If any excuse could be found for the men who made fortunes by smuggling opium into China it would be sought in the beauty and speed of the opium clippers and the courage and seamanship of their captains and crews. They had against them the best of the Chinese. They had also to fight pirates as unprincipled as they were themselves, and hurricanes, the regular incidence of which made it difficult for them to run more than one of their vile cargoes in a year. They found the ships to beat the monsoon, so that regardless of it they could make three annual voyages a year instead of one. ... Mr Lubbock is less concerned with the greed of the owners than with the means they took to satisfy it, the opium clippers and the men who sailed them, and his account of ships and men is such as almost to make one forget the dirty business in which these beautiful vessels and stout fellows were engaged.

[Arthur Ransome in The Manchester Guardian, 9 Jan. 1934; reproduced in Christina Hardyment, Ransome on blue water sailing, p. 68].