The barque Merope was built in Bengal in 1818, and was a trading vessel in the China Seas, heavily involved in the opium trade, in ownership of James Matheson, who settled in Macau and Canton in 1820 and was made Danish Consul at Canton in 1821. This allowed him to fly the Danish flag on his vessels and put him beyond the jurisdiction of the East India Company. Matheson served as agent for merchants in Singapore and India, distributing the EIC's monopoly product, opium, along the Chinese coast. Merope later traded off the Australian coast, and was wrecked off the Fitzroy River in Victoria in 1853. 1 volume, voyages of Merope, APR 1823 Â – JUL 1825, Lama Island, Lintin, Macao, Taiwan (Formosa), Singapore, Malacca, Penang, Calcutta, nautical records and details of trading in opium