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==Trade==
The country ships often carried goods such as raw cotton from India but their importance to trade peaked around 1800 when the Chinese Government forbade the importation of Opium. At this time the East India Company held the monopoly of the [[opium trade]] in Bengal and supplied large quantities of the drug to [[China]]. Trade with China, which operated via [[Canton]], was important to the East India Company and the threat of losing this was not to be taken lightly. For example, the Chinese supplied the East India Company with [[tea]] – which, it is said, accounted for the majority of its trade as tea drinking had become very fashionable in England. Other important imports from China were silk and porcelain.
The East India Company, therefore, pretended to give up their connections to the opium trade by not carrying the drug on its own ships. In reality, however, deals were done with the owners of Country Ships who continued to smuggle the drug into China on their vessels. As the country ships were under licence to the East India Company this meant the company still had control of the sale of opium. This practice continued until 1833 when the trading monopoly of the East India company was abolished.
