17. The tea trade remained the backbone of the EIC following the Napoleonic Wars
The tea trade, which the EIC retained a monopoly on for tea grown in India and its other land holdings, remained the focus of the company’s business. Tea was purchased in India from local rajas, who were little more than vassals of the company, and who remained in power thanks to EIC money and troops. The expenses of the system, particularly those borne by the company to maintain its armies, strained its cash reserves to the limit. The opium trade, which shipped opium to China despite the resistance of the Chinese government, was implicitly acknowledged by the British government.
Allowing the EIC to profit from the opium trade freed Parliament from providing too much support to the EIC in the form of reduced taxation, or the support of regular British Army regiments in India. Meanwhile, the EIC continued to manipulate the price and availability of tea in global markets. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the EIC was essentially a commercialized entity of the British government, which controlled over half of the world’s trade, despite the steadily growing resentment of the exploited peoples of India and China.