The letters of William Jardine and James Matheson, co-founders of the Hong Kong Trading Firm Jardine, Matheson & Co. , shed new light on the important commercial, economic and political developments of the nineteenth century. Local and world politics, debate about freedom, monopoly and free trade, the conduct of the Opium War and the beginnings of British rule in Hong Kong are passionately discussed alongside the immediate business concerns of tea, opium and British exports to China. The letters from the Jardine Matheson Archive, collected here for the first time, portray a fascinating commercial, political and personal drama played out in England, Scotland, India, and China. A substantial introduction provides the historical background of British involvement in Eastern trade from the eighteenth century up to the beginnings of British Rule in Hong Kong.