Citation
Opium question

Material Information

Title:
Opium question
Added title page title:
China pamphlets
Creator:
Warren, Samuel, 1807-1877 ( Author, Primary )
Place of Publication:
London
Publisher:
James Ridgeway
Publication Date:
Language:
English
Physical Description:
[iv], 130 p. ; 22 cm.

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Opium trade -- China -- History -- 19th century ( LCSH )
China -- History -- Opium War, 1840-1842 ( LCSH )
中国鸦片史
中國鴉片史
鴉片貿易
鸦片贸易
次鸦片战争, 1840-1842
次鴉片戰爭, 1840-1842
Opium War (China : 1840-1842) ( FAST )
Spatial Coverage:
Asia -- China
亞洲 -- 中國
亚洲 -- 中国
Coordinates:
35 x 103

Notes

Summary:
Argues in favour of businessmen and Indian opium industry, against the Chinese government ( English )
General Note:
Spine title of the CWM Library copy: China pamphlets
General Note:
Includes bibliographic references
General Note:
VIAF (name authority) : Warren, Samuel, 1807-1877 : URI http://viaf.org/viaf/37685785
Citation/Reference:
Western books on China, number 817

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SOAS University of London
Holding Location:
SOAS, University of London
Rights Management:
This item is licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative License. This license allows others to download this work and share them with others as long as they mention the author and link back to the author, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
Resource Identifier:
248636 ( ALEPH )
CWML N287 ( SOAS classmark )
EB84.681 /12069 ( SOAS classmark )

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Full Text
THE

OPIUM QUESTION.

BY

SAMUEL WARREN, Esq. F.R S.

OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY.

MDCCCXL.




NOTICE TO THE READER.

The writer of this Pamphlet having had occasion
to consider the facts giving rise to the important and
embarrassing ‘ Opium Question,’ has occupied the
leisure afforded him by the Christmas recess, in pre-
paring the ensuing pages for the public.

He feels the greatest diffidence in committing
them to the press; and is certain that it will have
been entirely his fault, if the reader do not find the
subject to be one possessed of remarkable interest in
all its details.

Inner Temple, London,

14/7i January, 1840.




THE OPIUM QUESTION.

The main question intended to be discussed in the
ensuing pages, and which is independent of all party
considerations, is this :—

Ought the British Government to adopt the terms
of a contract assumed to have been entered into on
their behalf by Captain Elliot, the Chief Superinten-
dent of the trade of British Subjects in China, in his
Public Notice issued from Canton upon the 27th of
March, 1839, with the British owners of 20,283 chests
of Opium, which, solely under and in pursuance of such
Public Notice, were surrendered up to him for the al-
leged service of her Majesty’s Government ? In other
words, who ought to bear the loss of this opium,
amounting to the sum of about two millions four
hundred thousand pounds sterling—Her Majesty’s
Government, or the late owners of that opium?

• I

This question, though involving private interests to
an unprecedented extent, and also, incidentally, very
serious and extensive considerations affecting the
honour and dignity of this country, and the permanent
interests, if not, indeed, the very existence, of its
Eastern commerce, depends, it is believed, upon plain
principles; and it is the object of the writer of this

B


2

pamphlet to state and discuss that question candidly
and temperately; to place admitted facts in their pro-
per light before the public, and point out certain
sources of misapprehension or prejudice, which may
have prevented their due appreciation.

Before proceeding to detail the immediate occur-
rences out of which the present question has arisen,
it may be as well to intimate generally that the British
Opium Trade between India and China, which had
been carried on, for upwards of forty years, under
a nominal, if not an actual, prohibition,—became,
within the last three years, the object of very strenuous
opposition on the part of the Chinese, on grounds
which will be clearly explained hereafter. The pro-
posal to legalize the trade, was, in the latter end of
the year 1836, seriously entertained, but at length
abandoned, by the Emperor; the former circumstance
giving a great impetus to it,—encouraged, too, as it
was, by the highest provincial authorities in China,
to whom it yielded a large revenue. In the years
1837 and 1838, measures of rapidly-increasing strin-
gency and vigour were pointed by the Chinese at the
traffic, the aspect of affairs becoming every day more
threatening. No steps, however, appear to have been
taken towards foreigners, till the 12th of December,
1838; on which day preparations were made by the
Chinese authorities for strangling a Native Opium
dealer in front of the Factory—an act to the foreigners
most offensive and unprecedented, and which led to a
brief stoppage of the trade.

At length, upon the 10th of March, 1839, there
appeared at Canton a high Chinese functionary, Lin,


3

announcing himself by proclamation, (dated the 18th
March) ‘ specially appointed an imperial commissioner’
by the Emperor at Pekin, 4 with great irresponsible
authority,’ and 4 sworn to stand or fall by the opium
question.’ He had the day before issued an Edict, (dated
the 17th March) to the Hong merchants, commanding
them immediately to inquire into the state of the
opium trade, 4 declaring the utter annihilation of it to
4 be his first object.’ That, therefore, 4 he had given
4 commands to the foreigners to deliver up to Govern-
4 ment all the myriads of chests of opium which they
4 had on board their vessels ; and called upon them to
4 subscribe a bond, in the Chinese and foreign lan-
4 guage jointly, declaring that thenceforth they would
4 never venture to bring opium ; and that if any
4 should again be brought, on discovery thereof, the
4 parties concerned should immediately suffer execu-
4 tion of the laws, and the property be confiscated to
4 Government.’ These bonds were to be obtained by
the Hong Merchants, and the same reported to the
High Commissioner, within three days, on penalty of
death. On the 19th of March an edict was issued by
the Hoppo to the Hong Merchants, ordering them to
communicate to the foreigners that 4 pending the stay
4 of the High Commissioner in Canton, and while the
4 consequences of his investigations, both to foreigners
4 and natives, were yet uncertain, all foreign mer-
i chants were forbidden to go down to Macao’ i.e. they
were to be detained prisoners at Canton. This was
carried into effect by the presence of a strong land
and water guard, keeping all the Europeans close
prisoners in their Factory. On the 22d of March,
B 2


4

Captain Elliot, tlie Chief Superintendent of the
British Trade in China, (who for some time pre-
viously had anxiously endeavoured to ingratiate him-
self with the Chinese, by peremptorily forbidding,
in accordance with their wishes, the smuggling of
opium in British small craft, within the port of
Canton, and confining the opium trade to the great
receiving ships stationed at Lintin, an anchorage in
the Chinese waters, beyond the limits of the port of
Canton, and one hundred miles distance from it,)
issued the following circular notice, dated Macao,
22d March :—

‘ The Chief Superintendent of the Trade of British
‘ subjects in Canton, having received information that
‘ her Majesty’s subjects are detained against their will
‘ in Canton, and having other urgent reasons for the
‘ withdrawal of all confidence in the just and moderate
‘ pretensions of the Provincial Government, has now
‘ to require that all the ships of her Majesty’s subjects
‘ at the outer anchorages should proceed forthwith to
‘ Hong Kong,* and hoisting their national colours, be
‘ prepared to resist any act of aggression on the part
‘ of the Chinese Government.’ After stating certain
arrangements for ‘ putting the ships in a posture of
‘ defence,’ he added, ‘ And the Chief Superintendent,
‘ in her Majesty’s name, requires all British subjects
‘ to whom these presents may come, to respect the
‘ authority of the persons herein charged with the
‘ duty of providing for the protection of British life

* An island lying a little to the north of the approaches to the
Canton River, at about a hundred miles distance from Canton.


‘ and property.—Given under my hand and seal of
‘ office.’ On the ensuing day (‘23d March) he issued
another ‘ Public Notice,’ of a still more alarming cha-
racter, thus specifying the principal grounds of his
apprehensions.

‘ The dangerous, unprecedented, and unexplained
‘ circumstance of a public execution before the Factories
‘ at Canton, to the immense hazard of life and pro-
‘ perty, and total disregard of the honour and dignity

* of his own and the other western governments, whose
‘ flags were recently flying in that square, the unusual
‘ assemblage of troops, vessels of war, fire-ships, and
‘ other menacing preparations; the communication,
‘ by the command of the Provincial Government, that
‘ in the present posture of affairs the foreigners were
‘ no longer to seek for passports to leave Canton (ac-
‘ cording to the genius of our own countries, and the
‘ principle of reason, if not an act of declared war,
‘ at least its immediate and inevitable preliminary,)
‘ and lastly, the threatening language of the High Com-
‘ missioner and provincial authorities, of the most
‘ general application, and dark and violent character.

‘ Holding it, therefore, impossible to maintain con-

* tinued peaceful intercourse with safety, honour, or
‘ advantage, till definite and satisfactory explanations
‘ have passed in all these particulars, both as respects
‘ the past and the future, the undersigned has now to
‘ give further notice, that he shall forthwith demand
‘ passports for all such of her Majesty’s subjects as
‘ may think fit to proceed outside within the space of
‘ ten days from the date that his application reaches the
‘ government, such date hereafter to be made known.


6

‘ And he has to counsel and enjoin all her Majesty’s
‘ subjects in urgent terms to make immediate prepara-
‘ tions for moving their property on board the ships,
‘ ‘Reliance,’ ‘Orwell,’ and ‘ George the Fourth,’ or
‘ other British vessels at Whampoa, to be conveyed to
' Macao; forwarding him, without delay, a sealed de-
‘ duration and list of all actual claims against Chinese
‘ subjects, together with an estimate of all loss or
‘ damage to be suffered by reason of these proceedings
‘ of the Chinese Government.

‘ And he has most especially to warn her Majesty’s
‘ subjects that such strong measures as it may be ne-
‘ cessary to adopt on the part of her Majesty’s Go-
‘ vernment, without further notice than the present,
‘ cannot be prejudiced by their continued residence in
‘ Canton (beyond the period now fixed) upon their
‘ own responsibility, or without further guarantees
‘ from the undersigned.

‘ And he has further to give notice, that if the
‘ passports shall be refused for more than three days
‘ from the date that this application shall reach the
‘ Provincial Government, he will be driven to the
‘ conclusion that it is their purpose to detain all her
‘ Majesty’s subjects as hostages, and to endeavour to
‘ intimidate them into unsuitable concessions and
‘ terms, by the restraint of their persons, or by violence
‘ upon their lives or property, or by the death of
‘ native merchants in immediate connexion with them,
‘ both by ties of friendship and of interest; or by the
‘ like treatment of their native servants.

‘ Charles Elliot,
Chief Superintendent, &e.’


7

On the ensuing day, (24thMarch,) Captain Elliot, to
adopt his own official statement, addressed to the Chinese
authorities ‘ repaired to Canton, and immediately pro-
‘ posed to put an end to the state of difficulty and anxiety
‘ then existent, by the faithful fulfilment of the Emperor’s
‘ will, and he respectfully asked that he and the rest of
‘ the foreign community might be set at liberty, in order
‘ that he might calmly consider and suggest adequate
‘ remedies for the great evils so justly denounced by bis
‘ Imperial Majesty. He was answered by a close ini-
‘ prisonment of more than seven weeks, with armed
‘ men by day and night before his gates, under
‘ threats of privation of food, water, and life. ‘Was
‘ this,’ he adds, ‘becoming treatment to the officer of a
‘ friendly nation, recognised by the Emperor, and
‘ who had always performed his duty peaceably, and
‘ irreproachably, striving in all things to afford satis-
‘ faction to the Provincial Government ? When it
‘ thus became plain that the High Commissioner
‘ was resolved to cast away all moderation, the Chief
‘ Superintendent, Elliot, knew that it was incumbent
‘ upon him, to save the Imperial dignity, and prevent
‘ some shocking catastrophe on the person of an im-
‘ prisoned foreign officer, and two hundred defenceless
‘ merchants. For these reasons of prevailing force,
‘ he demanded from the people of his nation all the
‘ English opium in their hands, in the name of his
‘ Sovereign, and delivered it over to the High Com-
‘ missioner (Lin), amounting to 20,283 chests. That
‘ matter remains to be settled between the two Courts.’

While thus imprisoned at Canton, Captain Elliot
issued the following Public Notice, which is the me-


8

movable document giving rise to the present ques-
tion.

“ I, Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent of the
“ Trade of British Subjects in China, presently forci-
“ bly detained by the Provincial Government, together
“ with all the merchants of my own and the other
“ nations settled here, without supplies of food, de-
“ prived of our servants, and cut off from all inter-
“ course with our respective countries, (notwithstand-
“ ing my own official demand to be set at liberty, so that
“ I might act without restraint) have now received the
“ commands of the High Commissioner, issued directly
“ to me, under the seals of the honourable officers,
“ to deliver into his hands, all the opium held by the
“ people of my country.

“Now 1, the said Chief Superintendent, thus con-
“ strained by paramount motives, affecting the safety of
“ the lives and liberties of all the foreigners here pre-
“ sent in Canton, and by other very weighty causes, Do
“ hereby, in the name, and on the behalf of Her
“ Britannic Majesty’s Government, enjoin, and require
“ all her Majesty’s subjects now present in Canton,
“ forthwith to make a surrender to me, for the ser-
v vice of her said Majesty’s Government, to be deli-
“ vered over to the Government of China, of all the
“ opium under their respective controul, and to hold
“ the British ships, and vessels engaged in the trade
“ of opium, subject to my immediate direction ; and to
“ forward to me, without delay, a sealed list of all the
“ British-owned opium in their respective possession.
“ Andi, the Chief Superintendent, do now, in the most
“ full and unreserved manner, hold myself responsible


9

“ for and on the behalf of her Britannic Majesty’s Go-
vernment, to all and each of her Majesty’s subjects
“ surrendering the said British-owned opium into my
“ hands, to be delivered over to the Chinese Govern-
“ ment. And I, the said Chief Superintendent, do
“ further specially caution all her Majesty’s subjects
“ here present in Canton, owners of, or charged with
“ the management of opium, the property of British
“ subjects, that, failing the surrender of the said
“ opium into my hands, at or before six o’clock this
“ day; I, the said Chief Superintendent, hereby de-
“ cl are her Majesty’s Government wholly free of all
“ manner of responsibility, or liability in respect of
“ British-owned opium.

“ And it is specially to be understood, that proof of
“ British property, and value of all British opium,
“ surrendered to me agreeably to this notice, shall be
“ determined upon principles, and in a manner here-
“ after to be defined by her Majesty’s Government.

“ Given under my hand and seal of office at Can-
“ ton, in China, this 27th day of March 1839, at six
“ of the clock in the morning.

“ (Signed) Charles Elliot, Chief Superin-
“ tendentof the Trade of British Subjects
“ in China.” (L. S.)

The merchants to whom this official notice was
addressed, and who either were, or represented, the
owners of the opium in question, were, as stated in
the notice, at that time detained prisoners at Canton.
Twenty thousand, two hundred and eighty-three chests
of opium, amounting to the sum of about two millions


10

four hundred thousand pounds sterling, were then on
board the Receiving Ships, and other vessels, moored
at the several outer anchorages of Hong Kong, Lin-
tin, &c. or which had proceeded to more distant
stations up the coast. This opium was, in fact, one
hundred miles distant from the port of Canton ; and
though within the Chinese waters, yet' as utterly be-
yond the reach of Chinese power, as if it had lain on
ship-board at Spithead. It might, indeed,—although
not protected by the presence, as the American vessels
were, of one single ship of war, —have, nevertheless,
hade defiance to the whole naval force of the empire.
It may here be observed, that the Chinese themselves
regard the fort of the Bocca Tigris, as the limit of the
port of Canton—a boundary adopted in Lord Napier’s
Instructions, as the extent of his jurisdiction. Wham-
poa (the station for large vessels) is within the limits
thus defined; but Macao and Lintin^ as stated in a
former page, are beyond such limits:—by Instruc-
tions, however, from the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, dated London, 28th May, 1836, and published
by Captain Elliot, at Macao, on the 31st, December,
1836, his powers over British subjects and ships
were extended so as to include Macao and Lintin.

It is most important to be borne in mind, that the
opium in question consisted almost exclusively of
Bengal opium (grown by the Government of India,
as will be hereafter explained, expressly for the pur-
pose of exportation to China, with the sanction of
Parliament), and of Malwa opium, transported direct
to Bombay, and paying (also with the sanction of
Parliament), a transit duty to the Indian Government,


11

in respect of its passing over the territories of the
East India Company to Bombay. The records of the
Custom-House at Calcutta show that the vessels laden
with this article were cleared expressly for China.

In obedience to the above injunction and requisi-
tion of the Chief Superintendent, 20,000 chests were
at once freely and entirely surrendered to him. Upon
what calculation the quantity of 20,283 chests was
fixed upon, does not appear; but eventually Captain
Elliot found that, after giving up to the Chinese all that
was under his controul, he was still deficient a certain
quantity of what was demanded, and which he was
obliged to purchase. He did so—paying for it by bills
drawn on the British Government—which have not
been honoured by the Lords of the Treasury.

After having thus received the 20,283 chests of
opium, the Chief Superintendent soon afterwards
issued the following statement of the Terms and Con-
ditions of the Surrender of the Opium to the Chinese
Government. The document bears no date.

‘ The undersigned has now to announce, that
‘ arrangements have been made for the delivery of
‘ the opium lately surrendered to him for her Ma-
‘ jesty’s service,* by which his Excellency the High

" An eye-witness gives the following account of the manner in which
the Chinese destroyed the Opium thus surrendered—at the rate of 300
chests a-day :—“ We reached at II, the spot where the drug is being
destroyed, and where the Commissioner has his temporary residence.
We found the spot to be an enclosure of some 400 feet square, well
palisaded, the side opposite (away from) the river, being occupied by
neat buildings, for storing the Opium, &c. The larger part of the
foreground, was covered by three vats of perhaps 75 feet by 150 each,
opening by sluices into the river. The chests of Opium, after being


12

‘ Commissioner, has stipulated that the servants shall
‘ be restored, after one-fourth of the whole shall have
‘ been delivered; the passage-boats be permitted to
‘ run, after one-half shall have been delivered; the
‘ trade opened, after three fourths shall have been
‘ delivered ; and every thing to proceed as usual, after
‘ the whole shall have been delivered (the signification
‘ of which last expression, the undersigned does not
‘ understand).

‘ Breach of faith is to be visited, after three days’
4 loose performance of engagements, with the cutting
4 off of supplies of fresh water; after three days more,
4 with the stoppage of food ; and after three days
4 more, with the last degree of severity’ [i. e. Death]
4 on the undersigned himself.

4 He passes by these grave forms of speech without
* comment. But with the papers actually before him,
4 and all the circumstances in hand, he is satisfied
4 that the effectual liberation of the Queen’s subjects
4 and all the other foreigners in Canton, depends upon
4 the promptitude with which this arrangement is
4 completed.

4 The maintenance of the national character, and

re-weighed, and broken up in the presence of high officers, were brought
down to the vats ; the contents, ball after ball, broken down and crushed
upon platforms, raised on high benches above the water, and then
pushed by the feet of the coolies into the receptacles beneath. A large
number of men were employed in thus macerating the balls for some
days with long rakes, until the whole became a fetid mud, when the
sluices were raised, and the vats emptied into the river. Every precau-
tion seemed to be used by the officers to ensure the complete destruction
of the drug, the spot being well guarded, the workmen ticketed,” &c.


13

4 the validity of the claim for indemnity, depend upon
4 that scrupulousness of fidelity, with which he is well
4 assured his countrymen will enable him to fulfil all
4 public obligations to this Government.

4 As soon as the whole opium surrendered shall
4 have been delivered over to the Chinese officers,
4 it will be the duty of the undersigned to communi-
1 cate with his countrymen again.

4 The ultimate satisfactory solution of the recent
4 difficulties need give no man an anxious thought.

4 The permanent stability of the British trade with
4 this empire, with honour and advantage to all par-
4 ties, rests upon a firm foundation—upon the wisdom,
4 justice, and power of her Majesty’s Government.

4 Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent, &c.’

Notwithstanding, however, this prompt and pro-
digious sacrifice on the part of the owners of the
opium, the above 4 terms and conditions’ were
utterly and deliberately disregarded and broken by
the Chinese.

4 The servants,’ says Captain Elliot, in his in-
dignant remonstrance, dated the 21st of June, 1839,
addressed to the Chinese authorities, 4 were not
‘ faithfully restored when one-fourth of the opium
4 had been delivered up ; the boats were not per-
4 mitted to run when one-half had been delivered up ;
4 the trade was not really opened when three-fourths
‘ had been delivered ; and the last pledge, that things
4 should go on as usual, when the whole should
4 have been delivered, has been falsified by the re-
4 duction of the Factories to a prison, with one outlet;


14

1 the expulsion of sixteen persons; some of them who
‘ never dealt in opium at * all; some clerks, one a
‘ lad; and the proposing of novel and intolerable
‘ regulations.’ And in consequence of this faithless-
ness, and want of security for life, liberty, and pro-
perty, he added—

‘ The merchants and ships of the English nation do
‘ not proceed to Canton and Whampoa, because the

* gracious commands of the Emperor for their protec-
‘ tion are set at nought; because the truth is concealed
‘ from his Imperial Majesty’s knowledge ; because
‘ there is no safety for a handful of defenceless men in
‘ the grasp of the government of Canton ; because it
‘ would be derogatory from the dignity of their So-
‘ vereign and nation to forget all the insults and wrongs
‘ which have been perpetrated till full justice shall
‘ have been done, and till the whole trade intercourse
‘ shall have been placed upon a footing honourable
‘ and secure to the empire and to England. That time

* is at hand. The gracious Sovereign of the English
‘ nation will cause the truth to be made known to the
‘ wise and august prince on the throne of this empire,
‘ and all things will be adjusted agreeably to the prin-
‘ ciples of purest reason.’

The trade was accordingly stopped.

On surrendering up this opium to the Chief Su-
perintendent, its owners were severally required to
make the following affidavit :—

“ I, A. B., a member of the British firm of-----, of

“ Canton, do hereby make oath that the opium spe-
“ cified in the certificate hereto annexed, viz. :—


15

----Chests of Patna,

----Chests of Benares,
----Chests of Malwa,

Total. .-----Chests,

“ was at and before the issue of the public notice to
“ British subjects, signed by Captain Charles Elliot,
“ H. M. Chief Superintendent, under date Canton,
“ 27th March, 1839? either bona fide the property of
“ my said firm of-----, or consigned to the said firm

“ with full controul over it; and I do further solemnly
“ declare that no collusive transfer of any part whatever
“ of the said opium was made to me or my said firm by
“ the subject of any foreign nation, but that the whole
“ of the said opium was surrendered by my said firm in
“ the character of British subjects, to the Chief Super-
“ intenclent, for the service of her Majesty’s govern-
“ ment, being in all respects, to the best of my know-
“ ledge and belief, opium falling within the letter and spi-
“ rit of the before-mentioned notice to British subjects.

“ A. B.”

Whereupon were delivered to them the following-
documents.

(First.)

“ I, Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent of the
“ Trade of British subjects in China, Do hereby certify
“ that------------, the person making the within

“ affidavit, is well known to me as a British subject
“ established at Canton. Given under my hand and
“ seal of office, at Macao, in China, this 15th day of
“ June, 1839.

“ (Signed) “ Charles Elliot,”


16

[To this is appended a copy of the foregoing Procla-
mation of the 27th March, 1839.]

(Second.) The following “ Certificate” :—

“ I, Charles Elliot, H. M. Chief Superintendent
“ of the Trade of British subjects in China, hereby ac-
“ knowledge to have received from--------, being Bri-

“ tish subjects, trading in Canton,--chests of------

“ opium for her Majesty’s government in terms of my
“ public notice to British subjects, dated 27th March,
“ 1839, hereunto annexed.

“ The amount of indemnity for the said opium to
“ be held to the order of the said-------.

No. of Chests. Kind of Opium. I Ship’s Name.

“ In witness whereof I have affirmed to four docu-
“ ments, all of this time and date, one of which being
“ made good the others to stand void.

“ (Signed) “ Charles Elliot.”

The holders of these Certificates (which were
indorsed by--------“ to the order of his correspond-

ent in London,”) in due time presented them at the
Treasury for payment; and the reader may imagine
the dismay with which, after some considerable in-
terval, the following answer was received :—

“Treasury Chambers, 11th Nov. 1839-

“ Gentlemen,

“ Having laid before the Lords Commissioners of
“ her Majesty’s Treasury your letter, in which you
“ apply for a settlement of certain claims for opium de-


17

“ livered to the Chinese government, and transmit
“ certificates signed by Captain C. Elliot, I have re-
“ ceived their Lordships’ commands to acquaint you
“ that Parliament has placed at the disposal of this
“ Board no funds out of which any compensation could
“ be made, and that the sanction of Parliament would
“ be required before any such claim could be recog-
“ nised and paid.

“ To prevent any misconstruction of the intentions
“ of this Board, my Lords have felt it necessary to
“ direct me further to state that the subject has been
“ under the attentive consideration of her Majesty’s
“ government, and to add, that her Majesty’s govern-
“ ment do not propose to submit to Parliament a vote
“ for the payment of such claims.

“ (Signed) “ R. Gordon.'5

And thus the case stands. Beyond this brief and
ominous intimation, Government has neither said nor
done any thing in the matter; leaving the holders of
these ‘ certificates’ under the impression that they are
only so much waste paper. Having implicitly confided
in the honour and liberality of the British Government,
many, if not all of them—including several leading
Native Merchants in India, with their extensive com-
mercial connexions both here and there—are at this mo-
ment placed in a state of the most fearful anxiety, embar-
rassment, and responsibility. They ask, with mingled
alarm and astonishment,—is there to be exhibited to
the world, on the part of the British Government, the
dishonourable spectacle of a Principal seeking to
escape from liability for the acts of an Agent, whom
c


18

he has formally appointed, and held out to third par-
ties as clothed with ample authority to act on his
behalf,—only when an act of such agent, done within
the scope of his authority, has entailed on his prin-
cipal an unexpected extent of liability ? An attempt
to escape at all events from the obligations of the
clearest moral responsibility, by resorting to refined
special pleading,—to subtle legal distinctions on which
even the most skilful lawyers would disagree,—and
which it is impossible that the most clear-headed and
experienced Merchant could have thought of, or
decided upon? It is incredible. They are willing
to believe that Government, recognizing at all events
the moral strength of the claims of these parties, but
hesitating to act upon their own responsibility, on an
occasion of such moment, choose to wait the will
which may be expressed by Parliament in the im-
pending session.

When Parliament shall have assembled, and the
Government been called upon to state whether they
intend to satisfy their claims,—to ratify or repudiate
the act of Captain Elliot; should they declare their
intention to take the latter course, it is apprehended
that the only probable ground for doing so, will be an
assertion that Captain Elliot had no authority to pledge
the British Government to reimburse the holders of
this opium, as the condition of their surrendering it
up to him to be delivered to the Chinese. It thus
will become requisite to ascertain the exact position
in which he stood with reference to the British
Government, and the British merchants in China; a
position which will be found to have been anomalous


19

in the extreme, and, as it was calculated for the
securing of most important objects^ full of difficult
responsibility ; one which the Government would,
of course, have selected none to occupy, in whose
experience and ability they could not repose entire
confidence. They selected a Peer of the realm (Lord
Napier) as the first predecessor of the present Chief
Superintendent, Captain Elliot.

The office held by Captain Elliot was created by vir-
tue of an Act of Parliament (stat. 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 93)
rendered necessary in consequence of the abolition, in
the year 1834, by statute 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 85, of
the East India Company’s monopoly of the trade with
China. Previous to that year, the direct trade between
the United Kingdom and China was carried on ex-
clusively by the East India Company; and British
subjects were prohibited from visiting or residing in
the territory of China without licence of the East
India Company. There was, however, a trade carried
on between India and China by British merchants ;
of whom there were several established for that pur-
pose at Canton, to which port the Chinese Govern-
ment, as is well known, limit the trade with foreign-
ers. There were only a very few of the Chinese with
whom foreigners were allowed to have commercial
dealings, namely, the Hong Merchants, who were
also the sole medium through which the will of the
Emperor (the only known law, as promulgated by the
Viceroy of Canton, and other provincial authorities,)
was communicated to such foreigners. During the
reign—for such it may be called—of the East India
Company, their representatives in China—recognised

c 2


20

as such by Act of Parliament, 53 Geo. III. c. 155—•
were three superior officers, resident at Canton; on
whom devolved the entire management of the Com-
pany’s affairs in China. They were called Super-
cargoes; in whom were vested very great powers and
authorities. The Act last cited empowered them, for
instance, to remove intruders from Canton, and send
them home. Independently of the absolute authority
derived from the East India’s Company’s charter, the
position of these Supercargoes necessarily gave them
a weight and influence over the few resident British
merchants established in China, who looked to the
East India Company for protection from a violent,
capricious, and barbarous Government. No vessels
were allowed to sail direct from the United Kingdom
to China, except those chartered by the Company ;
and the captains of all vessels proceeding from India to
China were, by the terms of the licence granted to them,
obliged to submit themselves to the orders and regu-
lations of the above mentioned Supercargoes ; who
thus acquired the direct controul over all the British
and country shipping there, and also exercised a
great and direct authority over the resident mer-
chants. The ‘ Licences,’ granted by the Governor-
General, as above mentioned, contained a proviso,
rendering the license void, if, (amongst other things)
“ the Master or Commander of the said ship, for the
“ time being, or other persons acting as Supercargoes
“ thereof, should be guilty of any breach of any of the
“ regulations established by or on the part of the
“ said United East India Company, in China;—or
“ should make any opposition to or act in disobedience to


21

“ any particular orders or instructions which should or
“ might from time to time be given in China by any of
“ the Supercargoes of the said United Company there,
“ although such order or orders should amount to re-
“ quisition for the said Master, or Commander, or
“ Supercargo, or either of them, to quit China with
“ the said vessel and goods.” While such were the
high and extensive powers and authorities of the
Supercargoes of the East India Company, over all
British subjects in China,—it may be as well to men-
tion, that the only power or influence which they had
over the Chinese, was of an indirect, but at the same
time a pretty effectual description—namely, stopping
the trade—which, operating immediately upon the
interests of the Hong merchants, soon led to an ad-
justment of any existing differences ; and this power
was frequently exercised.

Thus stood matters previous to, and at the period
of, the abolition of the East India Company’s mono-
poly—and when the flood-gates of independent and
unrestricted British enterprise were opened upon
China. In anticipation of that period, namely, in the
year 1831, the then Viceroy of Canton issued an
edict, containing the following expression of the wishes
of the Chinese Government, on the occasion of the
very great change in the mode of British commercial
intercourse which was anticipated.

“ I hereby issue an order to the Hong merchants
“ that they forthwith enjoin my command on the chief
“ of the said nation (Great Britain^, early to send a
“ letter home, that if, indeed, after the 13th year of
“ Taou Kwang, the Company be dissolved, it will, as


22

“ heretofore, be incumbent to deliberate, and appoint
“ a chief, who understands the business, to come to
“ Canton, for the general management of the connner-
“ cial dealings; by which means affairs may be pre-
“ vented from going to confusion, and benefits remain
“ to commerce.”*

The British Government acknowledged the expedi-
ency and necessity of some such arrangement, and
accordingly, by an Act of Parliament (Stat. 3 and 4
Will. IV. c. 93), passed on the 28th August, 1833,
entitled “ An Act to regulate the trade to
China, and India,” after reciting that the East
India Company’s Monopoly would cease on the 22d
April, 1834, “ and that it was expedient that the
Trade with China, and the Trade in Tea, should be
open to all his Majesty’s subjects,” by §§ 5 and 6, it
was enacted as follows ; (and it is on the effect of
these most important clauses that much of the present
case depends.)

“ § V. And whereas it is expedient for the objects of
“ trade, and amicable intercourse with the dominions of
“ the Emperor of China, that provision be made for the
“ establishment of a British authority in the
“ said dominions, Be it therefore enacted, that it shall
“ and may be lawful for his Majesty, by any commission
“or commissions, or warrant or warrants, under his
“royal sign manual, to appoint not exceeding three of
“ his Majesty’s subjects to be superintendents of the
“ trade of his Majesty’s subjects to and from the said
“ dominions, for the purpose of protecting and promot-

* Auber on British and foreign intercourse with China, p. 335.


23

“ ing such trade; and, by any such commission or
“ warrant as aforesaid, to settle such gradation and
“ subordination among the said superintendents (one
“ of whom shall be styled the Chief Superinten-
“ dent), and to appoint such officers to assist them in
“ the execution of their duties, and to grant such
“ salaries to such superintendents and officers as,”
&c. &c.

“ § VI. And be it enacted, that it shall and may be
“ lawful for his Majesty, by any such order or orders,
“commission or commissions, as to his Majesty in
“ council shall appear expedient and salutary, to give
“ to the said superintendents, or any of them, powers
“ and authorities over and in respect of the trade and
“ commerce of his Majesty’s subjects within any part of
“ the said dominions ; and to make and issue direc-
“ tions and regulations touching the said trade and
“ commerce, and for the government of his Majesty’s
“ subjects within the said dominions; and to impose
“ penalties, forfeitures, or imprisonments, for the breach
“ of any such directions or regulations, to be enforced
“ in such manner as in the said order or orders shall
“be specified ; and to create a court of justice, with
“ criminal and admiralty jurisdiction, for the trial of
“ offences committed by his Majesty’s subjects within
“ the said dominions, and the ports and havens thereof,
“ and on the high seas within one hundred miles of
“ the coast of China; and to appoint one of the super-
“ intendents hereinbefore mentioned to be the officer
“ to hold such court, and other officers for executing
“ the process thereof, and to grant such salaries,”
&c. &c. &c.


24

§ VIII. requires every Order in Council issued by
authority of that Act, to be published in the London
Gazette, and annually laid before both Houses of Par-
liament.

In pursuance of this Act, an Order in Council
was made on the 9th December, 1833, by which, after
reciting the provisions of the statute above set forth,
and also the request of the Chinese Government,
above mentioned, and that ‘ it was expedient that effect
should be given to such reasonable demand of the
Chinese Government,’ it was, by his Majesty, by and
with the advice of his Privy Council, ordered—

“ That all the powers and authorities which, on the
“ 21st April, 1834, should by law be vested in the
“ Supercargoes of the United Company of Merchants
“ trading to the East Indies, over and in respect of
“ the trade and commerce of His Majesty’s subjects at
“ the Port of Canton, should be, and the same were
“ thereby vested in the Superintendents for the time
“ being, appointed under and by virtue of the said
“ Act of Parliament; and that all regulations, which,
“ on the said 21st day of April, 1834, should be in
“ force touching the said trade and commerce, (save
“ so far as the same were repealed or abrogated by the
“ said Act of Parliament, or by any commission and
“ instructions, or orders in Council issued or made
“ by his Majesty in pursuance thereof, or were incon-
“ sistent therewith,) should continue in full force and
“ virtue; and that all such penalties, forfeitures, or
“ imprisonments as might, on the said 21st day of
“ April, 1834, be incurred or enforced for the breach
“ of such then existing regulations, should thence-


“ forth be, in like manner, incurred and enforced for
“ the breach of the same regulations, so far as the
“ same were thereby revived and continued in force as
“ aforesaid; and that all such penalties, forfeitures or
“ imprisonments, when so incurred, should be enforced
“ in manner following (that is to say)—either by such
“ ways and means by which the same might, on the
“ said 21st of April, 1834, have been lawfully en-
“ forced, or by the sentence and adjudication of the
“ Court of Justice established at Canton aforesaid,
“ under and in pursuance of the said Act of Parlia-
“ ment. Provided also, and it was further declared,
“ that the regulations therein contained were and
“ should be considered as provisional only, and as in-
“ tended to continue in force only until his Majesty
“ should be pleased to make such further or other
“ order in the premises, in pursuance of the said Act
“ of Parliament, as to his Majesty, with the advice of
“ his Privy Council, might thereafter seem salutary or
“ expedient, in reference to such further information
“ and experience as might thereafter be derived from
“ the future course of the said trade.*

(Signed) “ C. C. Greville.”

The first ‘ Chief Superintendent’ appointed under
and by virtue of the foregoing Act of Parliament and
Order in Council was the ill-fated Lord Napier—that
still-unavenged martyr to Chinese cruelty and inso-

* The remaining article of 'the Order in Council is omitted, inas-
much as it relates entirely to the publication of a Compilation of Regu-
lations, which were never, in fact, made.


26

lencewho, though sent out, as we have seen, at the
express instance of the Chinese Government, was yet
refused to be recognised in any official capacity, and sunk
under the injuries and indignities which they wantonly
inflicted upon him. He arrived in July, 1834, and died
on the 19th October in the same year. Mr. Davis
succeeded him as First Superintendent, Captain Elliot
(the present Chief Superintendent) being appointed
by him to be Secretary. The Chinese refused to re-
cognise these ‘ Superintendents,’—who, after the death
of Lord Napier, retired to Macao; and the Govern-
ment seems to have been doubtful what course to
take. On the return of Mr. Davis to Europe, Captain
Elliot was advanced to the post of Third Superinten-
dent, and promoted to be Second Superintendent on
the 1st April, 1835. On the 14th December, 1836,
he was announced, by the following Public Notice at
Macao, to have been appointed to perforin the duties
of “ Chief of the Commission”—the same notice,
as will be seen, communicating the intelligence that
the office and salary of the Chief Superintendent had
been abolished.

“ Official Notice to his Britannic Majesty's Subjects
in China*

“ Despatches have been received from the Right
“ Honourable the Secretary of State for Foreign Af-
‘ ‘ fairs, signifying the abolition of the office and salary
“ of the Chief Superintendent of the Trade of British
“ subjects in China; his Majesty’s Government has

* Canton Reg. No. 50, 1836.




“ been pleased to appoint Captain Charles Elliot, R.N.,
“ to perform the duties of the Chief of the Commis-
“ sion from this date.

“ By order of the Superintendent of the trade of
“ British subjects in China,

“ Edward Elmslie,

“ Secretary and Treasurer.

“ Macao, December 14, 1836.”

There is something sufficiently singular in this sud-
den and unexplained movement of the Government.
The Public Notice in question, at once, with no re-
cital of any expediency, announces the abolition of
the office of ‘ Chief Superintendent,’ and the appoint-
ment of a person to ‘ perform the duties of the Chief
of the Commission.’ That ‘ Commission’ must have
been, according to the Act of Parliament, the appoint-
ment of ‘ Superintendents and Captain Elliot was,
in effect, thereby appointed ‘Chief Superintendent.' At
all events, he immediately and ever afterwards assumed,
in all his official acts and documents, the style and
title of ‘Chief Superintendent,’ and acted as such—
a thing which undoubtedly it cannot be supposed that
he would have done, if there had been any thing in
his Private Instructions inconsistent with, or prohi-
biting his assumption of such style and character ;
and his various acts done, and documents issued,
professedly in such capacity, have been repeatedly
ratified by the British Government.*

* Probably the only intention of the Government was to abolish the
salary of the ‘ Chief Superintendent,’ and to leave the ‘ Chief of the
Commission’ to perform the duties of all the Superintendents.


28

It appears that Captain Elliot, having entered upon
the performance of his very responsible duties, made
such representations to the Chinese authorities as at
length procured permission for him to proceed to
Canton, to exercise the authorities thus vested in
him,—but in the same capacity as the Company’s
supercargoes ; and by an Edict published in March,
1887, the Government of Canton “ orders, in confor-
“ mity with the regulations which were applied to the
“ former ‘ Taepans’ appointed to Canton, that the
“ foreigner Elliot should be permitted to come to the
“ Provincial City and enter on his duties.”

This will, it is believed, be found to be as correct
an account as can be given of the exact position, in
point of fact, of Captain Elliot, at the time when he
issued his Public Notice of the 27th March, 1839-
It may be here observed, that the Government seems
to have purposely, and perhaps necessarily, left his
‘ powers and authorities’ in a state of great vagueness
and obscurity. He was appointed to superintend
and controul the British ‘ Trade and Commerce,’ in
a remote country, and with most bigoted barbarians,
professing a peculiar contempt for the British people.
The office itself was new, and, as already observed,
anomalous; its power altogether undefined ; and such
as admitted of no guidance from precedent. As no
expectation could be formed of the emergencies likely
to arise, so no precise or specific rules could be laid
down for the conduct to be observed on the arising of
any such emergency. The only approach towards any-
thing like a definite specification of the powers of
this officer, after the very extensive language of the


29

statute, empowering his Majesty in Council to appoint
him, is to be found in that part of the Order in
Council, which confers upon him the powers and
authorities by law vested in the Supercargoes of the
East India Company, on the 21st April, 1834. This
instrument must be taken to have had a meaning—
to confer some authority ; and the reasonable interpre-
tation of it is, especially construed in connection with
the Act of Parliament, that the Superintendents
created by it, were to possess all the powers exer-
cised by the supercargoes—exercised as will have
been seen by virtue of contract; and these contracts
were required by the East India Company, because
they deemed them necessary for the maintenance of
the trade with such a Government as the Chinese.
What the Privy Council meant to do, was probably to
vest in the Superintendents, by law, all the powers
theretofore exercised by the supercargoes.—If the act
done by Captain Elliot, and which is now the subject
of discussion, had been done by the Supercargoes,
could they not have bound the East India Company to
make good the amount of the opium surrendered to
them ? Does any one who knows the nature and ex-
tent of the powers practically exercised by the Super-
cargoes, and from time to time sanctioned by the East
India Company, suppose that the latter would have
thought of repudiating such an act, under the circum-
stances ?

But there are several important considerations to
be borne in mind in estimating the value of this act
of the Chief Superintendent, as compared with any
similar act of the supercargoes of a former day. His


30

position was far more complicated, and his powers
required to be far more extensive, than those of the
supercargoes. They ruled over those under the direct
controul of the East India Company; he over inde-
pendent merchants. He had, in all cases—of what
emergency soever, to represent and sustain the cha-
racter and dignity of the British Government—yet
with no naval force at his command; being thus
necessarily left to resort to such measures and devices
as appeared to him likely to effect the important pur-
poses for which he was sent. Had his object been
merely a commercial one, why was he not appointed
a Consul ? The Government, however, knew the
grave exigencies that might happen, and appointed
an officer capable of encountering them—a Political
as well as Mercantile Agent. Influenced by such
considerations as these, Parliament framed the im-
portant Act originating the appointment of Captain
Elliot. It declares the great objects of his mission,
and indicates the nature of his rights, powers, and
duties; and the Order in Council must be taken
to have been framed in pursuance and in the spirit
of such Act, and to have carried into effect the plain
intentions of the Legislature.—May we not then,
ask whether Captain Elliot was not duly constituted,
and held out to those who have dealt with him, as an
Agent of the British Government—and was not his
Public Notice of the 27th March, 1839, an act done
within the scope of the authority conferred upon him
by his principal, and one, consequently, binding on his
principal ?

Perhaps a brief statement of the leading principles


31

of law, regulating the relation between Principal and
Agent, may be worth bearing in mind, while attempt-
ing to appreciate the legal effect of the facts under
consideration.

The whole doctrine of Principal and Agent depends
upon this obvious maxim, that he who acts by another,
acts by himself;—£ Qui facit per alium facit per se;’
and the general rule is, that in order to bind the prin-
cipal, the act done must be within the scope of the
authority which he has communicated to his agent.
This authority may be expressly conferred by either a
formal instrument, or a writing of a loose informal
character,—or inferred from circumstances. It may
be a general authority, or a special authority; it may
be an express authority, or an implied authority: and
however conferred, it is, unless the contrary manifestly
appears to be the intention of the parties, always con-
strued to include all the necessary and usual means of
executing it with effect. A person is sometimes said
to be a special agent, whose authority, though it
extends to do acts generally in a particular business or
employment, is yet qualified and restrained by limita-
tions, conditions, and instructions of a special nature.
In such a case, the agent is deemed, as to persons
dealing with him in ignorance of such special limi-
tations, conditions, and instructions, to be a general
agent; though as between himself and his principal
he may be deemed a special agent.—A great distinc-
tion exists, in all cases, between the authority given
to the agent, and the private instructions given to him
as to his mode of executing that authority; for
although when a written authority is known to exist,


32

or is, by the very nature of the transaction pre-sup-
posed, it is the duty of persons dealing with the agent
to make enquiries as to the nature and extent of such
authority, and to examine it; yet no such duty exists
to make enquiries as to any private letter of instruc-
tions from the principal to the agent; for such instruc-
tions may reasonably be considered as of a secret and
confidential nature, and not intended to be divulged
to third parties, It is indeed doubtful whether there
be any solid distinction between the case of a special
authority to do a particular act, and a general autho-
rity to do all acts in a particular business; for each
species of authority includes the usual and appropriate
means to accomplish the end. In such case, the
principal ought equally to be bound by the acts of his
agent executing such authority by any of those means,
although he may have given to the agent separate,
private, and secret instructions of a more limited
character.*

A consideration highly important to be borne in
mind, in interpreting written instruments, and espe-
cially letters of instruction, and orders, is, first, the
general rule that in cases of doubt, the words are
to be construed most strongly against the writer.
Secondly, that if the instrument be not expressed in

* The authority here spoken of, is an authority distinct and not
derived from the instructions; for if the original authority is restricted
and qualified, the restrictions and qualifications constitute a part of the
power itself, and govern its extent.—See the Hon. Mr. Justice Story’s
very valuable Commentary on the Law of Agency (just republished in
this country by Mr. Maxwell, under the direction of the Author), p. 60,
(note).


S3

plain and unequivocal terms, free from ambiguity, but
the language is fairly susceptible of different interpre-
tations ;>—and if the agent is, in fact, misled, and adopts
and follows one, when the principal intended the other,
there the principal will be bound, and the agent
exonerated; for in such a case the agent has acted in
good faith, and within the supposed limits of his autho-
rity ; and if one of two innocent parties must suffer, he
ought to suffer, in preference, who has misled the
confidence of the other into any unwary act.

Finally, a principal is bound in all things where the
agent is acting within the scope of his usual employ-
ment ; or, is held out to the other party as having
competent authority,—although, in fact, he has in the
particular instance exceeded or violated his instructions,
and acted without authority.

These are acknowledged principles of law; and
it is submitted, that the application of them to the
facts of this case, as set forth in the foregoing pages,
in spite of any difficulties which may possibly exist
as to the technical mode of proceeding to obtain such
compensation, establishes at all events the moral
obligation of Government not to withhold it.

Dropping, for a moment, the Order in Council, and
adverting to the object of the Legislature, as declared
in the Act of Parliament, in order to guide us to a
correct view of the policy of its framers, let us sup-
pose, that the Legislature had been able to contem-
plate the exact case which has so unexpectedly
occurred on the spot, where it had resolved upon es-
tablishing a British Authority; that it had intended
to authorise the representative of such British Au-

D


34

thority to act in the precise manner in which he has
acted:—could there have been devised words to
express its purpose more clearly, than those which
are already used in the Act in question ? Words con-
ferring ampler powers to meet the most startling
emergency that might arise ; to silence speculation,
and challenge obedience on the part of those over
whom were to be exercised such undefined ‘powers
and authorities ’ ?—Suppose this exact case, which has
happened, to have been put to Parliament while the
Act in question was under consideration, and the
question asked, ‘ How shall we provide for such a
case?’ ‘Be not too precise,’ it would have been an-
swered, ‘ remember the responsibilities you are
imposing on this officer and representative of ours ;
the immense magnitude of the interests he will have
to preside over and regulate ; the novel exigencies he
will have to encounter, suddenly and advantageously,
while dealing with a barbarian people so capricious and
dangerous as the Chinese ; the vast distance at which
he will be placed from the mother country!—Again,
he should not be exposed to the risk of having his au-
thority constantly called in question, and the extent of
it speculated upon, and disputed by those, his fellow-
subjects, over whom we place him in supreme autho-
rity—whenever he may think fit to act in a way at
variance with their own notions and wishes. Use,
therefore, the most general and extensive words that
can be selected to make him our general agent. Give
him ‘ powers and authorities ’ over, and not merely
over, but also in respect of the trade and commerce ;
to make ‘ directions’ and ‘ regulations ’ ‘ touching it


35

and ‘for the government'—generally and absolutely—
‘ of his Majesty’s subjects in the Chinese dominions.’
Parliament yielded to such suggestions ; and behold
the exact language of the statute!—Whether this
Country had any right whatever to ‘establish a British
Authority in China, without having first obtained
the express consent of the Chinese—a step, which
may be that which has alarmed and exasperated them
against us, and led them to go all lengths in order
to defeat what they may believe to be sinister and
most dangerous intentions on our part—is a matter
which need not now be discussed. Very grave
doubts on this point were expressed, unless the
writer is mistaken, in his place in Parliament by
the Duke of Wellington : nevertheless the Act passed,
and such a question is now entirely beside the point
in dispute, which is in effect a simple question of prin-
cipal and agent, and how the former has held out
the latter to third parties.

Now, in order to appreciate their situation, let the
reader imagine himself to have been present at Canton
on the 27th of March, 1839, and in the company of
the agitated holders of this enormous mass of pro-
perty, when they received the memorable Public
Notice of the Chief Superintendent. Is it—they ask—
a palpable and preposterous excess of his authority—
a vain prayer, a vainer promise, an idle threat, which
they may utterly disregard ; or is it really what it pur-
ports to be—an official document which they are bound,
on peril of what may befal them, to respect and obey ?
What are they called upon to do ? Instantly to sur-
render up some two millions four hundred thousand
d 2


36

pounds worth of opium, for which they are responsible
to distant principals; and which opium is moreover,
at this moment, entirely beyond the reach and power
of the Chinese! Who calls upon them to do so ? Her
Majesty’s Chief Superintendent. They examine every
word of the 1 Public Notice’ with anxious scrutiny; and
having ascertained its grave requirements, they refer
to the only means they have for judging of the au-
thority of the Chief Superintendent to issue such a
notice, namely, the Act of Parliament and the Order
in Council appointing him. They refer to them in
order to ascertain whether they are warranted in
acting on Captain Elliot’s representation,—or, more
—bound to obey his Injunction and Requisition.
And are we to deal with them, not as plain merchants,
ordinarily conversant with the principles regulating-
commercial transactions, and now suddenly placed in
an unparalleled state of alarm and difficulty ;—but as
a knot of cool, skilful, experienced lawyers, sitting
down in tranquil consultation at Chambers with these
two documents before them ; weighing every expres-
sion in the delicate balance of legal construction and
interpretation; comparing and discriminating with
long-practised acuteness and accuracy ? No questions
are, as is well known, more difficult than those which
arise as to whether a particular act is, or is not, an ex-
cess of the authority devolved upon an agent_Desirous,

however, of forming the best judgment they can, they
find in such Act of Parliament a recital, that the oc-
casion of the Chief Superintendent’s appointment,
was its expediency for ‘ the objects of trade, and
amicable intercourse with the dominions of the Emperor


37

of China’; that in order to ‘ protect and promote such
trade,’ he was appointed to the office, and invested
with the powers and authorities set forth in the Act.
Had he, for these purposes, power to make the present
demand, and were they bound to comply? Were they
given any option by the Act of Parliament?—Then
they refer to the Order in Council. Had it any effi-
cacy ? If so, it conferred on Captain Elliot all the
powers and authorities which had been by law vested
in the supercargoes of the East India Company; but
is not the plain meaning and spirit of the Order in
Council, as read by the light afforded by the Act of
Parliament, that the powers mentioned are those which
had been exercised by the Supercargoes ? Must it not
mean this, or nothing; and was it fitting or decent
for these merchants to decide that the Order in
Council was totally inoperative and void — a mere
dead letter—a delusion?—They then reflect, that he
has in his pocket his secret letter of instructions ; at
them, they know, they are bound to presume, that he
has looked narrowly, before issuing his ‘ Public
Notice;’ and that having doubtless duly ascertained
that he was authorised to do so, that he was acting,
as he could afterwards prove, in accordance with the
letter and spirit of those Instructions—he at once, in de-
cisive and peremptory terms, issued the Public Notice
which is in their hands. What if he should turn out
to have misapprehended the scope and extent of his
powers and authorities—to have exceeded or violated
his instructions ? So long as he appeared held out to
them as possessed of competent authority, and to be
acting within the scope of his usual employment, they


38

were safe in treating every act of his as one which
would be recognized by his principal: and that prin-
cipal, moreover, no other than the upright and
honourable Government of Great Britain. They look
then at the terms of his Public Notice. Impelled, he
says, by “ very weighty causes," over and above those
supplied by the circumstances of constraint and dan-
ger, in which he and his fellow-subjects were then
placed ; desirous to “ establish the British autho-
rity in the Chinese dominionsto “ protect and
promote the British trade,1’ and the “amicable inter-
course with the Chinese dominions with all these
objects to consider and promote, he proceeds to inform
his fellow-subjects, that an extraordinary exigency
in the said ‘ trade' and ‘ intercourse' having suddenly
arisen, he has received an official demand from the
Chinese authorities, to surrender into their hands all
the opium, then in the hands, or in the power of the
British merchants in Canton ; and for that purpose
requires and enjoins its owners to deliver it up to
him, for the service of her Majesty’s Government.
And what then ? Does he here give any option or
discretion to the parties he addresses? Does he
sav that he is atrociously treated; that the demand
made by the Chinese is an unwarrantable and un-
just demand; but that, if not complied with, his
life will pay the penalty, and therefore he entreats the
surrender of the opium,—its holders relying on the
liberality and consideration of the British Govern-
ment to reimburse them ? Had he done so, he would
undoubtedly have thrown the opium merchants into
a dreadful dilemma. Still they would have had a


39

choice; and they might have declined the respon-
sibility of sacrificing such an immense amount of pro-
perty, entrusted to them by principals whom they had
no means of first consulting. They might have
distrusted the good faith or liberality of the British
Government, and refused to send the requisite orders to
the ships for the delivery up of the article in question,
leaving Her Majesty’s Chief Superintendent with his
neck in the bow-string, as their ships sailed away. Now
had they done this, what would have been thought and
said of them in England ? —They would have been
scouted and execrated as a herd of mercenary wretches,
unworthy of the name of Britons.—But it is far
otherwise, they find,, with the Public Notice before
them. Its writer clothes himself in the plenitude of
that office and authority, which they are in the habit
of implicitly recognizing and obeying, and issues a
stringent and solemn order, “ under his seal of
officein the name, and on the behalf of Her Bri-
tannic Majesty’s Government, he enjoins and
requires the instant delivery up of the opium
to him, for the service of her Majesty’s Govern-
ment ; offering, on the part of that Government, the
amplest and most emphatic pledge of indemnity which
it was possible to have given ; and explicitly threaten-
ing, that on failure of compliance, the protection of
that Government would be withdrawn—that it would
be ‘ released from all manner of responsibility, or lia-
bility in respect of the opium in question.’ What then
was the position of the parties to whom this Public Notice
was addressed ? They must either disregard or obey it,
and that instantly. They are called on, not to comply


40

with a request, but to obey a command. What would
they, in their situation, have more ? A demand made
in the name of their Government; the amplest in-
demnity offered; an explicit recognition of that Go-
vernment’s present ‘ responsibility and liability’ in
respect of the opium; and a declaration that in case
of non-compliance, such responsibility and liability
would instantly cease.—They are decided; they hear
the British Government, commanding, promising,
threatening; and in discharge of what they believed
to be their duty as loyal British subjects ;—not rudely
and incredulously calling in question the authority
which the British Government seemed to have in-
tended conveying,—but in unflinching reliance on the
good faith of their Government, they make the re-
quired sacrifice. Now only suppose for a moment, in
order further to exemplify the true position of these
parties, and ascertain the real quality of this act of
surrender—that in the face of such a document as the
‘ Public Notice’ of the Chief Superintendent, the
holders of the opium had refused to give it up to him
‘ for the service of her Majesty’s Government,’—and
the Chief Superintendent had in consequence been
put to death. His dead body, together with his pri-
vate papers, is then delivered up to his fellow-coun-
trymen ; and amongst these papers are found docu-
ments proving beyond all doubt that the surrender
of the opium, had it been made as required by Cap-
tain Elliot, would have insured signal advantages
to the British trade with China—would have se-
cured a commercial treaty infinitely advantageous to
Great Britain. That, for instance, the Emperor had


41

suddenly resolved to legalise the opium trade—had
communicated that resolution to Captain Elliot, and
satisfied him that the present surrender of the opium
(however large a sacrifice apparently, for the present)
would have been the condition of its admission into
the empire on terms eventually highly satisfactory to
all parties (and be it observed, for the purpose of the
argument, that the Public Notice nowhere states for
what purpose the opium was to be delivered up to the
Chinese); that the Authorities had convinced Captain
Elliot, who knew that he could in due time convince
his countrymen, that the surrender of this opium
would, in fact, prove a most expedient and salutary sa-
crifice ;—suppose now it should, when too late, turn out
that these, and similar ones were those “ other very
weighty causes” significantly mentioned in his Public
Notice, which had occasioned his issuing such notice
which had, nevertheless, been deliberately disregarded
—set at defiance, by those to whom it had been ad-
dressed ? Nay, suppose further—that the Secret
Instructions of the deceased Chief Superintendent had
then come to light, and the dismayed parties who
had distrusted his representations and denied his
authority, had discovered articles in the aforesaid
Secret Instructions incontestably vesting in him powers
to do what he had done, or, at all events, rendering it
exceedingly difficult for him, or any one to say whether
or not he had such powers. That with his eye upon
these articles, he had been thus honestly taking the
directest and most skilful steps towards “protecting
and promoting the trade,” and the “ amicable inter-
course with the Chinese dominions ?” What then


42

would have been the language of Government and the
country? All parties would have condemned these
merchants; they would have sunk beneath universal
execration. What multitudes would then have dis-
covered in the Act of Parliament creating the office held
by Captain Elliot, and in the Order in Council more
definitely indicating its character, the clearest and
plainest powers and authorities for doing all that he
had done, and accused those who doubted and denied
it, of wilful blindness and wanton disobedience !—
Now is it unreasonable to suppose that reflections such
as these occurred to the minds of those who were
anxiously considering their duty with reference to the
“ Public Notice ?’’ Again and again, it may be, they
tried to satisfy themselves of the real nature of the
Chief Superintendent’s powers and authorities.—
Could he not have exercised every power theretofore
exercised by the Supercargoes—have suspended or
forbade the opium trade altogether ?—or required
that that commodity should no longer be sold for silver,
but exchanged for goods?—Why, had he not actually
closed and suspended the whole trade on more than
one occasion? Were any of ^Aesethen, acts within the
scope of his authority, as indicated in the Act of
Parliament and expressed in the Order in Council ?
Was their language comprehensive enough to embrace
these great exercises of authority, but not that by
which he ordered the surrender of the opium to him-
self, for the service of her Majesty’s Government ?
Would they, in short, have warranted him in demand-
ing the delivery of one ball of opium on the terms
and for the purposes specified in his notice ? If no,


43

then would not the statute have been a dead-letter,
his appointment a farce, his “powders and authorities
over and in respect of the trade and commerce” as-
sumed to have been conferred by the Order in Council,
a mere mockery ? If yes— then can quantity make
the difference ? or must the same rule apply to the
surrender of one single ball, and of twenty thousand
chests ? Is the stopping of the whole trade warranted,
and the demand of the delivery up of this opium un-
warranted, by the language of this Act of Parliament
and Order in Council ?—If they try to recollect
whether his Government has ever sanctioned and rati-
fied his exercise of these great powers, they find that
it has frequently done so, both by acquiescence, and
in express terms.* Can they come to a different
conclusion with reference to the power which he now
assumes to exercise ? On what principle ? Apply
to the case, in short, all the tests and criteria that
can be thought of, they establish the existence of that
degree of agency on the part of Captain Elliot
which challenged the acknowledgment and recognition
of these Merchants, and which is requisite to fix lia-
bility upon his principals to the extent of the indem-
nity which he gave in their names.—That he himself
believed he had sufficient power to do so, is plain;
as also that neither Parliament nor the Privy Council
had given the parties with whom he was dealing, any
means whatever of ascertaining that he had not the

* On the 27th Nov. 1839, for instance, Lord Palmerston, in his an-

swer to the East India and China Association, distinctly stated that Cap-

tain Elliot’s stoppage of the whole trade with China “ had been proper

and expedient.”


44

power to do so.—They recollect, moreover, that on
the 31st of the preceding December, he had pointedly
and confidently challenged their attention to the great
extent of his powers,—stating, in a Public Notice at
Canton— -that he “ took that occasion to republish that
“part of the Act of Parliament, and the Orders in
“ Council, on which his instructions were founded—
“ which latter, however, it was out of his power to pub-
“ lish.” In this view of the case, therefore, the prin-
cipal’s language in constituting his agent was, at all
events, so ambiguous and obscure as to mislead that
agent himself, as to the nature and extent of his
authority ; in what he did, he acted with good faith,
within the supposed limits of his authority; and he
must therefore be taken to have bound his principal.

Is it said or insinuated that Captain Elliot acted
with gross imprudence and rashness ? The author
is no apologist of Captain Elliot—supposing him to
require any—but would venture to suggest how very
premature and unwarrantable it is in us to accuse that
officer, whose zeal and integrity no one has ever ques-
tioned for an instant, of gross folly and incompetency
for his situation—occupying as he did a novel position
attended with the most difficult and harassing respon-
sibilities. “ In the execution of such an office as his
own,” he reminded his countrymen in his Public
Notice- at Canton, on the 31st December, 1838—
“decisions must always be taken in moments of crisis,
surrounded by embarrassing circumstances.” Let us
suspend, in common fairness, our judgment till we
have before us his own account of the matters which
have recently occurred. His disclosures may not a


45

little take us by surprise, and prove to be of the
last national importance. Admitting him, however, to
have been most rash and imprudent, it was the folly,
and would now be the misfortune, of the principal em-
ploying so incompetent an agent. His ignorance and
inexperience, however gross, cannot exonerate his
principals from liability for his acts, involving the
rights of third parties, done bona fide, and within the
scope, or supposed scope, of his authority.—Can it,
again, be seriously suggested that the ‘ trade and
commerce'1 which Captain Elliot was sent to protect
and promote, did not extend to the traffic in opium,
which was contraband?—This possible topic of ob-
jection, which it is believed that no one in the slightest
degree practically acquainted with the question could
think of urging, will be found disposed of hereafter.

It is hoped that it by this time appears, that whether
as between himself and his principals, Captain Elliot
actually had or had not, in point of legal strictness,
sufficient authority to bind them to reimburse the
holders of this opium ; still, as between those prin-
cipals (the British Government), and the present
claimants, no such question can arise, on the short
ground, that they had placed him in circumstances,
and clothed him with a character, warranting, if not
even compelling, such claimants to consider him pos-
sessed of such authority. If a great mercantile firm
in the city were substituted for the British Govern-
ment, in the present case, and made defendants in a
court of law, the present claimants being plaintiffs,
seeking to enforce their present demand, can there be
a doubt as to the issue ?


46

It is difficult to conjecture the exact grounds on
which the satisfaction of these claims will be resisted
by the Government. The Answer from the Treasury
which has spread such astonishment and alarm both
at home and in India, is framed with singular
caution and brevity ; and, on being closely examined,
will, perhaps, be found more remarkable for what it
does not, that what it does say. It was sent in answer
to a Memorial, explicitly stating the grounds on which
the memorialists considered themselves entitled to
demand of the Lords of the Treasury the fulfilment
of Captain Elliot’s guarantee, which it set forth in
terms. Now observe a most significant and unexpected
statement in the very commencement of the answer of
the Lords of the Treasury ; they speak of this opium
simply as having been “ delivered to the Chinese Go-
vernment.” What is meant to be conveyed by this ?
No allusion made to the intervention of her Majesty’s
Chief Superintendent—who, moreover, instead of being-
spoken of in this, his official capacity, is styled simply
* Captain C. Elliot,’— as if to divest the transaction still
further of any official character! Can it be possibly
the intention of the Government to rest any part of
their case on a denial of Captain Elliot’s being the
“ Chief Superintendent of the Trade of British Subjects
in China,” which, in his public notice of the 27th
March, 1839} he represents himself to be; to draw
any distinction between that officer and the position
and character of “ Captain C. Elliot, appointed to^er-
form the duties of Chief of the Commission?"—Such
would be a vain and idle subterfuge and evasion, which
it cannot be supposed that the Government would


47

resort to, or the country sanction.— Do the Lords of
the Treasury intend it to be inferred by the public,
that the holders of the opium surrendered it directly
to the Chinese on their bidding ? If this were really
intended to be given as their version of the affair, it is
a palpably false version, whether taken as a suppressâ„¢
veri, or an alley atio falsi. Come what might, this opium
never would have been surrendered thus to the Chinese.
No—her Majesty’s representative, the Chief Superin-
tendent, officially demanded that it should be surren-
dered—to the Chinese?—No—to “himself, for the
service of her Majesty's Government,'' to be “ delivered
over to the Government of China.” Why was this
suppressed ? Was it candid ? Did not the framers of
this answer well know that but for Captain Elliot’s
special demand, his promise, and threat on the part of
Government, none of this immense quantity of opium
would have been placed at the disposal of those
demanding it on behalf of the Chinese ? Is it pos-
sible that it is intended to be argued that these
20,283 chests of opium were deliberately delivered to
the Chinese, without regard to any pledge of indem-
nity on the part of Government? A glance at the
admitted facts disposes in an instant of this fallacy.

When the Memorial in question was under the con-
sideration of the Lords of the Treasury, of course the
Secret Instructions issued to Captain Elliot lay on the
table before them, and were often and anxiously
referred to, and in connection with the Act of Parlia-
ment and Order in Council appointing him. Doubt-
less the opinions of the law officers of the Crown were
taken, as to the nature and extent of Captain Elliot’s


48

engagement, his powers and authorities. Had those
opinions been decisive against the claims now set up;
had they said, ‘ the case is clear; there is no pretence
‘ for supposing that Government ought to redeem the
‘ preposterous pledge of its officer; he had no ground
1 whatever for considering himself, nor these claimants
‘ for considering him, authorised to give such a
‘ pledge;—there is nothing in the Act of Parliament,
‘ nothing in the Order in Council, nothing in the
‘ Secret Instructions, to warrant such an impression
‘ on his part; he might as well have pledged the
‘ Queen to give up the crown jewels to the sur-
‘ Tenderers of the opium ; as will be plain to all when
‘ his ‘ Instructions’ shall have been laid before Parlia-
‘ ment.’ Had anything like this been said, it might have
been expected that the tone of the Treasury answer
would have been somewhat different, in disposing of so
vast but groundless a demand upon Government; it
should have been peremptory, distinct,—explicit, de-
cisive; checking all vain hopes in their very formation,
and leaving no ground for uncertainty or misapprehen-
sion. But, on the other hand, suppose the law officers,
when called in, to shake their heads; to look very
grave when remarking upon the language and con-
struction—the joint effect—of the Act of Parliament,
the Order in Council, and the Secret Instructions; to
say, even, that those Secret Instructions could not be
brought to bear upon the question, however they
might afford ground for heavily censuring their officer;
to expound the whole law of principal and agent, as
regulating all the transactions of society carried on by
deputy, and apply it to the facts before them; to shew


49

that common sense, and legal principle, were here
coincident.—Then their Lordships pause; grow un-
easy ; are startled on glancing at the immediate and
ultimate consequences of refusing to ratify the act of
Captain Elliot; mercantile confidence, here and in
India, fatally shaken ; the honour of Government and
the character of the country damaged ;—no—they
will not commit themselves ;—and out comes the
Answer under consideration:—4 It is the most pru-
dent step we can take; we have no funds to pay, and
do not intend to apply for them.’ There is nothing
here to shew that they consider these claims unfounded ;
nothing to shew that if Government should be called
on in Parliament to satisfy such claims, that they will
oppose them; all they say is, that it is not their in-
tention to propose that these claims be satisfied. It
may be that in so grave a matter, they desire time to
consider; to devolve the decision upon Parliament;
and in the meanwhile listen to the voice of public
opinion.

Has then Public Opinion declared itself ?

Suggestions have been thrown out from time to
time, that there is.one ground on which all good men
should stand to scout the claims of the opium mer-
chants : that they are mere smugglers of a deadly
poison into China, which is demoralizing the character
and destroying the lives of the inhabitants; and this,
too, in flat defiance of the most determined, disin-
terested, and reiterated prohibition of the Emperor.
It was done, therefore, at their own peril; and the
issue affords them no just cause of complaint.

This, it is believed, is a fair statement of the

E


50

general grounds of objection to tlie entertainment of
these claims, relied upon by most of those who have
already formed, or expressed an adverse opinion;
assuming to stand on the higher ground of religion
and morality. Undoubtedly the most anxious and
respectful attention is due to every one, believed to be
guided by conscientious motives, and alleging reasons
of virtue, of morality and religion, in opposition to any
particular claim. That there are those who sin-
cerely adopt the opinions just adverted to, with refer-
ence to the opium question, is certain. It is impos-
sible not to respect such persons, to admire their phi-
lanthropy, and virtue : but they are also given credit
for another noble quality, candour ; to which an
appeal is now made with earnest confidence.

Now let it be first calmly recollected who are the
parties to this question; namely, the British Govern-
ment, Captain Elliot, and the opium merchants;
what is prayed for ? namely, that that Government
should redeem the pledge of its agent and represen-
tative, who on the faith of such pledge obtained the
surrender of the opium. It is now contended that
they should not redeem that pledge ; and the defence
put into their mouth, is the immoral and illegal
character of the trade in opium. But what will be
said, when (admitting for a moment that such is the
real character of the trade in question) a fact already
mentioned, is adverted to—namely, that by far the
greatest portion of that identical opium had been ma-
nufactured, and sold by that very Government, to the
late holders of it, for the avowed purpose of their
immediately conveying it to China; by that very Go-


51

vernment appointing Captain Elliot as Chief Super-
intendent of the trade; and who had long derived a
large revenue, and immense collateral advantages to
the nation at large, from the opium branch of that
trade !

That the trade in opium is really a Government trade
can admit of no doubt, and a slight sketch of its rise
and growth may not prove unacceptable.

The plan of sending opium from Bengal to China
was originally suggested by Colonel Watson, and
adopted by Mr. Wheeler, then Vice-President in Coun-
cil.* In 1773 the British East India Company made
a small adventure of opium from Bengal to China.
In 1781 the Bengal Government freighted two ships
with opium, and sent one of such ships (armed) to
China, the proceeds to be paid into the Company’s
treasury at Canton. That opium was purchased by a
Hong merchant. The Chinese authorities appear not
to have taken any public notice of the opium trade
till 1793. In the following year a ship laden wdtli
opium alone came to Whampoa, and ships so continued
to do annually, with little or no molestation, till 1820 ;
but in 1799 laws were enacted in China against the
importation and sale of opium, and the supercargoes
recommended the East India Company, but in vain,
to endeavour to prevent the shipment of it for China,
either in England or India. By the connivance, how-
ever, of the local authorities, it was contrived to be
carried on to a great extent at Whampoa and Macao
till 1821 ; when the foreign dealers in opium were

* Phipp’s Eastern and China Trade, 1835.

E 2


52

driven to Lintin (which continued to be, till last year,
the great Opium Depot) and the coast.

A vast portion of the surface of our Indian terri-
tory is now covered with the glistening poppy flower ;
and the amount of population and capital engaged in
its cultivation, and in the preparation of the opium, is
far greater than in any other part of the world. Malwa,
Benares, and Behar (Patna), are the chief localities
from which opium is obtained, almost every chest ex-
ported bearing the name of one or other of these locali-
ties. About one-half of the whole comes from Malwa,
whose chiefs are under British protection; the soil
entirely under the East India Company’s authority;
but both the cultivation of the poppy and the produc-
tion of the opium are free. This opium is a rival
growth, introduced within a few years, which the
Government have often endeavoured to stifle. About
two-thirds of this Malwa opium is transported direct
to Bombay (paying a transit duty of 175 rupees a chest
to the British Government), and then shipped in Eng-
lish vessels to China. The remaining third* is car-
ried to the Portuguese settlement of Demaum, whence
it is shipped to China in Portuguese vessels. In Be-
nares, Behar, and all the territories within the juris-
diction of the East India Company, the cultivation of
the poppy, the preparation of the drug, and the traffic
in it until brought to Calcutta, are monopolized by the
British Government in India. The inspissated juice is
collected by the Ryot (the immediate cultivator of the

* See, however, post, p. 59, “Report to the House of Commons
in 1832.”


53

soil), and delivered to the agent of the Government
in every February and March. After coming into
the hands of the Government agents, it is exa-
mined, made into balls, and packed in chests, which
are then transmitted to Calcutta, where it is sold
by public auction, divided into four sales at monthly
intervals, in lots of five chests, under the follow-
ing singularly stringent conditions : “ one rupee

paid down as earnest; thirty per cent, in cash or
Company’s paper within ten days (unless a longer pe-
riod should be allowed by the Opium Board), in failure
of which the opium is to be re-sold at the risk of the
defaulter ; the remainder of the price is to be paid
within three months of the day of sale, in default of
which the deposit is forfeited to the Company, the
opium disposed of, and the proceeds taken by the
Company.”* The opium then becomes the property
of individuals, and most of the commercial houses at
Calcutta are engaged in its traffic. On the other side
of India, the number of traders and the amount of
capital are equally great; and together they have
brought into their service some of the finest vessels
that ever navigated the Eastern seas. A few are

* “We should not here omit to state,” say the British merchants at
Calcutta, in their Memorial to the Privy Council, “that while the pro-
“ fits of opium shippers have seldom exceeded from five to fifteen per
“ cent, on the Government sale price, those of the opium manufac-
“ turers, viz. the British Government of India, have usually varied
“ from 200 up to the enormous amount of 500 per cent, on the cost
tl of manufacture."—See post, p. 58, where this statement is cor-
roborated by the Report of the Select Committee to the House of Com-
mons, on the renewal of the East India Company’s charter in 1832.


54

constantly employed, while others are only occasionally
freighted. Four or five vessels are stationed as re-
ceiving ships, at Lintin (which is within the precincts
of the Provincial Government, and has a free commu-
nication by water on all sides). An equal number of
vessels drive the coasting trade. At Canton there are
Native opium brokers ; they pay the price of the opium
into the hands of the resident foreigners, who there-
upon give them orders for the delivery of the opium
from the receiving ships ; and there are native carry-
ing boats plying up and down the river, by which the
article is conveyed into the interior of the kingdom.*

The British Government in India, though always
aware of the prohibition of the trade by the Chinese
authorities, have, as is notorious, by every means
which ingenuity could devise, ‘ encouraged the trade
in opium, by facilities and assistance repeatedly
afforded,’ and fostered it to its present enormous
magnitude ;t so that it now forms more than two-
thirds of the total exports of Bengal and Bombay.
They have anxiously consulted, on every occasion,
the wants, wishes, and tastes of the Chinese, with
reference to the qualities of the opium ; and afforded
them compensation, on having it proved to them by
the Chinese, that the opium supplied to them, was
inferior to the standard guaranteed by the state.
They have even made direct consignments to agents

* See the Chinese Repository, passim.

-J- The whole product of opium, in India, in 1836, was estimated at
35,000 chests, nearly half of which is sold in the manner above stated, •
at Calcutta—yielding probably a net revenue to Government of some
two crores of rupees.


55

in China, in order that they might ascertain prac-
tically, what mode of package would be most accep-
table to the Chinese. As to the amount and pro-
portion of opium sent direct to China, the Custom-
House books of Calcutta afford conclusive evidence.
By them it appears, that of an aggregate of 79,446
chests actually despatched from Calcutta in six years
(1832—1838), 67,083 chests were exported to China
direct; the vessels laden with them, being, as the
records of the Custom-House will shew, cleared
expressly for China. Would it not be, in the teeth
of these facts, an insult to common sense, to suppose,
either that the Government was not perfectly aware of
the existence of the opium trade with China,—nay,
more; that they calculated upon, and most anxiously
cherished such trade, as the principal source of con-
sumption ? And when from this trade they derived
an enormous revenue, varying from one million
to two millions sterling, per annum*—almost one-
tenth of the total revenue of India; by which re-
venue, in fact, the proprietors of East India Stock
have been hitherto enabled to receive the very
high dividend, guaranteed by Parliament in the new
charter—3 and 4 Will. 4. c. 85? Again. This
opium was always paid for by the Chinese in Bullion;
and a glance at the table of exports and imports to
and from Calcutta, and Bombay, and China, will
shew what a valuable portion of the supply of silver
for the coinage of India, Government has received
from China, principally by means of the opium trade.

* The net revenue for 1837 was £2,155,204. sterling.


56

The published statements of the British trade at
Canton, demonstrate the immense importance to the
direct trade from China to England, from the value
of the trade of India with China; and which value,
again, as already shewn, is to be referred to the
opium trade. Without the Indian trade, the Court
of Directors could not have so favourably conducted
their large remittances for home charges; nor could
merchants in England have purchased teas to the
amount which they have purchased, without having
sent remittances largely in Bullion to that country.
The Bullion thus brought back in exchange for
opium, (to supply which, the immense silver mines of
China have been wrought to an extent, which the
Chinese had not imagined possible—thus convincing
them of the idle nature of their apprehensions on
that score,) has thus been of essential value to
commerce. It has drawn forth the resources of the
most fertile and populous empire in the world—
namely, China; and the Bullion thus brought back
in exchange for opium, has covered vast tracts of
British India with smiling fields and flourishing
population. It has enormously extended the import
of British manufactures throughout Hindostan; has
increased largely the shipping and general commerce
of those seas; and has brought into the British
Indian treasury, a revenue, exceeding the land re-
venue of an entire presidency—that of Bombay.*

* For the facts contained in the last few pages, the author has

Teferred to what he conceives to be the best sources—namely, the

Memorials and Representations addressed by the British merchants in


57

So much, then, for the knowledge of this contra-
band trade on the part of the British Government in
India, and their very substantial reasons for sanction-
ing and promoting it. On referring to the late Act,
3 and 4 Wm. 4, c. 85, for abolishing the East India
Company’s monopoly of the trade with China, it will
be seen, by sections 30, 32, that the Board of Controul
has the most intimate acquaintance with, and complete
power over, all the acts, regulations and proceedings
of the Court of Directors of the East India Company
and Indian Government. This Board, therefore,
must, of course, be held to sanction and authorise all
that it permits to remain unrepealed. Qui non pro-
hibet, cum prohibere possit, jubet. But who presides
over this Board of Controul ? A Cabinet Minister ;
through whom, consequently, the Queen’s Government
is thus fixed with the knowledge and sanction of this
most productive trade, and all the responsibility at-
taching to such knowledge and sanction. By the 51st
section of the same Act, Parliament has reserved its
right to legislate for India, and all the laws and regu-
lations enacted in India are directed to be laid on the
table of the House of Parliament. This chain of con-
nection—this direct privity, having been established
between Parliament, the Cabinet, and the Indian Go-
vernment, if the last-—the Indian Government —
could not resist the claim of the opium traders on the

India to the Privy Council, and to different China and East India
Associations in this country, (after ascertaining their consistency with
authorised public documents). In many instances he has adopted
their own words—as much more terse and pointed than any at his own
command ; on the principle ‘ cuique sud arte credendum.’


58

score of the illegality and immorality of their trade,
how can the former two, Parliament or the Cabinet ?
As to the former, this very subject, in its most important
bearings,—the nature of the trade, its alleged demora-
lizing tendency, its monopoly, its contraband character
—was distinctly and pointedly brought to the notice of
Parliament, and pressed upon its attention, as will be
seen on reference to the debates on the occasion of
renewing the charter of the East India Company : and
the same will appear from the following extract from
the Report of the Select Committee to the House
of Commons, on the renewal of the East India Com-
pany’s charter, in 1832.

“ The monopoly of opium in Bengal supplies the
“ Government with a revenue amounting to Sicca
“ rupees 84,59,425, or sterling money, £981,293 per
“ annum, and the duty which is thus imposed amounts
“ to 301^ per cent, on the cost of the article. In the
“ present state of the revenue of India, it does not
“ appear advisable to abandon so important a source
“ of revenue, a duty upon opium being a tax which
“falls principally upon the foreign consumerf [who
were the foreign consumers, but the Chinese ?] “ and
“ which appears, upon the whole, less liable to objec-
“ tion than any other which could be substituted.*

* “ The effect of these authoritative decisions on the mercantile
classes, and on society at large,” says a vehement opponent of the
opium trade, the author of the ‘ Opium Crisis,’ “ could not but be
powerful. By them the opium manufacture and the trade inseparable
from it, received the highest sanction bestowable in one country, on an
article proscribed in another. The British merchant went out from
the high places of legislation to attend the sales of the East India


59

44 Another source of revenue under this head is, the
44 duties collected on the transit of Malwa opium
44 through Bombay ; the Government having, for the
44 last two years, abandoned their attempted monopoly
44 of that article, and substituted a permit or transit
“ duty, which has been attended with satisfactory re-
44 suits. It is in evidence that previous to this regu-
44 lation two-thirds of the opium of Malwa were
44 carried by a circuitous route to the Portuguese set-
44 tlement of Demaum, and only one-third brought to
44 Bombay; but latterly no more than one-tenth has
44 been exported from Demaum, and the remaining
44 nine-tenths have been shipped from Bombay, yield-
44 ing to the Government a revenue of .£200,000 for
44 the current year.”

From all this, it is surely abundantly manifest 4 that
4 the trade in opium,’ to adopt the statement of the
British merchants at Bombay, in their Memorial to
the Privy Council, ‘ has been encouraged and pro-
4 moted by the Indian Government, under the express
4 sanction and authority, latterly, of the British Go-
4 vcrnment and Parliament, and with the full know-
4 ledge, also, as appears from the detailed evidence
4 before the House of Commons, on the renewal of
4 the last charter, that the said trade in opium was
4 confined to China, and was contraband and illegal.’

A word as to this contraband trade. Lord Mans-
field used to observe that there was 4 no magic in

Company. Authority, example, sympathy, were on his side ; what
cared he,” adds this author, “ for the interdicts of the strange, despotic,
repulsive government of China ? Thus led by Parliament, he was
confirmed in error by the decisions of society.”—Pp. 60, 61.


60

words; and we must not permit ourselves to run away
frightened at a mere word, however big and ugly.
Let us look at things, and in a practical point of view.
The sale of opium in China has since the year 1796,
undoubtedly been ‘ contraband,’ and like the trade
in Chinese crape, French lace, or tobacco, in Great
Britain, or in British piece goods at Hamburg,
during the war, has flourished through the connivance
of Government officers; the edicts of the Emperor
proving as unavailing in China as the celebrated
Berlin decree of Napoleon on the continent of Europe.
Has any British merchant engaged in the opium
trade ever fancied, or had reason to fancy,—although
carrying it on every moment under the eye, and paying
tribute for it into the pocket of Government, that it was
during these forty-three years illegal, except in mere
name ? If the opium trade really be ‘ contraband’ it
is not by any means the only contraband trade that has
received the indirect sanction and protection of the
British government. “ At this moment,” in the lan-
guage of an able writer in the Examiner (Nov. 17th,
1839)—“ half our merchandise is smuggled into
Spain, in open defiance of the Spanish laws. But set-
ting this example altogether aside, who forgets that
for whole centuries our entire trade with the Spanish
colonies of America (no small affair either) was nothing
but contraband—downright smuggling, in defiance of
laws and edicts, and guarda costas I The Spanish go-
vernment, in this case, was just as anxious to put down
smuggling as the Chinese is now ; but, arbitrary as it
was, it certainly never ventured to arrest the English
Ambassador at Madrid, or the British merchants of


61

Cadiz. Nations like the Spaniards and Chinese, who
enact arbitrary and foolish custom laws that, from their
very nature, cannot he carried into execution, must
take the consequences of their being violated.” How,
therefore, after all this, can it, in the name of candour,
common sense, and justice, lie in the mouth of the
British Government thus to take advantage of their
own wrong, and now insist on the ‘ iniquities of the
opium trade’ as a plea for escape from the liability
imposed upon them by their agent, Captain Elliot,
sent to China to protect a trade of which the opium
formed so large a branch,—who at the time of pledging
their credit, perfectly well knew their intimate ac-
quaintance with, and sanction of, and profit derived
from, the trade in opium ?

To proceed, however, to the main question forced
into this part of the case : —Is the trade in opium an
immoral trade ; andought the country, on that ground,
to refuse to recognize the claims now under considera-
tion, which have arisen out of it ? On this score no
inconsiderable feeling has been excited in several quar-
ters. The vilest and most sordid motives are attri-
buted to the opium merchants, who are represented as,
for their own miserable gain, corrupting the morals
and destroying the lives of the Chinese. The Em-
peror is presented to us in a noble, a sublime atti-
tude ; as it were ‘ standing between the dying and the
dead, that the plague may be stayed'—disdaining to
enrich his treasury with a revenue derived from so
polluted a source ; a Pagan, • shaming the vices of
Christians, and by his disinterested and virtuous con-
duct challenging the sympathies and admiration of all
mankind. Topics of this sort have been lately urged


62

upon the public with much force and eloquence, by se-
veral portions of the press, particularly by the Morning
Herald (a paper which bears the stamp of sincerity
broadly impressed upon it)—and may not have failed in
producing, to a certain extent, the desired effect in
rousing a prejudice which refuses even to listen to what
can be said in answer. A most respectable clergyman
(the Rev. Mr. Thelwall), has devoted an entire volume
to an ‘Exposition of the Iniquities of the Opium Trade?
Although his title page discloses a purely commercial
object, viz.—4 A Development of the Main Causes which
4 exclude British Merchants from an Unrestricted Com-
‘ mercial Intercourse with China,’ it is evident from
the tenor of the work, which is written in a strain of
very zealous piety, that his real object is, as befits his
sacred office, to promote the highest interests of his
species. His work is, he states, almost entirely com-
posed of “ a number of documents on the opium trade
“ with China, put into his hands by several persons
“ connected with the India trade, and deeply interested
“ in the cause—of humanity.” These he was “requested
“ to digest into a little volume,” and “ the responsibility
“ of the publication rests with those persons.” All that
need be said of this work is, that it really seems to take
a very confined and one-sided view of the case; entirely
overlooking certain important facts and obvious infer-
ences, to which his attention, and that of the public, ought
to have been distinctly called. The same observation
applies to another pamphlet,entitled 4 The Opium Crisis, ’
by an ‘American Merchant, resident at Canton,’ as he
styles himself on the title page—4 C. W. King" as he
subscribes himself at the close of his work. It is ad-
dressed to the Chief Superintendent, who is lectured


63

throughout with rather an amusing air of assumed su-
periority. It displays, as might have been expected,
much familiarity with the practical details of the sub-
ject, and is rather cleverly written, but with a sadly over-
laboured smartness of style. It is, indeed, pervaded by a
most disagreeable tone of egotism and self-sufficiency.
The little bits of plainly undigested Latin, with which it
is here and there stuffed, give it a very ludicrous appear-
ance. The efficacy of this gentleman’s interference is not
a little impaired by the assumption of a confident, dicta-
torial, and even supercilious air, which is calculated, not
to conciliate or convince, but to irritate—to stimulate
the hostility of all adversely concerned in the question
which he is discussing. Considerable weight, neverthe-
less, is due to the testimony of a person who seems to
speak with a confidence concerning facts, which is
derived from experience ; and there appears no reason
whatever to doubt, that however feeble may be his pre-
tensions as an author, he is a sincere and well-meaning
man. His pamphlet did not come into the hands of
the writer of these pages till after he had completed
them ; and he is not a little gratified at finding many
of his reasonings unexpectedly supported by the state-
ments of the ‘ American Resident at Canton.’ His
silence, however, on one most important topic, which
will be presently noticed, and respecting which the
present writer looked into his pamphlet with some
eagerness,—a topic which must have challenged the
attention of this ‘American Resident Merchant,’ while
scrutinizing the Chinese documents on which he com-
ments so amply,—appears, as the present writer cannot
avoid thinking, to impugn either the sagacity or the
candour of that gentleman. But to proceed.


64

That the Emperor of China opposes, or that we are
given by his representatives to understand that he op-
poses, and that vehemently, the introduction of opium
into his dominions, is admitted; the question is, what
is his real ground for doing so ? Is it a paternal
and virtuous regard for the morals and health of his
people, or does it arise from a very different cause,
a chimerical dread of draining the silver out of his
dominions, and a desire to force us to a different
FOOTING OF COMMERCE—FROM SALE TO BARTER ?

Previous to the year 1796 opium had been imported
into China for a long series of years, being included in
the tariff of maritime duties under the head of medicinal
drugs ; and there was then no regulation against either
purchasing or using it. In the year referred to, how-
ever, it was prohibited—ostensibly on two grounds :
it being officially alleged to be “a subject of deep re-
“ gret, that the vile dirt of foreign countries should be
“ received in exchange for the commodities and money
“ of the empire and of “ fear, lest the practice of
“ smoking opium should spread among all the people,
“ to the waste of their time and destruction of their
“ property.” The prohibitions, however, proved ut-
terly ineffectual, the supply of opium constantly in-
creasing down to the year 1836, and being invariably
•paid for in silver, to such an extent as at length greatly
increased the anxieties of the Court of China, and
stirred them up to adopt stringent measures to remedy
the evil. The Commissioners of Finance and Justice
in the Province of Kwang-tung made a Report in the
month of August, 1836, to the heads of the Provincial
Government, ‘ Requesting that their Excellencies, when
‘ replying to his Majesty, would recommend that the use


6.5

* of foreign money might be still sanctioned, as being
6 suitable to the position of foreign affairs there; but
‘ that all exchanges for, or clandestine exportation of,
‘ Sycee p. e. native] silver, should be disallowed.’—
They then enter into a very elaborate inquiry into the
nature and extent of the circulation of dollars in China.
The matter was taken into the deep consideration of
the Government at Pekin. In the last mentioned year
an elaborate memorial was addressed to the Emperor
by a very high officer, Heu Naetse, the Vice-President
of the Sacrificial Court, a man of great sagacity and
experience. His eminent position made him of course
intimately acquainted with the real feeling of the Court
at Pekin, with the true sources of their fears, and ob-
ject of their wishes. In the very commencement of this
memorial the gravamen of the charge against the opium
trade—“ the head and front of its offence”—the real
ground of apprehension, in respect of it, is frankly
avowed. After a preliminary statement of the extent
to which the drug was sold, he thus proceeds :—

“ The total quantity sold during the year amounts
“ in value to ten and some odd millions of dollars; so
“ that in reckoning the dollar at seven mace, stan-
“ dard weight of silver, the annual waste of money
“ somewhat exceeds ten millions of taels.* Formerly
“ the barbarian merchants brought foreign money to
“ China, which being paid in exchange for goods,
“ was a source of pecuniary advantage to the people
" of all the sea-board provinces. But latterly the
“ barbarian merchants have clandestinely sold opium

* A tael is equal to about six shillings and eight pence of our money.
F


66

44 for money, which has rendered it unnecessary for
44 them to import foreign silver. Thus foreign money
44 has been going out of the country, while none comes
44 into it.” He then gives an instance of the consequent
embarrassment which was beginning to be perceived.

44 In the salt agency, the price of salt is paid in
44 cash, while the duties are paid in silver; now, the
“ salt merchants have all become involved, and the
44 existing state of the salt trade, in every province, is
44 abject in the extreme. How is this occasioned,
44 but by the unnoticed oozing out of silver ? If the
44 easily-exhaustible stores of the central spring go to
44 fill up the wide and fathomless gulf of the outer
44 seas, gradually pouring themselves out from day to
44 day and from month to month, we shall shortly be
44 reduced to a state of which I cannot hear to speak.”

After urging upon the Emperor that it will he
manifestly impossible to prevent the clandestine trade
in opium, which is producing such imaginary mischief,
he proposes to legalise it:—

“ Since, then, it will not answer to close our ports
44 against all trade; and since the laws issued against
44 opium are quite inoperative, the only method left is to
44 revert to the former system—to permit the Barbarian
44 merchants to import opium, paying duty thereon as
44 a medicine, and to require that after having passed
44 the Custom-house, it shall be delivered to the Hong
44 merchants only in exchange for merchandise—and
44 that no money be paid for it. The Barbarians,
44 finding that the amount of duties to be paid on it is
44 less than what is now spent in bribes, will also
44 gladly comply therein. Foreign money should be


&7

“ placed on the same footing with Sycee silver, and
“ the exportation of it equally prohibited.” In the
‘ Conclusion,’ after stating his various services to the
state, and summing up the claims they afford him for
having his opinions regarded with grave attention, he
recommends an entire change of the system —and
thus closes his Memorial:—“ Perchance this may
“ be found adequate [to do what? To stay the plague
“ of disease and immorality ? No ; but^J to stop
“ the further oozing out of money, and to replenish
“ the national resources’'1

An imperial edict was therefore issued, in which,
as might have been expected, clearly the prominent evil
aimed at is stated to be “ the annual loss to the country
of above ten millions of taels.” It will be found that this
startling discovery of Heu Naetse—viz. the annual ex-
portation of ten millions of taels—is thenceforward kept
steadily in view in framing all the public documents,
and is palpably the great secret moving-spring at work
in the stir against opium. It then recites the
prayer addressed to the Emperor, “ that a change be
“ made in the system, permitting the opium again to
“ be introduced, and given in exchange for other com-
“ moditiesand concludes by commanding the Pro-
vincial Government to enquire, deliberate, and report
upon the matter. In the ‘ Report of the Hong Mer-
chants to the Provincial Government,’ soon afterwards
made, in pursuance of this command, there is a frank
acknowledgment of the real state of things—that the
balance of trade has fairly turned against the Chinese,
and the exportation of silver to a great extent become
unavoidable. The Provincial Government, having
f 2


68

duly ‘ enquired and deliberated,’ on the 7th Septem-
ber, 1836, ‘reported’ to the Emperor. The document
commences thus “ We have, in obedience to the
“ imperial will, jointly deliberated on the subject of
“ repealing the regulation now in force in regard to
“ the importation of opium, and of permitting it to be
“ bartered for other commodities.'' They then state,
that after “ thorough examination and consideration,
“ they recommend allowing the introduction of opium
“ on its paying a certain duty, and being bartered for
“ native commodities—on no account sold clandes-
“ tinely for money.” They thus state the expected
effects of such a change :—

“ If this plan be faithfully and vigorously carried
“ into effect, the tens of millions of precious money
“ which now annually go out of the empire, will be
“ saved; the source of the stream will be purified ;
“ and the stream itself may be eventually stayed.’’
Nine regulations are then proposed; the very first
of which is couched in these remarkable and decisive
terms.

“ The whole amount of opium imported, should be
“ paid for in merchandise : in this there must be no
“ deception. The object in repealing the inter-
“ dict on Opium, is to prevent the loss of specie
“ occasioned by the sale of the drug for money.”

Again : in the Eighth Regulation will be found an
equally significant statement, urgingus to the conclusion
that there was no real objection to the opium, on the
score of its intrinsically poisonous qualities, or demora-
lizing effects. This regulation proposes to relax the re-
strictions against the cultivation of the poppy in China,


69

by the natives ; that a better and purer article can
be thus obtained than that imported from abroad,
“ which is, in all probability, not unmixed with things
“ of a poisonous quality. To shut out the importa-
“ tion of it by foreigners, there is no better plan than
“ to sanction the cultivation and preparation of it in
“ the empire.”

In the ensuing month (October), a counter-report
was presented to the Emperor, by Choo Tsan,
“ member of the Council, and of the Board of Rites ”
—probably the political rival of Heu Naetse. This
second report is of a very different description from
the former. Instead of exhibiting anything like the
practical sagacity and acquaintance with the true prin-
ciples of political economy displayed by Heu Naetse,
Choo Tsan is evidently a mere alarmist, who avows
his belief that “ the purpose of the English in in-
troducing opium into China, has been to weaken, and
enfeeble the central empire!’’ He proceeds to contro-
vert, but not in a very confident tone, the proposition
of his rival, that the legalizing the trade in opium
would prevent the exportation of silver ; and feeling
his weakness here, is driven to dilate upon the grievous
moral and physical effects of opium upon the people
—his statements very evidently pervaded by a tone of
great exaggeration. In the same month another
memorial was presented by Hew Kew, Sub-Censor
of the Military Department, which at once proceeds to
grapple with the real substantial question, how the
ruinous exportation of silver by means of the opium
is to be avoided ; making most startling calculations
of the extent to which the country is being by these


70

means annually injured; and asserting that the only
remedy was to be found in the total prohibition of
the importation of opium.

The Court at Pekin was puzzled by these—possi-
bly only three out of a very great number—conflicting
opinions upon so momentous a question. This is ac-
knowledged in the Imperial Edict issued on the occa-
sion. “ Of late, there has been a diversity of opinion
“ in regard to it; some requesting a change in the
“ policy hitherto adopted, and others recommending
“ the continuance of the severe prohibitions. It is
“ highly important to consider the subject carefully
“ in all its bearings, surveying at once the whole field
“ of action, so that such measures may be adopted as
“ shall continue for ever in force, free from all failure.’’
The Emperor then commanded a searching and tho-
rough enquiry into the opium trade. But the efforts
of the Emperor were unavailing; an increasing de-
mand for opium in his dominions produced an in-
creased supply, and at a commensurate cost of the
silver of the country. To come down to the year 1839,
and the proceedings which precipitated the recent
unfortunate events at Canton. We still discover every
official document, every act of the Chinese authorities
disclosing, in spite of themselves, the real source of
their apprehensions. Finding all their efforts un-
availing to prevail upon foreigners to acquiesce in
their new and unjust propositions,—namely, to ex-
change opium for goods, instead of silver, they grew
desperate. See what appears in the very front of the
proclamation of the Imperial Commissioner Lin, on the
18th March, 1839.


71

“ Formerly the prohibitions of our Empire might
“ still be considered indulgent; and therefore it was
“ that from all our ports the Sycee leaked out as the
“ opium rushed in : now, however, the great Emperor
“ on hearing of it, actually quivers with indignation,
“ and before he will stay his hand, the evil must be
“ completely and entirely done away with.” Again,
the true object of his mission from the wrathful Em-
peror, is distinctly disclosed in his edict to the Hong
merchants. “ What was there,” he asks, “ to render
“ impossible a free commercial interchange of goods
“ between these parties themselves ? Nothing.” He
charges them with conniving at the practices of the
foreigners in getting silver for their opium.

“Thus it is in regard to the exportation of the
“ pure silver beyond sea—a thing so very strictly
“ prohibited. Did the foreigners really barter goods
“for goods, what silver could there be for them to
“ barter away ? But more than this : the Hong mer-
“ chants once represented, that each year, in addition
“ to the interchange of commodities by barter, the
“ foreigners require always to bring into the inner
“ land foreign money to the amount of four or five
“ millions of dollars. Were this the case, how comes
“ it that of late years, the foreign ships have brought
“ into the port no foreign money, and that the foreign
“ silver existing in the country has daily been dimi-
“ nishing in quantity ? And how happens it that
“ among the Hong merchants there have been bank-
“ rupts whose debts to foreigners have exceeded a
“ million of money ? It is clear that these four words,
“ ‘ goods bartered for goods,' are totally and altogether
“ false.”


72

Towards the close of his edict, the Imperial Com-
missioner has worked himself up to a very high pitch,
as the enormous mischief he has come to remedy
presents itself with sudden vividness to his thoughts.

“ It is computed, that the loss of the silver of China
“ during the period of several years past, by exporta-
“ tion beyond sea, has been not less than some hundreds
“ of millions. The imperial commands have been
“ repeatedly received in reference to the importation
“ of opium, AND EXPORTATION OF PURE SILVER, re-
“ proving all the officers of every degree, in the most
“ severe terms. Yet these Hong merchants have con-
“ tinued in the same course of filthy and disgraceful
“ conduct, to the great indignation and gnashing of
“ teeth of every one. I, the High Commissioner, in
“ obeying the imperial commands, in accordance with
“ which I have come to Canton, shall first punish the
“ depraved natives. And it is by no means certain
“ that these Hong merchants will not be within the
“ number.”

Surely the above evidence is conclusive to establish
the fact, whatever importance, in any view, may be
attached to it, that the Emperor’s apprehension of the
injury inflicted by opium <5n the minds and health of
his people, is not a genuine apprehension ; but is
assumed only as a device to cloke his real wishes and
purposes. The true state of the case is this. The
Chinese, having long felt uneasy, under a suspicion of
the fact, have at length made the discovery, that the ba-
lance of trade is fairly against them. That however great
the advantages they have so long derived from foreign
commerce, they have not been sufficiently sagacious


73

and sharp-sighted, to deal with their “ barbarian”
competitors in traffic. In spite of all their petty vex-
atious shifts and devices, during a long series of years,
they find the scale constantly inclining towards the
foreigners ; and are at length making desperate efforts
—the mere spasms of weakness, however—to retrieve
a fancied false position. This affords a key to their
whole conduct ; it throws a new light on all their
documents. Their dread of exhausting the silver of
their country is indeed ridiculous and chimerical.
“ Like other half-civilized nations,” justly observe the
British merchants at Calcutta, in the document al-
ready quoted from, “ which understand not the prin-
“ ciples of political economy, the Chinese consider
“ the export of bullion as injurious to their well-being,
“ and thunder edicts against the leakage of Sycee,
“ and the oozing out of dollars, as though such
“ exports were actually a loss to the state. It is
“ necessary to say but little in proof of this fallacy.
“ China possesses silver mines of immense value ;
“ but which are worked only to a limited extent, and
“ the circulation of whose products, the Government
“ would fain restrict exclusively to the imperial do-
“ mains. Those mines are exhaustless, save in the
“ fear of their Government, whose proceedings in
“ prohibiting the export of bullion are truly lamenta-
“ ble. As reasonable would it be for the British Go-
“ vernment to prohibit rail-roads and steam-vans,
“ because the one might exhaust the iron, and the
“ other the coal mines of Great Britain. The export
“ of opium from India, which has thus defeated the
“ restrictive policy of the Chinese Government, and
“ which has caused the mines of that empire to be


74

“ wrought far more extensively than could otherwise
“ have been the case, in order to replace the vacuum
“ in circulation created by the continued export of
“ Sycee from China, has thus been of essential benefit
“ to commerce ; for it has drawn forth the resources of
“ the most fertile and populous empire in the world.”

They cannot conceal from us, with all their pre-
tences, that the “ silver oozing out from all their
ports” is the bugbear which is ever haunting and
terrifying their imaginations. They seem poor
hands at a disguise; they have, with all their cun-
ning, too much simplicity and inexperience to
preserve consistency in their pretences. In the very
documents which are designed to satisfy us that
their sole object is to check a physical and moral
pestilence produced by the intoxicating use of the
drug, thinning their empire in all directions, glare ap-
parent the real objects, namely, to get our opium in ex-
change for their native commodities—“ goods bartered
for goods.” “ You import goods,” says the Imperial
Commissioner, in the Proclamation of the 18th March,
1839 ; “wo matter what they be, with us they find a
“ consumption: and respecting the cargo which you
“ may wish to purchase in return, there is nothing
“ in which you may not adventure.” Had we been
content to do this from the beginning; to take the
produce and manufactures of the Chinese in exchange
for our opium; not only to take goods for our opium,
but bring our silver for their goods, which shews the
extent to which the Chinese were disposed to go in their
demands—does any one that has read the foregoing
pages believe that we should ever have heard of these
their wild denunciations of the drug, or experienced the


75

monstrous extent of fraud, insult, and outrage which
they have at last presumed to inflict upon us ? How
is it that in the productions of Mr. Thelwall and ‘ the
American Merchant’—while the one was exposing
‘ the iniquities of the opium trade,’ and the other
dealing with the ‘ opium crisis/ the latter with prac-
tical knowledge, the former with that derived from
the very documents which he cites—no allusion is
made to this prominent topic, challenging, one should
have thought, observation and explanation ? Was it
the bias under which they wrote that disabled them
from looking at the subject but in one point of view?
Yet it may be said that almost in every document
of the Chinese may be discerned the glitter of silver—
the dim but very perceptible outline of the idol of
their real worship, and object of their profoundest
anxieties. Mr. Thelwall has put some of the pas-
sages on which the present writer founds his views,
in italics—so that that reverend gentleman's attention
must have been drawn to the facts they mention;
yet he makes no allusion to or comment upon them.
In ‘ the American Merchant’ there appears a desire to
suppress. In page 18, he professes to give, for instance,
an account of the memorable ‘ Proclamation’ of the
Imperial Commissioner, dated the 18th March, 1839;*
but sinks all mention of the repeatedly-disclosed
dread of the loss of silver, and the Imperial deter-
mination to prevent it.— In page 13, he cites a pro-
clamation of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of
Canton to the people of Canton, dated the 13th March,
in which they represent their intense anxiety to effect
the object of the High Commissioner ; and he thus

* Quoted ante, passim.


concludes his account of that document:—“ Appeal-
ing to the higher sentiments of patriotic attach-
ment, they entreat ‘ the sons of China no longer
to take the substance of their native land, and give it
to foreigners? ” And if this be really the case; if
considerations of such a pure and virtuous character
have been resorted to only as a mere make-weight and a
pretence, in order to cloak their mean and fraudulent
intentions towards us, what colours are dark enough
to depict their conduct ? Ought not feelings of sym-
pathy and admiration to give place to those of contempt
and indignation ?

Any one not thoroughly familiar with the cha-
racter of the Chinese would be charmed by the sim-
plicity, gentleness, and virtue breathing in all the do-
cuments which they design to come before the eyes of
foreigners. The Emperor here speaks as the Patriarch
—the virtuous and pious father of his people, whose
best interests he cherishes with the fondest jealousy,
and would promote by every act of bis life. Alas!
how much reason is there to believe that on a near
inspection nothing is visible but fraud, hypocrisy, and
falsehood ! With the Chinese, no pretence is too bare-
faced, no lie too monstrous, to be resorted to, in order
to conceal an object, or gain an end. The author of
these remarks was one who was for some time deluded,
by these means, into the persuasion that the Chinese,
though a quaint, eccentric, and violent people, were
full of simplicity and straightforwardness; but the more
he read of their documents, and the better he became
acquainted with the history of our intercourse with
that people, the more quickly were his opinions changed
to contempt and indignation at their meanness and


77

insincerity. His own opinion may be entitled to
but little weight; lie finds it, however, corroborated
by almost all the works on the subject which he has
consulted, and those practically acquainted with the
Chinese with whom he has conversed. Above all, his
views are confirmed by an unexpected witness—
Mr. King, ‘ the American Merchant resident at
Canton,’ the author of the ‘ Opium Crisis,’—who
avows his belief in the sincerity of the Emperor and
his Government in respect of the grounds assigned
by them for their hatred of the opium trade. Even
he, on one occasion, speaks with sorrow concerning
“ the low place assigned to honour and truth by the
Chinese’’* And on another, while speaking of the
Proclamation even of Lin, the Imperial Commissioner,
he declines “ vouching for the Commissioner’s truth,
a delicate thing where a Chinese is concerned.” He
goes on to assign, as the sole ground of his present
belief in the sincerity of the Chinese, their actual de-
struction of the opium which they have seized!—as if
that were an act not perfectly reconcileable with the
explanation above given of the real motives which are
actuating them.

And then it is said, these opium-merchants are mere
Smugglers. What is meant by smugglers ? Do we
venture to call them smugglers—we, who know of and
sanction their trade, and reap the large profits derived
from it ? Who are these smugglers ? Are they not some
of our most eminent British merchants—men whose
names would command respect and confidence in Great

Opium Crisis, p. 14,(fto£e.)


78

Britain—in India—in short, in every quarter of the
world where commercial enterprise, honour, and good
faith are known or appreciated ? Whose word would
pass good for untold thousands; who would spurn
the suggestion of meanness or dishonour, equally in
the minutest or the greatest transactions? Men
openly, in the face of day, carrying on this trade
(which enriches their country far more than them-
selves), under the protection of their country’s flag ?
Among them are men, till lately resident at Canton,
where they dispensed the most munificent charities
among the poor Chinese who were left by their rich
fellow-countrymen to perish in the very streets of
Canton.* Are these the men who, when millions are
at stake, are to be branded with an ignominious
name, and their pretensions scouted as equally
audacious and groundless ? And what is the process
of this smuggling ? Every one in the slightest degree
acquainted practically with the matter, knows how
utterly absurd is such a charge. Had this opium
been seized while its owners were in the act of really
smuggling it into China, it is conceived that they
might have had no just ground of complaint. But
what are the facts ? The opium is paid for, and an
order on Macao given by the agent at Canton for its
delivery. This order is presented by a China-man,
on board the opium-receiving ship, outside the port of
Canton; the property examined ; weighed ; bagged,
&c. on board, by the Chinese, and taken away in their

* Whole cargoes of rice have been brought to Canton by these
merchants, solely for the benevolent purpose above mentioned.


79

own boats ; which boats have been latterly under the
order of the Viceroy of Canton, and positively carry
his flag, as the badge of his protection, while convey-
ing this ‘ smuggled’ article from the foreign ships !
—In short, Captain Elliot indignantly and truly, and
not with less truth than indignation, as doubtless
he will in due time be able to prove, reminded the
Chinese, in one of his recent official documents, “that
“ the traffic in opium has been chiefly encouraged and
“ protected by the highest officers in the Empire ;
“ and that no portion of the foreign trade in China
“ has paid its fees to the officers with so much punc-
tuality as this of opium.” Is it, indeed, possible to
believe that during the forty-three years’ importation
of this drug into China, attended, as alleged, with
such important consequences to that people, both in
respect of their precious silver, and the health and
morals of their people, the Chinese Government could
have failed to be aware of the fact—that they did not,
in fact, wink at and indirectly sanction it ? The very
circumstance already alluded to, of the conflicting
opinions submitted to the Emperor by the eminent
Chinese authorities in 1836, and his formal acknow-
ledgment of the existence of such conflicting opinions
on so all-important a subject—his merely entertaining
the idea of legalizing so destructive a trade as it is re-
presented to have been—implies that it had long been
a subject of inquiry and consideration ; fixes them with
a knowledge of it, and warrants us in believing that
no serious objection ever was or would have been enter-
tained to it, could they have contrived only to place it
upon the basis they wished. It is indeed palpable


80

that, under all these circumstances, the prohibitory
laws of the Chinese had virtually become a dead letter,
and were regarded as such by the highest in authority,
of whose views and opinions the foreign dealers could
acquire any idea.

Duke. “We have strict statutes and most biting laws
(The needful bits and curbs of headstrong steeds),
Which for these fourteen years we have let sleep ;
Even like an o’ergrown lion in a cave,
That goes not out to prey—

— So our decrees

Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead.

Friar. It rested in your Grace

To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas’d—

Duke. Sith ’twas my fault to give the people scope,
’Twould be my tyranny to strike, and gall them
For what 1 bid them do: for we bid this be done,
When evil deeds have their permissive pass,
And not the punishment.”*

What means, indeed, were the foreign dealers in this
article allowed of knowing what was the real state of
things at Pekin—at the Emperor’s court ? They have
ever been restricted to Canton, almost the southernmost
extremity of the Empire, fifteen hundred miles from
the capital. They have never been allowed any com-
munication with the Emperor or his ministers, not
even by petition; being prohibited from holding com-
munication with any one but the Hong merchants and
linguists. They cannot approach the Viceroy, or the
collector of customs, except by petition. When in the
season of 1820, they were, by the then Viceroy and the
collector of customs, ordered away from Whampoa,

* Measure for Measure, Act I. Scene 4.


81

the senior Hong merchant waited on the consignees of
the opium, and informed them that if the vessels
obeyed the order by moving to Lintin, in the outer
waters, they might there remain unmolested—there,
where they were, in point of fact, as fully and directly
under the cognizance of the Government, as if they
had remained at Canton. During the reign of the
present Viceroy (Tang), the opium vessels have
moved again and again from one anchorage to
another, at the request of the Hong merchants,
who constantly declared that such was the wish
of the Viceroy. As in the year 1820, the authorities
contented themselves with prohibiting the coming of
the opium ships into the Port of Canton, those ships
never have since done so—and the opium merchants
were warranted in believing, as they certainly did
believe, that, under these circumstances, the prohibi-
tion extended only to the actual importation into
China, and was not broken by adopting the method
above-mentioned. There might be substantial reasons
for prohibiting the ships from coming to Canton,
and yet permitting them to remain at Lintin. Now,
is it fair to say, in the face of facts such as these,
that the trade in opium has been all along a smug-
gling trade ? But, it is said, the trade has been,
ever since 1796, carried on solely through the pro-
fligate connivance of the remote officials of the
Chinese empire, disobeying the injunctions of their
own Government — “a weak Government, clog-
ged with a corrupt administration and is it not
monstrous to found upon this, the right to carry
on this trade as a proper and lawful trade, and

G


82

deny the Chinese Government the right to repu-
diate it, and vindicate in any manner they think
fit their outraged laws ?—Would not, on this prin •
ci pie, the fraud and corruption of our own coast-
guard service, warrant French smugglers in bringing
their brandy to this country, in spite of our revenue
laws ? But, it is submitted, that, however plausible,
at first sight, may appear this mode of dealing with
the question, there is no parallel between the cases.
The distinction has been drawn with strength and
clearness, in a weekly journal.* “ Because we our-
selves severely punish breaches of our own fiscal
laws, in conformity to municipal and national law,
the Chinese, it is alleged by some reasoners, may
set all law at defiance in their punishments, because
their Government wants the energy and virtue to
punish in conformity, even, with its own laws.
This is only extravagant and absurd—When we
wink at the smuggling of brandy for forty-three years,
and when the highest officers of our Government,
from the first Lord of the Treasury to the Lord
Lieutenants of counties, take regular fees on every
cask of smuggled brandy, and are, moreover, the
greatest consumers of the smuggled article; and
when, on a sudden freak we turn about, and place
under arrest—denying them fire, water, and bread,
until they come to any terms we think proper to
dictate to them,— the French ambassador, with his
suite, together with every French merchant in our
country, whether suspected or innocent, that we can

* The Examiner, Nov. 17, 1839.


83

lay our hands on ; then, and not till then, will the
two cases admit of fair comparison.” Suppose that,
for a long series of years, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
had permitted the introduction, in immense quantities,
of foreign spirits into Ireland—had even at length sent
the boats conveying this spirit under his own order, and
carrying the British flag—had known that not far from
the Irish coast were constantly moored French vessels,
freighted with this spirit,—that a very large tribute
or duty had been exacted from these ships for the im-
portation of this brandy;* and-that all these circum-
stances had led the owners of these vessels, and of
the foreign spirits, to invest a vast capital in the
trade; and that the trade had become an object of
national importance to the French;—and the British
Government then should suddenly turn round, and
act as the Chinese have acted: how long would
France have delayed a declaration of war against us ?

So much then, for the unwarrantable and most
injurious charge, that the owners of this opium—
the merchants engaged in this great branch of the
China trade,—were ‘ smuggling’ this opium into the
dominions of the Emperor of China.

As to the fatally-fascinating qualities of this drug,
a vast deal has been said, that is, it is suspected, based
upon gross exaggeration ; and it may not be impos-

* The best informed Chinese, in and about Canton, were in the
habit of stating, that the Viceroy's military secretary received 13,000
taels per month, (i. e. about .£3,800) from the commander of each
boat; and it is notorious, that the Chinese dealers in opium, paid to
the authorities from 60 to 80 dollars per chest, for permission to carry
on their trade.

G 2


84

sible to detect one subtle, and perhaps, unsuspected
source of prejudice against every one concerned in
the supply of it. Ever since the year (1820), when
Mr. De Quincy published his remarkable “ Confes-
sions of an English Opium Eater,”—a work which
produced a thrilling sensation all over the country,
owing to the extraordinary nature of its details—to
the wild, dazzling, but often dismal splendour of his
dreams ; his unearthly ecstacies , the fearful mental
re-action and physical agonies which he endured; all
of which were described in a style enriched with
evident fruits of universal scholarship—in a strain,
too, of very great power and pathos—Opium has been
invested with a mysterious kind of interest and awe,
producing an impression long retained by minds suf-
fused with the recollection of that extraordinary per-
formance. By such persons almost any thing evil
will now be received against opium; nothing can be
said in too great disparagement of so potent and
deadly a drug. When, in addition to this, persons
of excitable fancy are presented with frightful pic-
tures of—as it were—two millions of De Quincys
created in China, by the opium merchants, and
represented in stages of suffering, and frequency
of death, infinitely transcending all that has been
described by that accurate and minute observer, and
faithful narrator of his own sensations and sufferings ;
(and who, moreover, took opium to an extent—
namely, eight thousand drops of laudanum a-day,
equal to three hundred and twenty grains of opium *

* Confessions of an English Opium Eater, p. 128. (Ed. of

1823). Mr. De Quincy, (who, the author is happy to say, gives the


85

utterly beyond the reach of any but the richer Chinese/,
the very mention of those who are accessary to so fearful
an infliction of alleged suffering, excites feelings of
indignation and aversion. It is worth considering,
whether this will not in some measure account for the
degree of intemperate eagerness with which a decision,
hostile to the claims now under consideration, is in seve-
ral quarters clamoured for, and indicate the presence of
a disturbing force, which ought to be got rid of. The ob-
servation above made, as to the extent to which Mr. De
Quincy took opium, leads one to hope and to believe, that
we have received very greatly exaggerated accounts as
to the effects of opium upon the Chinese, in respect both
of extent and intensity. That opium possesses the
most inestimable medicinal qualities, all allow; and
like every thing else, it may be abused, its uses per-
verted. The twenty or thirty thousand chests of
opium which we distribute among three hundred and
seventy millions of Chinese, surely produce scarcely a
greater amount of physical suffering, and of immora-
lity, than the ardent spirits sold openly and without
complaint in all parts of our own virtuous and happy
country, which derives from them so very large a
revenue. If an inquisitive Chinese were to make his
appearance here, and to be taken immediately from gin
palace to gin palace, those frightful structures, round
and within which are to be seen the pallid spectral vic-
tims of intemperance, which make one shudder as one

public frequent proof of his being still alive, and in the full vigour
of an extraordinary intellect,) assured him that this statement was
literally true.


86

passes them with quickly-averted eye ; and told to go
home to China, and thence alone report to his country-
men concerning the virtue and morality of Great Bri-
tain, enriching herself by a revenue derived from such
an execrable source; this would be probably as candid
a mode of procedure, as to fill page after page of works
professing to give us a general account of China, with
revolting pictures of opium smoking-shops, and the
scenes to which they give rise. Who can advocate
the one and repudiate the other ?

Always protesting that these topics have no real
connection with the question under consideration,
however commonly they are mixed up with it, enough
has been stated, it is hoped, to induce the candid reader
to pause before yielding his assent to the representa-
tions alluded to; and to acknowledge that they are quite
foreign to the real point in issue. He is respectfully
solicited to hesitate, before he arrives at the conclu-
sion which some have so hastily and confidently stated,
that it is this opium trade which has interposed an in-
surmountable barrier to that consummation devoutly
to be wished—the introduction of Christianity into
China. Even were it to be granted that the attempt
made in the foregoing pages to assign the real cause of
the furious opposition of the Chinese authorities to
the introduction of opium into the country, has been
unsuccessful; it is thought that those who have ac-
quired the best knowledge of the character and history
of this most extraordinary people, can assign other
and deeper, and more permanent sources of obstruc-
tion to the propagation of Christianity in that quarter
—and which would continue to exist even were the


87

trade in opium—which it assuredly never will—to be
already extirpated from China.—This, however, would
lead to a discussion of matters beyond the scope of the
present pamphlet.

Again it is urged upon the reader—Admitting,
even, all that is alleged by the conscientious class of
objectors to whom the preceding observations have been
addressed, to be true; that the cultivation of the poppy
in India is quite indefensible and the malignant root of
wide-spreading mischief; that the trade in opium is
clearly contraband ; that the Emperor of China is
sincere in his moral and humane objections to it; that
it is really working all the evils alleged; that the right
to carry on the trade rests on the untenable ground of
corruption and treachery at the mere outskirts of the
empire : what have all these, or any of these matters,
to do with the present question ? Nothing whatever.
The Chinese are no parties whatever to this transac-
tion, and ought not—nor ought any consideration con-
nected with them—to be introduced into it. The only
parties are—the British Opium Merchants, the Chief
Superintendent of the British Trade in China, and
the British Government. The topics discussed in
the last few pages might perhaps have some bearing
upon a question as to the liability of the Chinese for
their recent conduct towards British subjects—or as
to their right to vindicate their own laws, and punish,
even to the death, those who wilfully violate them; but
how can they avail to prove that the holders of Captain
Elliot’s certificates have no right to look to the British
nation to honour them ?

It is undoubtedly difficult to say that there exists a


88

strict legal claim on the part of the holders of these
certificates, against the Government—that is, a claim
which can be enforced by legal process—either by
Action, Petition of right, or Mandamus. Of course
there is no pretence for attaching any legal liability to
Captain Elliot—on the plain principle of law, that
where an agent names his principal, the party to whom
such principal is named, deals with such principal,
not with the agent. But there is still another ground
on which he stands exempted from liability—on con-
siderations of general policy—that an officer appointed
by Government, treating as an agent for the public,
is not personally liable to be sued upon contracts made
by him in that capacity—“ for no man would accept
of any office of trust under Government upon such
conditions.” This was decided in the case of Mac-
beath v. Haldimand, 1 Term Reports, 172. There
the Governor of Quebec was sought to be sued for
services performed by a person whom the Governor,
in his official capacity, had employed as an agent.*
The judge, (Mr. Justice Buller) told the jury, at the
trial, on their asking him for information, that he was
of opinion, that if the plaintiff’s demand were just,
his proper remedy was by a petition of right to the
Crown—on which they found a verdict for the de-
fendant ; and a new trial was moved for, on the

* Again, in Unwin v. Wolseley, 1 Term Rep. 674, it was held that
a servant of the Crown, contracting even by deed, on accoimt of
Government, is not personally answerable ; and in Gidley v. Lord
Palmerston, 3 Brod. & B. 275, the principle in question was carried
to a great extent ; and the rule there laid done has been considered ever
since as the settled law of the land.


89

ground that the plaintiff had no remedy against the
Crown by a petition of right—on the supposition of
which the jury had been induced to give their verdict.

Lord Mansfield said that the “ Court did not feel
“ it necessary for them to give any opinion on that
“ ground.

“ That a great difference had arisen since the
“ Revolution, with reference to the expenditure of
“ the public money. Before that period, all the
“ public supplies were given to the King, who in his
“ individual capacity contracted for all expenses. He
“ alone had the disposition of the public money. But
“ since the Revolution, the supplies have been appro-
“ priated by Parliament to particular purposes; and
“ now, whoever advances money for the public service,
“ trusts to the faith of Parliament.

“ That according to the tenor of Lord Somers’ Ar-
“ gument in the Banker's case (11 State Trials, 159),
“ though a Petition of Right would lie, yet it would
“ probably produce no effect. No benefit was ever
“ derived from it in the Banker’s case ; and Parlia-
“ ment was afterwards obliged to provide a particular
“ fund towards the payment of those debts. Whether,
“ however, this alteration in the mode of distributing
“ the supplies had made any difference in the law
“ upon this subject, it was unnecessary to determine;
“ at any rate, if there were a recovery against the
“ Crown, application must be made to Parliament,
“ and it would come under the head of ‘ supplies' for
“ the year.”

From the above it may be inferred, that in the
present case, no action can be maintained by the


90

holders of these dishonoured “ certificates,” either
against Captain Elliot, or those whom he assumed to
represent, and bind, viz. Her Majesty’s Government.
In fact, as already stated, it is difficult to see what
legal proceedings could be adopted, either by Action,
or by Petition of Right, or by Mandamus to the Lords
of the Treasury.*

But what signifies the absence of a strict legal lia-
bility on the part of Government, or of means on the
part of these claimants to enforce their demands, to
the broad merits of the case, as already set forth?
Who will deny the moral strength of their claims
upon the Government ? Suppose Captain Elliot to
have gone never so far beyond both the letter and
spirit of his instructions ; how were these parties to
know it ? Even if they had had the strongest sus-
picion that such was the case, who would have ad-
vised them to act upon such suspicions, and incur the
dreadful responsibility of disobeying the Injunctions
and Requisitions of Her Majesty’s Superintendent ?
Look at the whole circumstances of the case, as al-
ready brought before the reader; the unprecedented
perplexity and peril in which these parties were

* To ground a successful application for a Mandamus, “ there must
be, in all cases, a specific legal right, as well as the want of a specific
legal remedy,” (Per Lord Ellenborough, C. J., in The King v. The
Archbishop of Canterbury, 8 East, 219.) See the late cases of
Rex v. The Lords of the Treasury, in Re Smyth, 4 Adol. and Ell.
286, ib. 976; Rex v. Same, (in Re Hand') ib. 984; exp. Ricketts.
ib. 999, as to the principles which regulate the court in granting or
refusing application of this kind against the Lords of the Treasury, or
of the Admiralty, &c.


91

placed ; their prompt and loyal obedience to what they
justly regarded as the authority of their Sovereign ;
(or in the other point of view,) their bold reliance on
the honour of their country’s Government—on its
determination to vindicate its outraged honour and
dignity; the fearful sacrifice of human life—the lives
of our countrymen—which they prevented by yielding
obedience to the call of the Chief Superintendent:—
who, considering all this, will say to them, “ You
did wrong, nevertheless; you should have kept
your opium” ? The validity of these claims is fully
recognised by one who publicly and vehemently repu-
diates and execrates the trade which these claimants
were carrying on—namely, the American author of
the “ Opium Crisis,”—and whose admissions, there-
fore, on this point, both in respect of his position, and
his professions, may be worth citing.

“ A broad and generous equity would suggest that
“ an interest in the creation of the trade—a sanction
“ lent to it—incur a share of the responsibility. If
“ this inference be a valid one, the suffering merchants
“ have a lien on two great sureties—the East India
“ Company, and the British nation.’’*

“ To place the importers from the other side of
“ India on a like footing, we must recur to the other
“ great party to the traffic—the British nation. A
“ few words will suffice to shew that both Parliament
“ and society at large have been at fault, and that the
“ immediate (in some cases accidental) sufferers have
“ a lien on them— a claim not in right, but in equity.”

* “ Opium Crisis,” p. 54.


92

“ Let the forced surrenderors of opium throw them-
“ selves on the equity of their country, claiming its
“ sympathy with their losses, because it was party to
“ the tenure of the property while held, and to its
“ relinquishment when sacrificed.

“ It is not possible to give higher proof,” than is
afforded by an instance which he cites, “that the
“ opium trade has been patronised by the country.
“ Its magnanimity binds it to acknowledgment,
“ its generosity to sympathy and reparation. Let
“ the Administration respect the pledge of their active
“ and faithful servant, given, doubtless, in accordance
“ with the spirit of his private instructions.”*

Such is the language of one declaring that “ he has
no personal interest in the reliefan American mer-
chant, thoroughly well acquainted with the case,
doubtless conscientiously opposed to the trade itself, and
whose publication on the subject has been hailed by the
opponents of this trade in England as a high authority.

As far as grounds of moral obligation are con-
cerned, it may be asked, why did Parliament choose
to grant twenty millions in compensation to slave-
holders, who were chargeable with far more guilt
and cruelty than can by any possibility be charged
upon those now claiming compensation in respect of
their surrendered opium ? Admitting those who deal
in opium to be guilty of as grievous a sin against the
law of nature—of morality, as those were who traf-
ficked in slaves, what right has the one to compensa-
tion that the other has not ? The claim for upwards

Opium Crisis, pp. 59—62.


93

of two millions for the surrenderers of the opium rests,
it is repeated, on grounds of moral obligation, as strong
and solid as those rested on by the claimants (and re-
ceivers) of twenty millions for their slaves ; namely,
both were based on the country’s guilty participation
in the crime, and in its advantages ; in both we had
sanctioned the conduct we at length are alleged to
condemn; in both the country promised compensation,
on compliance with certain conditions proposed—
namely, the surrender of the opium, the emancipation
of the slaves, In the latter case, undoubtedly, the
legislature formally entered into the contract in ex-
press terms; and the strength of the present case is,
that the legislature has substantially done the same
through the intervention of a lawfully-constituted agent
of this country, the Chief Superintendent: he made
the promise, on the faith of which these opium-owners
made the sacrifice in question ; why should the nation
draw back ? Equity takes everything to be done,
which ought to have been done—which was contracted
to have been done. “ The only difference,” said the
late Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, Lord
Tenterden, “ between an express and an implied con-
tract, is in the mode of substantiating it. An ex-
press contract is proved by an actual agreement; an
implied contract by circumstances, and the general
course of dealing between the parties ; but whenever
a contract is once proved, the consequences resulting
from the breach of it must be the same, whether it be
proved by direct or circumstantial evidence.”* Such

* lVIarzetti v. Williams, 1 Barn, and Adol. 423.


94

is the nature of the contract between this country
and the slave-holders, which is proved by the Act of
Parliament; such the contract between this country
and the opium surrenderors, which is proved by the
circumstances and facts of the case so repeatedly set
forth in the ensuing pages; and the same consequences
ought to follow. Even supposing the cases not to be
precisely parallel, there is undoubtedly the strongest
analogy between them.

Should Parliament, unhappily, not think fit to enter-
tain, and that promptly, the claims now under consider-
ation, and provide a fund for the reimbursement of the
amount of this opium, the consequences both immediate
and remote, both at home and abroad, will be really
most alarming. One-half of these 20,283 chests of
opium (amounting to 5,000,000 dollars) is owned at
Bombay. “ Already there,” said the Bombay Cham-
ber of Commerce (3d June, 1839), “has the want of
the usual returns produced a great scarcity of cash,
which checks the purchase of many of the imports of
British goods, seriously affects credit, and casts a gene-
ral gloom over the trade of the port. The longer some
settlement of the claims preferred is delayed, or a
declaration of what the British Government really
intend to do in regard to them, is withheld from the
public, the evils we now suffer under will be prolonged
in proportion, and be so much the more aggravated.”
“The case,” says the author of the ‘ Opium Crisis,’
“ is one of wide calamity ; and owing to the complexity
of commercial arrangements in our time,—our ad-
vances, exchanges, &c., the loss, if left as it has fallen,
involves many entirely innocent parties.” In truth it is


95

so. How many extensive mercantile engagements in
this country will be deranged and credit shaken?
Again, ‘ beyond the quantity actually surrendered,
there are some 80,000 chests of the drug in existence
— namely, a considerable portion of the produce of
1858, and the whole crop of 1839, just gathered.
What is to become of that ? And of the crop pre-
paring for 1840 ?’

Consider the case of the native merchants, who are
so deeply interested in this most important question,
and are awaiting, in agitating suspense, the announce-
ment of the determination of Parliament. They have
always hitherto trusted implicitly to the good faith, the
liberality, the protection of the British Government—
relied upon it with unwavering steadfastness. Are
they now to be suddenly deserted in this their hour of
danger ? To be precipitated, many of them, into irre-
trievable distress and even ruin ? If so, all confidenc e
will be at an end—that confidence which is the very
main-spring of the vast and complicated machinery
which has raised our Eastern commerce to its present
imposing eminence, and essential welfare to Great
Britain. ‘ We hold India by opinion’ said the greatest
authority that could speak on the subject, Warren
Hastings: will not that tenure be loosened and de-
stroyed if the British Government, in a matter of such
magnitude as the present, shut its ear to the voice of
justice and of honour ? Let that confidence be once
thoroughly shaken, as it will, should Government take
the course now deprecated, and how is it to be re-
paired or replaced? Dissatisfaction will spread far
and wide, both at our conduct in this particular mat-


96

ter, and our whole system of Eastern government.
The disastrous consequences, especially in the present
state of Indian affairs, who cannot foresee—who would
not strain every nerve to avert ?

It is fit that their own view of the case should be
laid before the country. “ Every one engaged in
trade at the different provinces,” they say, in their
Memorial to the Governor-General of India, “is more
or less mixed up with the opium trade, from the mag-
nitude of the capital required in it. The direct ship-
per of the drug must lose immensely, and must then
find the greatest difficulty in repaying the party
through whose funds, lent to him, he was enabled to
trade, who again will claim from others, engaged in
other branches of trade, the money he may have lent
to them, and so on will general distress and discredit
for the time thus prevail, to the great injury of all
individually, and of commerce generally, as well as of
the Government who benefit by its prosperity.

“ All these evils would be greatly increased to this
country by the British Government delaying to declare
the course they mean to pursue, and be still more
aggravated by a reluctance to fulfil the guarantee of
H.M. Chief Superintendent, which from the confidence
we have been ever made to place in the British Govern-
ment, for the honour and justice and liberal benefi-
cence to those under its protection which have ever
distinguished it, we, however, never can believe pos-
sible, as all faith would then be for ever destroyed, or
much weakened, in the acts of those whom the British
Government appoints to high and important trusts in
this country, and every where else.