exile_ who shared in it at Canton. His sales were pleasantness and his remittances were peace. Transactions seemed to partake of the nature of the drug; they imparted a soothing frame of mind with three per cent. commission on sales, one per cent. on returns, and no bad debts! To the agent each chest was worth 20_l._ sterling, one year with another. Consequent upon the seizure of the English-owned opium, the city of Canton, lying at the mercy of Sir Hugh Gough, was ransomed, as has been said, for $6,000,000, and this sum was afterwards appropriated by the British Government to indemnify its owners, who had delivered it up, either directly, or indirectly through their Canton agents, in obedience to the command of Captain Elliot, 'for surrender to the Imperial Commissioner on behalf of Her Majesty's Government.'