British merchants

The description is familiar, but we are not writing of America in 1978, but China in 1838, on the eve of the first Opium War, when Great Britain landed troops to compel China to ingest the poison distributed by British merchants. 

All the leading British merchant banks, directly or indirectly ... 

Phillips, Archibald, Suggestion for the Camouflage or Dazzle of British Merchant Ships in the Great War (published privately)... 

In the case of Admiral Donitz, the International Military Tribunal held that British merchant vessels that had been armed or integrated into the war effort had lost their protection. See also San Remo Manual 1995, para 60. 

Tobacco achieved great importance for the British Merchant Navy as a material for barter with the American colonies. At the time of the American Declaration of Independence, in 1776, tobacco cultivation had been extended to North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Missouri. 

The Plimsoll mark is named after the British merchant Samuel Plimsoll, at whose instigation Parliament passed an act in 1875 requiring the symbol to be placed on the hulls of cargo ships to indicate the maximum depth for safe loading. 

Ferdinand was willing to offend the greatest sea power that the world had ever seen over sulfur. With this decree, the government had frozen out the British merchants in Sicily and placed sulfur imder allocation and price-controls. Since the great production ofsulfur is the cause of every calamity in Sicily was it not the duty of government to protect its people The official explanation for the agreement was to prevent depletion of the sulfur reserves and to provide reasonable return to the poor Sicilians. In a further weak attempt to dampen the impact of the document, the term monopoly was deliberately avoided. Not everyone had to sell through TAC, but, if they did not, they had to pay TAC 2 ducats per cantar ( 18 per tonne). Such penalties prevented any real competition to TAC. Thus TAC was a monopoly in all aspects but name only. 

The new deal was implemented with amazing speed. The British merchants were caught off guard, as the new sulfur deal took effect in only a few weeks, on August 1, 1838. The decision came so quickly that twenty-four British merchantmen that had been chartered to pick up sulfur had to be turned away at the port, because they arrived after the August deadline. 

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