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Certifying a “true copy” of a document originally written in Canton, China, Feb. 14, 1823, from Samuel Russell to Captain Eliphalet Smith, instructing him to pay to the firm of Frost and Jenckes (commission agents) the proceed of his “adventure” shipped on the ship Macedonian to Canton. Frost & Jenckes in turn paid the money to William Wetmore. Russell, a young Connecticut entrepreneur who had first sailed to China five years before, had just founded his own company to import Chinese silk and tea – and, most lucratively, to smuggle Turkish Opium to the Asian mainland; within two decades, Russell’s company would become the largest American trading house in China. Later rivaling Russell was Wetmore, another Connecticut Yankee, then a 23 year-old ex-sailor who had been stranded in Chile, where he also saw profitable opportunities in tea, silk and spices – though he would steadfastly refuse to deal in Opium. An equally colorful figure was Captain Smith, who had once paid $100,000 in bribes and ransom to a Spanish Commodore in Peru who had arrested his crew and seized the Macedonian and its cargo of Chinese Cocoa.