therefrom rising after half a dozen more seasons to a million sterling, one-thirteenth part of the total net revenue of British India.

emperors and the western Europe of representatives of the Company at CalCharlemagne.* It was when the modern cutta still withheld their ships, but European first of all, the Portuguese vigorously pushed the trade, their profits carried his wares and his manners to Canton, that the Chinese people began to shrink within their shell. In 1773 the first slight beginnings of the British opium trade find record. Seven years later the East India Company established a depot near Macao on the estuary of the Canton River; and in 1781 Warren Hastings sent sixteen hundred chests of opium thither but the speculation proved anything but remunerative. In 1785 the East India Company began selling the opium monopoly, which they had previously bestowed on favorites. In 1795 the Company took the important step of abolishing individual monopolists altogether, and themselves became the sole culti-mously. No longer content to reap the vators and sellers of opium in British India.

The directors in Leadenhall Street were not quite easy always about the part they were playing, and in 1817 they wrote to Calcutta that, could they completely abolish the consumption of opium, they "would gladly do it in compassion for mankind." Yet they certainly made no great efforts in that direction, but continued to pocket the growing proceeds of the splendid and lucrative monopoly. Indeed, they permitted their servants in India to extend their operations enor

crops which flowered on soil in British keeping, they cast greedy eyes on the The net opium revenues of India had white fields of the native princes of cennow touched £200,000 in one year, though tral India. From 1818 to 1830 they com the fluctuation was enormous, and the pelled those princes to grant to them the government of China saw that it had to exclusive right to buy and sell this native face a great and growing evil in the temp- opium also, and in the latter year they tation and demoralization of its people. commuted this monopoly to a pass-duty Accordingly, in 1799, the emperor Kien- exacted on every chest passing through lung issued the most vigorous decrees British territory; and through British forbidding the importation of the drug, territory alone could this Malwa produce and denouncing transportation—after- reach the coast. The duty, fixed first at wards changed to death by strangling one hundred and seventy-five rupees a against all who should be guilty of opium- chest, was raised by degrees to the huge smoking. In the following year this sum of seven hundred rupees; and it has action was followed up by the proclama- now, we believe, under the direct impetion of such serious penalties on smug-rial government, long stood at six hungling, that the "supercargo," who repre- dred rupees, or £60. At the present sented the Company in Chinese waters, time about forty per cent. of our total actually urged on that body the total opium revenue is exacted from the nativestoppage of the trade, and for a time the grown Malwa drug. Company desisted at least from employing their own craft in the traffic. But still the evil grew. Some years later the Chinese governor of Canton required the hong merchants a native guild — who alone could lawfully trade with the Europeans, to give bonds for every ship arriving, certifying her free from opium. The

* See Rémusat, Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques, I., 69; Pauthier, Relations Politiques de la Chine avec les Puissances Occidentales, 5-24; Laffitte, De la Civilisation Chinoise, 134; Le Marquis d'Hervey St. Denys, La Chine devant l'Europe.

In 1821 the governor of Canton again threw himself with the utmost earnestness into the cause of suppression. He proclaimed the English, the Portuguese, and the Americans responsible for the baneful and illegal trade. Of these the Americans alone had some excuse, since they, he declared, had no king to teach them what was right.

But we approach the time when at last China sought, by some sterner means than mere remonstrance, to clear her shores of the foreign smugglers who

3

swarmed with their pernicious wares upon | with full powers as imperial commis-
her coast.
sioner. On the 10th of March, 1839, he
wrought a deed pregnant in consequences
as the casting of the tea into the waters
from the wharves of Boston. Every
remonstrance, every negotiation, every
threat had proved in vain. Lin seized
more than twenty thousand chests of
opium, worth a hundred pounds the chest,
and cast their contents into the Canton
River. He held the merchants for sev-
eral days confined within the limits of
their factories. He extorted from the
majority of them a bond never again to
attempt to introduce opium into the Chi-
nese Empire. He proclaimed all trade
with the British nation at an end.

necessary in its introduction on the coast | the English crown. The Treaty of Tienof China. Our merchants maintained a tsin, originally signed on June 26, 1858, fleet of vessels defensively and offensively was not ratified till October 24, 1860, the equipped for the service. Hong Kong Chinese having meanwhile renewed hosbecame a most convenient base for the tilities, which we avenged by the march operations of the invaders; and the upon Pekin, and the sacking and looting Chinese associated with this and kindred of the Summer Palace. enterprises found there a congenial home. Armed and open smuggling finds in piracy an industry not wholly alien to itself. The authorities of Hong Kong could not nicely distinguish the allied enterprises of the crews that left their convenient harbor. A system sprang up, at once having an appearance of orderliness and bringing in revenue to the colonial exchequer, by which Chinese-owned boats could take an annual license from the Hong Kong government, and while in its enjoyment hoist the British flag should the river-police or the revenue cruisers of the Chinese press too closely upon their

sterns.

By that treaty we established an ambassador at Pekin; we compelled the opening of five more seaports, and of the great Yang-tze River; we set up the system of "exterritoriality next to opium the sorest point to this day in our relations with China, making the English consul and English law the judge and the code by which to try cases of dispute between the Englishman and the Chinaman in China; † we fined Canton four million dollars; we adjusted the internal transit duties of China, so far as they concerned our merchandise, to our own ideas; and we extorted the legalization of the introduction of our opium at a fixed duty, in The lorcha "Arrow" was in the enjoy- no case exceeding ten per cent. Having ment of this privilege. Her term of got these terms, we forebore from more. license had, indeed, run out some eleven" We came to the conclusion," said Lord days since. But her master, an Englishman, and his Chinese crew, were not particular to a week or two, and on the 8th of October, 1856, she was still flying English colors in the Canton River. She had, however, for some time been "wanted" by the native authorities, and on that day she was boarded by order of Commissioner Yeh. Whether the British flag which covered her piracy, and which by Hong Kong rules themselves she had ceased to have any claims to fly, was actually hauled down by her assailants is matter of dispute: but the twelve native seamen were arrested. Nine of them, not implicated in piracy, were liberated at once on the demand of the English consul; the other three, pirates by their own confession, were also restored on further pressure from Sir John Bowring, governor of Hong Kong. But neither the apology nor the reparation which Sir John asked of Commissioner Yeh being forthcoming, our second great Chinese war was the swift and terrible result.*

Once more hopelessly defeated, China had to listen to our conditions of peace in 1858, the same year in which the direct government of British India was transferred from the discredited Company to

The incident of the "Arrow" cannot, indeed, be supposed to have been anything more than the convenient occasion of our second war. On February 12, 1857, there was presented to the House of Lords a ponderous blue-book of 228 pages, under the title of 76 Insults in China." This was a convenient repertory of casus belli for use when wanted.

Elgin, our plenipotentiary, "that on practical grounds, and apart from certain considerations of morality and justice, which might, perhaps, be urged on behalf of the Chinese government, it would be unwise to drive it to despair, and, perhaps, to extreme measures of resistance."

For the moment the opposition of Pekin to the now recognized and legalized traffic was silenced. But the Chinese ministers watched their opportunity for renewed remonstrance. The negotiations of 1869, for the revision of the Treaty of Tien-tsin, presented the occasion sought. In July of that year the Tsungli Yamen (Foreign Office) addressed to Sir R. Alcock the most urgent petition for the abandonment of the trade. They referred to the deep resentment with which it filled the minds of the people generally:

The Chinese merchant supplies your country with his goodly tea and silk, conferring thereby a benefit upon her; but the English merchant empoisons China with pestilent opium. Such conduct is unrighteous. Who can justify it? What wonder if officials and people say that England is wilfully working out China's ruin, and has no real friendly feeling for her? The wealth and generosity of England is spoken of

Such is the common English account of the matter; but Mr. Bruce's attempt to force the Peiho River, which resulted in his repulse by the garrison of the Takoo forts, may fairly be considered as an act of aggression on our part.

† See the valuable discussion on exterritoriality in Mr. Hart's Memorandum, in the blue-book on China, No. 3, 1877 (Further Correspondence on the Murder of Mr. Margary), p. 19.

by all; she is anxious to prevent and anticipate | settlement of diplomatic etiquette, a all injury to her commercial interest. How is stricter enforcement of the commercial it, then, she can hesitate to remove an ac- clauses of the Treaty of Tien-tsin. By knowledged evil? Indeed, it cannot be that degrees he dropped all demands but that England still holds to this evil business, earn for a searching investigation of the Yuning the hatred of the officials and people of China, and making herself a reproach among nan outrage, with English assessors at the nations, because she would lose a little the trial. The trial was held, but no one revenue were she to forfeit the cultivation of could pretend to think that the guilty had the poppy! been condemned, or that justice had been done. Fresh negotiations, threats, pro

last Sir T. Wade, with plenipotentiary powers, met the grand commissioner, Li Hung Chang, who was endowed with like powers by his own government, at Chefoo. On September 13, 1876, the two ministers signed the Chefoo Convention.

This petition was ignored, but the Con-posals, counter-proposals succeeded. At vention, which Sir Rutherford at last agreed to, proposed so far to second the views of the Chinese as to permit China to raise the import duty on opium from thirty to fifty taels per chest, that is, from one-sixth to about one-fourth of the rate at which the Indian government, for its own profit, charges the Malwa crop before it sails for China at all. The Convention, however, roused the fierce opposition of the British Chambers of Commerce, and was never ratified. China remained bound as before. The Calcutta authorities, indeed, were little likely to listen to the entreaties of the mandarins, seeing that the Hon. J. Strachey had, on the previous 20th of April, on behalf of his government, drawn up a minute to the effect that "immediate measures of the most energetic character ought to be taken, with the object of increasing the production of opium.'

Early in 1875 the Indian government despatched a small and peaceful expedition through Burmah into the southwestern province of Yunnan, to explore and report on possible routes for inland trade. The commodity of which that trade would principally consist it is not difficult to conjecture. Passports were obtained from the Tsungli Yamen by Mr. Wade, but no very precise explanation of the purpose of the expedition was given at Pekin. Mr. Margary, an able and gallant young officer, was despatched, through China, to meet and assist the visitors. He reached them safely, but having again separated from them, he was attacked and murdered at Manwyne, near the Burmese border; and Colonel Browne himself was immediately afterwards driven back into Burmah, by troops that appeared to be Chinese.

So opens the last chapter in the story of our opium dealings and its consequences. For a year and a half Mr. Wade (now Sir Thomas) pressed the Chinese government for reparation. He took advantage of this new catastrophe to demand the pecuniary settlement of outstanding and disputed accounts, a re

That Convention comprised articles under four heads: the settlement of the Yunnan case; terms of intercourse between Chinese and British officers; conditions of trade; and the despatch of a British mission of exploration through certain provinces of China. These articles were, for the most part, concessions to England. They comprehended the opening of various new ports to British trade, and license to steamers to touch at various towns on the Great River; the publication of proclamations throughout the empire, calling upon the people to protect all foreigners travelling with passports; the payment of two hundred thousand taels to Great Britain; and so forth. On the other hand, Sir T. Wade agreed that those internal duties upon opium (called likin) which passed it from province to province within the empire, and which had hitherto been constantly evaded, should be collectable in one sum by the Chinese government at the port of import. The merchant was to deposit his opium in bond until opportunity of sale occurred, when he himself should pay the tariff duty, and the purchaser should pay the whole likin. Further, Sir Thomas agreed that drawback should not be allowed on re-exported British goods after a term of three years from their original importation, and that the boundaries of the treaty ports should be exactly defined. It was stipulated further that while the opening of the ports, and so forth, should be carried out within six months, the British concessions concerning likin should come into force "as soon as the British government has arrived at an understanding on the subject with other foreign governments."

Sir T. Wade and Li Hung Chang signed this Convention on September 13, 1876. On September 17, an imperial

decree was promulgated at Pekin, "Let of any comment which we have hitherto effect be given to what has been pro- permitted ourselves to make. Yet we posed." That is, the Chinese ratification conceive that the impression produced was given in just four days. Within six will not redound to the glory of Enmonths the ports were open, the fine gland.*

was paid, the proclamation. was posted It is not possible in the few pages throughout the towns and cities of the which remain at our disposal to adduce empire: that is, the Chinese punctually all the facts which should deepen that fulfilled every article of the Convention. impression to one of indignant pain, or to Four years have passed away, and the disprove the sundry allegations which Convention remains unratified on our side. are made in mitigation of judgment. Again and again ministers have been Opium by English law is a poison, and pressed in both Houses of Parliament; may only be sold under the regulations but no explanation is forthcoming of this for poisons. Such is the all-sufficient extraordinary delay in the formal sanction reply to those who urge that it is parallel of a plenipotentiary's act. Lord Salis- to ardent spirits. It is still as illegal as bury, indeed, naïvely informed a deputa- ever to consume it in China, although we tion that the ratification of the opium have compelled its legalization as an imclauses would have the effect of rendering port. It is also illegal to grow it. But smuggling impossible precisely what our action has paralyzed the imperial we should have supposed that honest men government, and only here and there and would most desire. It is known that the now and then is an unusually vigorous Indian government has been consulted, provincial governor able to stem the tide though its answer is concealed; and we of indulgence. There are districts toare told that fresh negotiations have been day where the majority of the men are going on in Pekin. The British Chambers opium-smokers, others where one in three of Commerce have this time memorial- have succumbed to the vice, and few, inized strongly in favor of the Convention. deed, where it has not fastened upon a But without explanation or justification large proportion of the population. Its the Foreign Office continues to prolong effects are far more deadly than those of precisely such delays as have formed again and again the text of vehement charges by Sir T. Wade against the probity of the court of Pekin; and while we are enjoying every benefit which the Chefoo agreement proposed to confer on us, the conditions on which they were granted remain withheld from China. We continue to pour our opium into her ports, well knowing that it is smuggled from province to province with impunity because we postpone our sanction of the only possible means of prevention. In 1878 we sent 72,423 peculs, or 9,656,400 pounds avoirdupois, of opium to China. Its value was 32,262,957 taels, or £10,754,319.

alcohol, not, indeed, showing themselves in violence, but reducing the victim to bankruptcy of body, mind, and soul, and where once the habit has laid hold of a man it defies him ever to throw it off.f Men sell their children and their wives to purchase the fatal pipe. The Christian missionary will not baptize an opiumsmoker.

But it is said that the Chinese government is not sincere in its desire to be. rid of the trade from which it derives so large a revenue. The Chinese revenue from opium is but a bagatelle in the sixty millions which imperial taxation yields. Clear away the official and popular cor

Sir T. Wade, himself an active agent in enforcing We have endeavored, without partisan- the will of England upon China, writes: "Nothing ship, to record undisputed facts. An that has been gained was received from the free will of the Chinese. The concessions made to us have been apology is due, perhaps, for filling our from first to last extorted against the conscience of the pages with history that is, at least in out- nation-in defiance, that is to say, of the moral conline, generally known.† If so, the excusevictions of its educated men-not merely of the officeholders, whom we call mandarins, and who are numust be that, if generally known, it is not merically but a small proportion of the educated class, generally heeded. Whatever moral im- but of the millions who are saturated with the knowl pression is left by our record, is the result edge of the history and philosophy of their country." Sir Thomas Wade writes thus: "It is to me vain of that unvarnished record itself, and not to think otherwise of the use of the drug in China than as of a habit many times more pernicious, nationally speaking, than the gin and whisky drinking which we deplore at home. It takes possession more insidiously, and keeps its hold to the full as tenaciously. I know no case of radical cure. It has insured in every case within my knowledge the steady descent, moral and physical, of the smoker."

* China, No. 3 (1877), pp. 92, seq.

We cannot refrain from recommending to the reader the essay on "England and China," by Dr. J. H. Bridges, in "International Policy." London: Chapman and Hall. 1866.