There is a book about the opium trade that details how the Beale's were synonymous with the opium trade. This book even goes on to claim that the Beale's planted their seed with intent wherever they traveled. So there were a lot of Beale's involved in the smuggling/trading of opium. Several of thee Beale's were also ship captains.
In the years leading up to his sensational bankruptcy, Thomas Beale of China, was very displeased at how the East India Company was handling that trade. Now all of this brings us back to our Thomas Beale who had only registered himself as being from China, this likely being the same Thomas Beale that the unknown author had alluded to in the pamphlet when he says that he suspected Beale was from some western portion of the state.
If all of this is true, or even remotely accurate, then the Beale family was something of a syndicate with various members being familiar with, and active in, the smuggling trade. This then brings us to the possible additional Laffite and Girard connections through New Orleans.
Girard, as it turns out, had his hooks in just about everyone, including Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, to mention a few. Girard was also heavily involved with the French refugees and affairs in South America, China, Mexico, and the Texas region, all of this involving the various smugglers and their vessels. Somewhere in all of this lies the answer to this mystery.
