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THE
OPIUM   TRADE;
INCLUDING A
SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY,  EXTENT, EFFECTS, ETC.
AS CARRIED ON IN
INDIA  AND  CHINA.
BY
NATHAN ALLEN,  M. D.
SECOND EDITION.
IflOe
          •  LOWELL:
JAMES P. WALKER, 61 MERRIMACK STREET.
              M DCCC LIII. 
       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
                       James P.  Walker,
in the Clerk's Office of the District  Court of the District of Massachusetts.
THCRSTOS, TORRr, AND EMERSON, PRINTERS. 
NOTICE.
  The reasons for publishing a new edition of this work are these : —
  1. The former edition has been out of print for  some time, and repeated
inquiries from various quarters have  been made for the work.  Its reception
on  its  first  publication  in  1850, both  on  the part of the press  as  well as of
the public,  was far more  favorable than  the writer  anticipated.   The  present
edition is somewhat  enlarged  as well as improved,  by introducing additional
facts, and bringing down the statistics of the trade to the present time.
  2. A  new  interest upon the  subject  has lately  sprung  up from  various
causes,  and some  individuals distinguished as  statesmen and merchants have
generously offered  to aid  in the circulation  of the  work, for the purpose of
enlightening the public both at home and  abroad upon  the great evils of
the opium trade.
  3. The recent discoveries  of immense  quantities  of gold in California and
Australia, leading  to very important changes  in population and  commerce
in  those  portions  of the world,  must  have  a powerful  effect  upon  the
Chinese  nation, and  clothe with  new interest  everything affecting the wel-
fare of that great people.
  4. An application  for  the  renewal of the  charter  of the East India
Company is soon  to be  made to Parliament,  when  the  question whether
the government of Great  Britain  will continue to carry on this  iniquitous
traffic  must be  met.   In  1833, when  the charter of this company was  re-
newed for  twenty years,  and  the British  government  assumed  its entire
control in India, the Opium Question was then warmly contested by some
of the ablest  and best  men in Parliament.  Every  person  making the least
pretensions  to philanthropy  or Christianity or  even  to common  humanity,
must feel a deep interest in the result of this question.
  The  writer  is  preparing an  article  upon the  abuse  of opiates in Great
Britain  and the United States,  and  would be greatly obliged  to  merchants,
druggists or members  of  the  medical profession  who will  communicate  to
his address (Dr. Nathan Allen,  Lowell, Mass.) any  facts bearing upon this
subject. 
 
THE  OPIUM  TRADE,
AS  CARRIED ON IN INDIA AND  CHINA.
   Scarcely anything was known  respecting China till the
present century, and most of the knowledge which we  now
possess has  been obtained within the last twenty-five years.
As foreign  intercourse continues to grow more frequent and
unrestricted  with this  Empire, the world will  undoubtedly
become better and better acquainted with  its history, and the
character of its inhabitants.  The  recent settlements and great
increase of trade on our Pacific shores, will open a more direct
communication with  China, and render  whatever  concerns
that people  far more  interesting  and important to  our  own
country.  The antiquity of that  nation, tracing its history by
a  direct and connected series of events back almost to the
creation of the  world,  its  vast  extent of  territory  and re-
sources,  its  literature and its arts, its government and its
immense  population, estimated at 350,000,000, constitute ob-
jects of exceedingly great interest.  But passing by all these
topics, we propose to examine a  subject which vitally affects
the interests of this great nation, viz.,

                     THE  OPIUM  TRADE.
   The  amount of capital invested in this traffic, its present
and prospective  effects  on human happiness, involving the
welfare of nearly one half of the  race, as well as the relations
existing between the two greatest empires  in the world, render
the subject vastly important to the statesman, the  philanthro-
                  1 
                            6

pist, and the  Christian.   China expends for the single article
of opium, annually, nearly as much as the  whole amount of
the revenue of the United  States, from all sources whatever,
and a larger sum than any one nation on  the  globe pays to
another for a single raw material, with the exception of what
Great  Britain pays to this country for cotton.  The traffic is
yet comparatively new, — has grown with unparalleled rapidity,
and is  almost unknown except to  those personally concerned
in it.   And it is not for the interests of those engaged in it to
make known either the nature or the extent of  the  trade, nor
would it probably  be deemed  good policy by English travel-
ers and  residents  in south-eastern Asia to expose its  evils
before  the world.  Besides, the materials for such an exposure
are widely scattered, and difficult to obtain.

                 ANTIQUITY OF THE POPPY.
   Opium is  a production  of the plant  Papaver  Somniferum,
and commonly called, in English, Poppy.   The peculiar pro-
perties of this vegetable were  discovered at a  very early age.
Though it is not specifically mentioned by  name in the Old
Testament, yet there are  good grounds to believe that the
product  or juice of the poppy constituted  an  important ele-
ment of what is called in  Scripture "Mixed wine."   The art
of  distillation not being then known, it was customary to mix
certain drugs, and aromatic gums, with their  wines, in order
to improve their flavor, and give them' more stimulating quali-
ties.   Homer and other Greek writers, who lived in the same
century as David and Solomon, make frequent  mention of the
peculiar intoxicating  properties of the poppy.  It  was also
well known among the Romans.  Virgil,  Livy, Pliny, Ovid,
and other authors, describe it as being  used for  various pur-
poses.

           PLACES AND MODE  OF ITS  CULTIVATION.
   The poppy was originally a native of Persia, but it may
now be found  growing as an ornamental plant in gardens
throughout the civilized world.  It is cultivated somewhat ex-
tensively in Turkey, and most of the opium used for medical
purposes in Europe and America is produced in that country. 
7
But India affords a far more extensive field for its cultivation.
It is estimated that more than 100,000 acres of the rich plains
of central India, as well as the alluvial valley of the Ganges,
are now occupied for  this purpose.   Formerly these  same
grounds were used  for the production of sugar, indigo, corn,
and other  grain,  but  these useful crops have yielded to  the
more profitable culture of the poppy.  It appears that a mild
climate, rich  soil, plentiful irrigation, and diligent husbandry,
are absolutely necessary  for its successful cultivation.   The
crop is also very much dependent on the  season, being easily
injured by storms and winds, as well  as seriously affected by
the  amount of moisture  distilled in the form of dew.   The
Rev. James  Peggs,  an  English  missionary,  having resided
many years at Cuttack, a province in Orissa,  India, gives the
following account of the cultivation  of the  poppy, and the
manufacture of its juice for market: — " In India, many thou-
sands of men, women and  children,  are employed in poppy
cultivation, which  is, throughout,  a simple  process.   The
ground in  the first place requires to be finely ploughed, and
completely cleared of all  weeds.  The fields  are then fenced
in, and divided  off into many squares, by  means of small
dikes, and thus the requisite amount of water  is conveyed to
every part of the  plantation.   The plant requires  to be well
weeded and irrigated even until it comes to maturity, as the
cultivation is entirely carried  on during the dry season.  The
seed is  sown  in November; and during a period of about six
weeks in February and March,  the juice is collected.

   CRUDE STATE OF OPIUM, AND ITS PREPARATION FOR  MARKET.
   " The falling of the  flowers  from the plant  is the signal for
making incisions, which  is done b^ the cultivators in the cool
of  the  evening, with hooked knives,  made for the purpose, in
a circular manner around the capsules.  From these incisions
a white milky juice exudes, which is concreted into  a dark
brown mass by the heat of the  next day's sun; and this being
scraped off every evening as the plant continues to exude,  it
constitutes opium in its crude state.
   "The great object of those in India who prepare  opium for
the China market, is, so to inspissate  the crude juice as to 
8
 leave  a very hot-drawn, watery  extract, which will,  being
 dried, possess the  greatest amount of purity and strength of
 flavor when smoked  through a  pipe.   The Chinese,  them-
 selves, estimate its value in direct proportion to  the amount of
 these  qualities.   The  process of inspissation is carried on in
 the cool shade, and care is observed in securing a proper jelly-
 like consistency, without  grit or sourness, both of which are
 readily detected by the Chinese.   When  ready  for  market it
 has a  smell peculiar to itself,  heavy and  not unpleasant, and
 possesses an adhesiveness which  keeps it from dropping from
 the hand for some seconds, though the hand be  in an inverted
 position.   The  Chinese carry  it through another process  of
 boiling before they  use it.   In smoking,  they always lie
 down, and the ordinary kind of tobacco  pipe  is never used
 for opium.
   " The Bengal opium is  made  into balls  about the size of
 the two fists, and covered over with a hard skin, made of the
 petals of the poppy, each ball having a separate apartment  in
 the chest  when  sent  off to market.  The chest is made  of
 mango-wood, and  consists of two  stories, each  story contain-
 ing twenty balls.   In  other regions of India, it is made into
 cakes  about the size  of a single fist, and packed up in  dried
 poppy  leaves, having  no  separate apartments  in the chest.
 For the sake of  securing their contents, the chests are always
 covered over with hides, or coarse cloth. India produces about
forty thousand chests of opium annually — the chests varying
 in weight from 125 to 140 pounds: the prices in China during
 the last three or four years fluctuating  from $500 to $900 per
 chest."

           CONNECTION OF GOVERNMENT WITH IT.
   Malwa, Benares and  Behar (or Patna) are  the  principal
 localities in Bengal for its cultivation, and every chest of the
 drug exported from India bears one of their names, according
 to the  part of the country where it was produced.  The  culti-
 vation of the poppy,  as  well  as the manufacture  and the
traffic  in opium, in the two last-named provinces, being both
subject to  the  East India  Company,  is  a  strict monopoly
of the  government.  For superintending  and managing the 
9
business,  there  is  an extensive and complicated system of
government agency.   Large sums of money are advanced to
the ryots, or native cultivators, to meet in  part the expense
of cultivating the poppy; and when  the crop is come to ma-
turity, and the juice  is collected, it must all be delivered to
government agents at a fixed price.  As all engaged in its
cultivation  and manufacture,  are paid for their services, the
opium when prepared becomes the property of government.
   In Benares and  Behar, the  cultivation  of this drug is not
altogether a matter of choice, or interest, on the part of the
native inhabitants, but such a combination of circumstances
and influences are  brought to  bear upon them, as to amount
almost  to compulsion.  In the  Chinese  Repository for  Feb.
1837, may  be found  an  able article on this  subject,  with
references to  various works as authorities ; from this  article,
we make the following quotation: — " The lands under culti-
vation are measured every year, and their  boundaries fixed, in
order to  prevent collision among those  to whom  they are
assigned.  The government annually enters into an engage-
ment with  the  cultivators, through  an intermediate agency,
constituted in the following manner: there  is 1st, a collector,
who is an European ;  2d, there are gomastahs, a superior class
of men,  (native,)  both in education and caste; 3d,  sudder
mattus, a respectable class of landholders; 4th, village mattus,
the  principal villagers, a little  superior to the ryots; 5th, the
ryots, the chief laborers in the cultivation of the poppies. The
'engagement' entered into with government is this: when
the  poppy is ripe and  immediately before  extracting the juice,
the  gomastah and his establishment make a circuit  of the
country, and form, ' by guess,'  a probable estimate of the pro-
duce of each  field.   He then makes the ryot enter into  an
engagement with him to deliver the  quantity there estimated,
and as much more  as the field will yield, at the  price previously
fixed; if he fails to deliver the estimated quantity, and the
collector  has  reason to suppose he  has embezzled  the defi-
ciency, he is empowered by law to prosecute the  ryot in the
civil court, for damages.   And should an individual undertake
the  cultivation, without having entered into engagements with
the  government  to deliver the produce at the fixed rate, his 
10
 property would be immediately attached, and  the  ryot  com-
 pelled either to destroy his  poppies, or give security  for the
 faithful delivery of the product."   The truth  of these  facts
 has  lately been  confirmed by actual inquiry of persons who
 are  officially connected with the  government  of  India,  and
 have long resided  in the  opium districts,  and, therefore, are
 well acquainted personally with the whole subject.  It affords
 another specimen of the  enormous  evils and  abuses which
 spring from a  system carried on by a large body  of ill-paid
 native agents,  each one of whom has a commission  on the
 produce, and consequently an interest to increase that produce
 as much as possible.   There is also a most oppressive  system
 of espionage at the same time, established over the  natives to
 prevent the cultivation of the poppy for private uses or  sale.
   It is true the engagement is made  only for one year, when
 the ryot may abandon its cultivation ; but then in case he does,
 he must remove at considerable sacrifice from the grounds, and
 perhaps from the village, with no reasonable prospect  of im-
 proving his situation.   Besides, these cultivators  and such
 natives as  are landholders, are, from policy, kept constantly in
 debt to the government agents, and thus become so dependent
 upon them as absolutely to be obliged to do their bidding.  It
 is found that each chest of opium, obtained in this way, costs
 the government about  300 rupees.   A small portion  of  it is
 sold in the interior provinces  of  India, for  native use, but the
 greater part is transported down the river Ganges to Calcutta,
 where it is publicly sold on set market-days, by auction, to
 merchants  who purchase and export  it to China.   Inasmuch
 as the price of  opium  varies with the  season  and demand,
 these sales frequently afford occasion for great speculation with
 merchants, the same as stocks, etc. in  this country.   The price
 at which it is sold varies somewhat with the quantity in  the
 market and the demand for it, but generally brings from 1000
 to 1300 rupees, or on an average, more than three or four times
 as much as the first cost.   The government thus receives  an-
 nually an immense revenue from this source.   In 1846, there
were thus sold 21,649 chests,  making  a clear profit to the gov-
ernment of over £2,000,000 sterling.  In  1847, it is stated on
good  authority,  that about 10,000 chests more were  sold at 
11
Calcutta — that is, over 31,000 chests — which would increase
the revenue to £3,000,000.  And this includes a part only —
perhaps two-thirds — of the opium raised  in  India, and, of
course, not all the government revenue from this source.
   In Malwa, a province lying in the central part of India, the
cultivation of the poppy and the manufacture of opium, are
carried on under very different management.  This province is
subject in its government to native princes, and the cultivation
of the soil is  therefore entirely beyond the East  India Com-
pany's control.  Here, the poppy is cultivated,  and opium is
manufactured as freely as rice and wheat are cultivated, with-
out any restraint  or  interference on the part of  government
agents.   The question with the  farmers, therefore, is simply
one of profit, whether they will raise a crop of the poppy, or
of rice or wheat.  Here  opium  is bought and sold in all the
market-places, just as grain and other productions are;  and it
is estimated that 7000 to 8000 chests are annually consumed
in  Malwa and  the  adjacent provinces.  But  their principal
market is the city of Bombay, some 400 to 500 miles distant
from  Malwa.   And in order to reach  this  market,  all their
opium must be transported over land this  distance, and pass
through certain territories of the East  India Company.  For
the mere privilege of passing through these lands, the company
levy a tax, or " transit duty," so called,  of 400 rupees on every
chest of opium.  Formerly this tax was only Rs.  200;  it was
then raised to Rs. 300, and in 1847 increased again to Rs. 400.
And in all probability within a few years, when the East India
Company shall find it for its interest, a still larger  transit duty
or tax will be  exacted.  The law on this point is rigidly en-
forced, as all opium found within the bounds of government's
possessions, not covered by a passport, is confiscated at once,
and subjects its owner to a heavy penalty.  Thus a large rev-
enue  is annually collected.  In 1846,  about 25,000  chests of
opium were transported in  this way to  Bombay, which would
bring over £1,000,000  net income  to the company.  The
opium is here purchased by merchants and exported to  China.
If we here add the revenue obtained  at  Calcutta, we  find
that the East  India  Company  received in  1846 from  this
source £3,000,000.   And in 1847, inasmuch as there was some 
12
10,000 chests  of opium sold at Calcutta more than the pre-
vious year, the revenue must have  considerably exceeded this
amount.   The merchants who hereafter become the principal
parties in the business, make from fifteen to twenty-five per
cent, more on all the opium exported from Calcutta and Bom-
bay to China.  But before describing particularly the trans-
portation  and sale  of the  drug, as well  as its effects on the
Chinese, let us examine briefly

          THE HISTORY AND EXTENT OF  THE TRADE.
  The plan of sending opium from Bengal to China, was first
suggested by  a Mr. Watson, in the year 1767, to a council of
representatives of the East India Company held at Calcutta.
Mr. Wheeler,  at that time an officer and an influential member
of the company, advocated the plan, and after being favorably
entertained, it was  adopted as a  happy  expedient towards
raising a  revenue for supporting government.   Previously  to
this time, a small trade in  opium, rarely  exceeding 200 chests
per year, had been carried  on with  the Chinese by some Por-
tuguese merchants, who brought their opium from Turkey.
  From 1767  to 1794, the  East India Company made several
adventures of opium to  China, which, for various causes, were
not very  successful.  In 1794, the  English succeeded in sta-
tioning one of their ships, laden exclusively with opium,  at
Whampoa, where  she lay  unmolested  for more than a  year,
selling out her cargo.  This place continued about twenty-five
years  to  be the principal  market  for  the sale of the drug,
though the trade encountered  considerable  difficulty  from
pirates infesting those seas  as well as opposition on the part of
the Chinese.  Macao also  furnished somewhat of a market,
but, in 1821, the  opium  merchants, on  account of the diffi-
culties attending  the sale  at these places, withdrew entirely
from the  harbor of Whampoa and Macao, and stationed then-
vessels under  shelter of Lintin  Island, in the bay at the en-
trance of Canton  river.   Henceforth this  place became the
seat of extensive trade.  Here might be seen large armed ves-
sels reposing,  throughout the  year, at anchor, constituting a
floating depot of storehouses, for receiving  the opium in large
quantities from the ships bringing it from India, and dealing it 
13
   out in chests and cases to the Chinese junks, to be retailed at
   various points on shore.  The Merope, Capt. Parkyns, in 1821,
   was the  first ship that  commenced the system of delivering
   opium at different cities along the coast of  China, and  from
   that time, the trade increased with wonderful rapidity.   Eli-
   gible places  also on the east and north-east coast of China
   were selected to station receiving vessels, to which the Chinese
   might easily have  access, and  become  participators in the
   trade.  Mr. James • Holman, in his " Travels in China," page
   162, describes the trade in 1830, as follows: — "At half-past
   one P. M., we anchored off the  S. W. side  of the Island of
   Lintin, where the foreign vessels engaged in the opium trade
   remained stationed, and we found the  following ships lying
   at  anchor:  the  Merope, Parkyns ; Samaranny, Grant, James
   Crockett;  Jannisena, Hector; the American  ships,  Scatter-
   good, Tartar, Lintin, Margaret Forbes, and Terrier, brigantine ;
   the Portuguese ships Don Manuel and brig Letitia ; the Danish
   brig Dansborg and the French ship La Rose.   After breakfast,
   Capt. Gove invited me  to accompany him on a visit to some
   of  the floating opium stores, which several of the vessels may
   justly  be considered, as they remain in  China all the year
   round to facilitate the importation of  this article by receiving
   it from that class of vessels called opium runners.  I examined
   specimens of the drug,  made up  into balls  and cakes,  and
   packed in cases; however, the smugglers  generally remove it
   from the ship in  bags, in which it  is more easily conveyed to
   the junks outside the port, and also for subsequent transporta-
   tion by  land.   Their smuggling  boats  are  of an amazing
   length, and generally pull from forty to fifty oars.  Their wea-
   pons of defence are usually one small  carriage gun or swivel,
   with muskets, boarding  spikes, swords  and stones.   Their
   boarding  netting is  similar to an  ordinary fishing-net, being
   intended merely to guard them against the stones.   They have
   also shields for the same  purpose.  Not  a  ball of opium  is
•   delivered  by the receiving vessel until it has been previously
   paid for in cash, and the fear of  their  cannon-balls  effectually
   prevents  the Chinese war junks from interfering  with them.
   The whole business of  the transport  of  opium between
   Lintin and Canton,  is. so admirably managed that the boats
                   2 
14
are but seldom interfered with, nor are they likely to be, so long
as the  Free Traders can afford to pay the mandarins so  much
better for not fighting, than the government will for doing their
duty.
  " The use of opium  has become  so universal  among the
people of China, that the laws which render it penal, and the
proclamations which send forth their daily fulminations against
its continuance, have  not  the slightest effect in checking the
prevalence of so general a habit.  Smoking houses abound in
Canton;  and the inhabitants of every class who can furnish
themselves with the means  to obtain the pipe, are seldom
without this article of general luxury.  It is a propensity that
has seized upon all ranks and classes, and is generally on the
increase."
  A well informed writer in the Chinese Repository for 1838,
sketches the  state of the  trade at that time  as  follows: —
" The  Chinese  coast from Macao  to Chusan, is  now the
constant cruising ground of twenty opium ships.  The waters
of Canton  are  converted into one grand rendezvous for more
than thirty opium boats.   At Macao, besides several houses
engaged  in the sale  of  opium on a large  scale, fifty or sixty
smaller dealers  distribute  it by the catty or cake ; and the
preparation of the drug  for smoking and its introduction into
the interior, under every ingenious cover, gives employment to
ten times that number  of Chinese.  At  Canton the foreign
residents, with two or three uninfluential  exceptions, are all
identified with the opium trade.   The late introduction  of it
in large quantities to Whampoa, has  had the unhappy effect
of increasing vastly the  number of buyers;  so that it is now
rare to meet a native  who is  not  himself  engaged in its
purchase,  or whose opposition to it is not disarmed by the
knowledge that it is the  daily business  of his  friends and
relatives."
  Rev. W. M. Lowrie, an  American missionary, while sailing
along the coast of China, in 1843, makes the following entry
in his  journal  of August 31st:  "During  the  voyage  from
Hong Kong to  Amoy, we passed in sight of three of  the great
opium depots along  the coast.   These three were Ton«--san
How-tow-san, and Namoa.  At these three places, the opium 
15
dealers in Canton and Macao have ships constantly stationed
to keep supplies of opium, and to them the smaller vessels, or
opium clippers, as they  are  called, resort for cargoes which
they carry to  different  parts of the coast, and  dispose of
always for silver.  The  number of vessels  employed in this
traffic  is very great.  A single  mercantile  house  in  Canton
employs  about fifty vessels, ships, barks, schooners and  brigs,
while another house has  thirty or more.   It is almost impossi-
ble to find a vessel going up the coast which does not  carry it.
Nine opium  ships were  anchored  close along-side. of Amoy.
I was  told, on good authority, that every man  in Amoy who
could  afford  to buy opium, was in the habit of smoking it.
The Chinese  officers  make  no effort whatever  to prevent its
introduction, and I saw  opium pipes  openly exposed  for sale
in  the streets.  A few years ago, it would have been almost
as much  as  a Chinaman's life was worth,  to  have been
detected  in  the sale  of anything used in consuming  the
prohibited article."  Rev. Dr.  Smith, now  Bishop of  Hong
Kong, visited the  island of Chusan, in 1845, and found sta-
tioned there  three or four opium  receiving vessels, besides a
large number of native smuggling boats, which conveyed the
drug to  numerous cities on the main land.  More than 2700
chests were  sold at Chusan annually, valued  at almost two
millions of dollars.
   Some idea of the extent  of the trade at  a much later date
as well as of  the parties engaged in it, may be  obtained from
the following statement  of Mr. Martin, in his work on China,
vol. ii., page 258, published  in 1847 : — " There are a number
of vessels engaged in the opium trade.  Jardine & Company
have the following  opium  vessels stationed at Amoy, one;
Namoa, one ;  Chimmo Bay, one ; Whampoa,  one ; and four
or five plying always between Hong Kong and  China.   About
five vessels are employed conveying opium between India and
 China, and a large receiving ship of seven hundred tons, is
moored  all the year  round at  Hong Kong.   Dent & Com-
pany have nearly as  many vessels as Jardine & Co.,  but of a
smaller  class.   Burn, Macivar & Co.  have about four on the
coast, and two between India  and China.   Gilman  & Com-
pany have three on the coast.  Pyver, two on the coast with 
16
India.   A  Parsee  firm, Rustomjee & Company, two on the
coast.   An  American  firm, Russell &  Company,;  have four
on the  coast, and  three between India and China, under the
American flag." Here we have about fifty vessels enumerated
as engaged exclusively  in the opium trade, besides,  in  all
probability, many others  belonging to smaller concerns  em-
barked  in this  business, as well as a greater or less number of
vessels  which are only partially freighted with the drug.
   Mr. Henry Charles Sirr notices in his work on China, vol. 1.,
p. 176,  the state of  the trade  in 1848, at Foo-chow: —" It is
stated that two millions and a half dollar's worth of opium is
annually imported into  Foo-chow, from whence  it  finds its
way into  the  interior.  The Chinese assert that the  inland
trade has  materially decreased, owing to the constant call for
sycee silver to pay for the drug, which is  smuggled along the
coast as far as Chin-cew, one  hundred and sixty miles south,
where  a large fleet of smuggling opium clippers lies, belonging,
we regret  to say, to some of the oldest and wealthiest firms in
 China.  In the city of Foo-chow alone, more than one hundred
 houses are devoted to the smoking of the drug, whilst as many
 more retail the accursed  poison  in small quantities.   Would
 it not  be better, even in a commercial point of view, for our
 merchants to  minister to the lawful wants of  the people in
 China, than to pander to  their vices, as trade must  stagnate
 when  energy  and  industry subside, which  invariably is the
 case when man becomes an opium devotee ? "  The  Rev. Mr.
 Johnson, a Missionary of the A. B. C. F. M., visited Foo-chow
 in 1847, and  states in the Missionary Herald of that year, p.
 357, that " He was informed by intelligent individuals, that not
 less than  one  half of the male population of that city  were
 more or less enslaved to the  use of opium."  Rev. Mr. Cum-
 ings, another missionary of the same board, having resided in
 the same city for years, writes  under date of  June, 1850, in
 relation to this subject as follows: — " The destructive influence
 * This is the only American firm, as far as we can learn, engaged in the
traffic:  and what is the amount of capital invested, or the extent of the  trade
carried on under the American flag, we have no means  at hand of knowing.
The same censures which are applied to the English, should also be meted out
to all Americans engaged in this traffic. 
17
of this trade is  already immense.  At the mouth of the river
Min,  thirty  miles  from  this city,  two  receiving ships  are
stationed constantly.  There they sell the poisonous drug to
native merchants, who bring it to this  place  in  small boats
and retail it.  So great is the market for it at this single port,
that two ' clippers' are required to come to the receiving ships
monthly with fresh cargoes to supply the demand.  We know
not how great  the amount sold is, nor  its value ;  but  the
drug  is  doing its fatal work here at a rapid rate.  The most
common answer given by Chinese themselves to the inquiry,
how many smoke opium, makes the proportion of three to ten
of the adult male  population.  And what adds to the evil is
the fact, that the number is  constantly increasing. This, too,
if we mistake not, is the case at all the considerable ports on
the coast of China."
   At Shanghai, a seaport  still farther  north, Mr. Sirr says,
" We regret to  say that the consumption of opium  is  very
great, and the number of smoking houses numerous."
   S.  W. Williams, LL. D., in a letter dated Canton, Septem-
ber 27,  1849, and published in the  Missionary Herald, for
February,  1850, remarks on this traffic as follows: —" The
opium trade is  thriving, and from fifteen to sixteen millions of
dollars leave China annually for this drug alone — much  of it
in specie, and all of it for produce as good — leaving, instead,
everything  evil  and disastrous.  The editor of the Friend of
India says,  if it was not for this importation of specie  and the
revenue  of  two and a half millions sterling derived from the
opium trade, he does not see how the government of India
could be carried on, and  the army there  paid.  That  govern-
ment is  consequently taking measures to increase the supply,
and there will probably be 60,000 chests brought to China in
1850, or nearly eight millions of pounds of opium."
   The Chinese  boats  that  convey the  opium  along the coast
and up the  rivers for the  purpose of sale, have received,  from
their  peculiar   character, the  epithet  of "fast  crabs,"   and
"scrambling dragons" and are manned by  desperadoes of
the worst and  lowest class.   All the  iniquities of  bribery,
fraud, perjury, and violence, which are inseparably connected
with  smuggling, are practised ;  and occasionally bloody col- 
18
lisions occur between them and the native authorities.  Some-
times with a perfect understanding on both sides, a sham-fight
is got up between the  smugglers and  mandarins, in order to
display  great  vigilance and activity,  thereby deceiving the
government agents.
  The ships used for transporting the opium from the  ports
of India to China are built and fitted up  expressly for this
business, and are said to be among the finest vessels anywhere
to be found.  Most of them are  constructed in the  form of
schooners or brigantines, with low hulls, and being adapted to
cut the waves with remarkable  speed, are called " clippers," or
" runners."  Mr. Martin, in  his  recent  work on China, vol. ii.,
page  259, notices two  of these vessels in  the following  man-
ner : — " Altogether, there are about fifty vessels or ' clippers,'
of various  sizes, generally well  manned and armed, and fast
sailers, engaged in the opium traffic.  The Mazeppa, a schooner
of 130 tons, conveyed on one occasion  half a million of dollars
from  the north-east coast of China to Hong Kong, the pro-
ceeds of opium sold on the coast.   The vessels conveying the
drug  from India to China are probably the  finest boats in the
world.  The Lanrick, of 283 tons  register, built at Liverpool,
cost £13,000, belonging to Jardine & Co. is  superior in sailing
on a wind to any man-of-war.  I made a voyage in her down
the China  seas to Java, in 1845, in the teeth of the monsoon,
when she was under the command of one of the most skilful
and daring seamen that ever sailed.  Frequently we  were
running  eight  and nine  knots close  hauled,  and carrying
royals, when a frigate would have reefed top-sails and courses.
In  one  of her voyages  the Lanrick  carried  1250 chests of
Bengal  opium, valued  at £200,000.   The Lanrick, like  other
vessels of her class, was fully armed with long nine-pounders,
musketry, etc.  These  vessels give a good  idea  of the  ' buc-
caneers' which  frequented  the Spanish main.   Their  com-
manders are generally educated men, of gentlemanly manners,
very  hospitable, of generous dispositions, well-skilled in sea-
manship, and of a courage and  boldness unsurpassed."  These
vessels described as so  admirably adapted to this business, are
now fast being  superseded by  steam-ships  built expressly for
the purpose.   They run monthly from  India to  China, occupy- 
19
ing from fifteen to twenty days, and, besides transporting the
government mail, carry generally from 1200 to 2000 chests of
opium.   The steam-ship Ganges sailed from Bombay, Novem-
ber 17, 1852, with 2500 chests of opium — the largest quantity
ever carried in one vessel.
   The following statistics, derived  from the most authentic
sources, will give some idea of the rapid progress and present
extent of the trade :  From 1794 to 1820,  the amount of opium
exported to China varied from 3000 to 7000 chests each year.
In 1824, it increased to 12,639 chests, and, in 1834, to 21,785
chests, valued at $14,454,193.  In 1837, it amounted to be-
tween 39,000 and 40,000  chests, valued at  $25,000,000.  In
1838 and '39, the trade was seriously interrupted by the  more
decided and efficient measures of the Chinese to break up and
suppress entirely the smuggling in of opium.   After a series
of altercations between the parties representing each govern-
ment, as well as some  more violent exhibitions of hostility,
the Chinese forced  the merchants to surrender what opium
they had on hand,  and destroyed the whole, amounting to
more than 20,000 chests.  This5  step led  to  a war between
the two nations, and the negotiations for settlement were not
entirely  brought  to  a  close till August, 1842.   During  these
years, a much smaller  quantity of opium was brought into the
market,  and the demand being so  much greater than the
supply, it  sold for  almost double  its former price, bringing
from $1000 to even  $1600 per chest.  Mr. Tiffany states that
the members of one English house made  in this way, at the
close of the war,  from four to eight hundred thousand pounds
sterling a-piece.
   But no sooner was peace declared between the two nations,
than again commenced brisk operations in the opium trade.
From the " Commercial Memorandum," issued by the govern-
ment opium agent stationed at Bombay, and therefore correct,
we learn that the number of chests exported  from that city
to  China,  has been  as follows: —1844, 18,321  chests; 1845,
31,902;  1846, 13,227;  1847, 19,311;  1848,  15,196;   1849,
36,000 ; 1850,  27,432 ;  1851, 24,031;  1852, 25,673.  From an
official report of the  chief articles  of  trade  exported  from
Bombay, we find that the average amount of opium for five 
20
years ending with December 31, 1848, is put down at 19,111
c-hest*   Since 1848, the amount of opium shipped from Bom-
bay  will average nearly 25,000  chests  per  annum,  and  its
proceeds probably exceed each year $15,000,000.   The opium
trade in this city varies from  year to  year much more than
that at Calcutta, which is entirely under the control of govern-
ment and is a complete monopoly.  The capital  invested in
this  trade at Bombay alone,  is  greater than in  any other
article.  In  1840, the opium  traffic formed  more than two-
thirds of the total exports of Bombay.   In 1846, the value of
the  opium exported from this city to  China, was more than
three times the amount of the  exports to England, and more
than the entire  trade, exports  and imports, between Bombay
and all Europe.
   Let us now turn to Calcutta, and examine what has been
the  state  of the trade in that city.  From  the  Government
Gazette and other official  reports, we find the  amount of
exports of  opium  from  Calcutta to  China, put down as
follows: —1844, 21,526  chests;  1845,  22,000; 1846, 24,990;
1847,21,649; 1848, 28,705;  1849,36,085; 1850,34,860; 1851,
34,014; and the Bengal government lately gave public notice
that the opium  to be  sold the present year at the monthly
auction sales would  amount to between 39,000 and  40,000
chests.  It  is sold at public  auction  in Calcutta, on  express
condition that  it shall  be immediately exported  from India.
 Most of the mercantile  houses here are  more or less concerned
in the trade.  The quality of  the  opium (Benares and  Patna)
 sold in Calcutta is not so good as the Malwa at Bombay, and
 does not bring  so  high a price.   The  average rate for which
 the article  has  been sold for  several years past — as near as
 we can make the estimate from price currents — will not vary
 much  from $550 per chest/   Thus 36,000 chests of  opium,
 sold at this rate, would bring almost $20,000,000.  This sum
 added to the amount paid  out at Bombay,  and we  have
 $35,000,000 expended for  this  single  article  of trade,  and
 exported from these two cities alone.   Then the  Chinese pay
  * The price of opium, both at Bombay and Calcutta, is quite variable, some-
times selling at 1000 Rs. and again bringing 1400 Rs. per chest. 
21
an advance on this sum of several millions  more, which goes
into the hands of the merchants as the fruit of their invest-
ment  and  labors  in the  trade.   The government  sales  of
opium  at  Calcutta average  at the present time about 3000
chests,  each month through  the year, and the prices fluctuate
from 1000 Rs. to 1200 Rs. per chest.  It should here be stated,
that, though  most of the  opium  shipped from Bombay and
Calcutta is carried directly to China, yet a considerable amount
is disposed of every year at other ports and places in South-
eastern Asia.  The  evils growing out of this traffic are not
therefore confined  wholly to  China.
  Since the preceding facts were collected with much care and
labor, from various  sources, we have  been  kindly furnished
with two papers published in India, containing valuable tables
on this subject.  It will be  seen that  these  statistics  do not
differ  materially from those already given.   The  Friend  of
India, published at Serampore, a paper  of the highest authority
in all such matters, made in its issue of Nov. 8th, 1849, the
following statement: —
  " The last sale of opium of the season  of 1848-9, at Calcutta,
has been completed,  and we  are now enabled to  estimate the
results  of  the whole year, and to institute a  comparison be-
tween  it and that of previous years.   In order to give the
reader  a view of the gradual  increase  of this branch of the
public revenue, we have drawn up from  the  statements pub-
lished by government, a return of the receipts, disbursements
and profits of the opium during  the last twenty years.   Of
the results  for the year now closed no  official return has yet
appeared.   We have, therefore, taken the sum of receipts from
the reports of monthly sales,  and, for the column of expendi-
ture, have assumed the cost of  each chest of 300 rupees: —
                           Receipts.     Disbursements.     Profits.
    1829-30,.....16,280,868   4,443,767    11,837,101
    1830-31,.....13,457,817    3,428,666    10,029,151
    1831-32,.....13,087,883    2,677,863    11,410,020
    1832-33,.....12,353,562    4,119,111    8,234,451
    1833-34,.....13,652,246    4,239,155    9,413,091
   1834-35,.....11,575,774    4,748,146    6,827,628
   1835-36,.....18,051,428    4,890,056    13,161,372
   1836-37,.....18,956,449    5,657,560    13,298,889
                   3 
22
                          Receipts.     Disbursements.      »,
   IR,7  w         .   .  22,429,041   8,110,218   14,318,823
    838  39  '   '  '  •   •  13,710,366   6,724,398    6,985,968
   Z'-k  !   '.  .  .   .    7,683,703   4,416,551    3 267,152
   ,840-41     ....  12,025,177   5,533,708    6,491,469
    841-42'     ....  13,826,480   5,787,689    8,038,791
   1842-43'  '     ...  18,316,504   5,064,355   13,252,149
   1843-44'     ....  22,846,066   6,160,270   16,685,796
   1844-45'  '   .  .  •   •  24,784,014   6,900,087   17,883,927
   1845-46'  '.....  29,610,660   7,557,742   22,051,918
   1846-4?'     ....  30,702,994   7,831,137   22,871,757
   1847_48'.....23,625,153   10,558,767   13,066,386
   1848-49,'.....34,930,275   10,826,500   24,103,775
  « From this  statement it  will appear that, with the exception
of the period in which the opium trade was disturbed by the
confiscation of the twenty thousand chests by the Imperial
Commissioner Lin, the  income derived from this  article has
been  steadily  on the increase.  During the  last season,  not-
withstanding the loss  inflicted on the revenue by the neglect
which occurred in one of the agencies, the  contribution to the
exchequer from this source at this Presidency alone, fell little
short of twenty-five millions of rupees,  or two millions and a
half sterling.   The opium revenue has now become so impor-
tant an element in our financial system, that it is difficult to
imagine how the machine of government  could be carried  on
without it.
   " To the revenue derived from the opium at this Presidency,
must be added the duty obtained for the Malwa opium  ship-
ped through the port of Bombay, of which we have no account.
But our Bombay contemporaries will doubtless be so kind as
to supply it, to complete the opium  statistics of the year now
closed."
   In reply to the above  statement, we  copy the following
extract from the Bombay  Gazette of November 20th, 1849: —
" The Friend of India, in  an article  on  the opium revenue of
Bengal which we republish, calls for statistics of that of Bom-
bay.   We  should have thought that so eminent a statistician
 as the  Friend, would  not  have required to send so far for  the
 information which he  desires; but, seeing he has done so,  are
 much ashamed at not being able to  supply him with anything
 so perfect as  we ought.   But such as we have, we give unto
 him, and it runs as follows: — 
23
  Sales of Opium Passes and Opium by the Government of Bombay.
      Yearg.                  Gross Revenue     Cost of      Net Revenue
                             collected.     collection.       realized.
    1830-31,......-------------------983,675
    1831-32,......-------------------1,859,925
    1832-33,......-------------------1,508,325
    1833-34,......2,081,858      384,564    1,697,294
    1834-35,......1,752,803      311,092    1,441,711
    1835-36,......1,918,822      200,367    1,718,455
    1836-37,......2,678,467      669,757    2,008,710
    1837-38,......1,846,658      349,456    1,497,202
    1838-39,......2,748,565      205,247    2,543,318
    1839-40,......    196,811      79,797      117,014
    1840-41,......--------    --------    2,187,125
    1841-42,......-------------------    1,866,875
    1842-43,......2,597,009     54,627    2,542,382
    1843-44,......3,559,870     71,090    3,488,780
    1844-45,......3,791,404     61,973    3,729,431
    1845-46,......6,180,153     223,910    5,956,243
    1846-47,......6,108,418     39,790    6,068,628
    1847-48,......4,140,800     73,570    4,067,230
    1848-49,......8,732,000   (Estimated.)

   " The greater part of the above information, and all of it
that is complete, is compiled from the successive accounts  of
annual revenue and disbursement of the East India Company
presented to Parliament, our files of  which papers, we see, are
so incomplete that we cannot fill  up the  proper figures for
1840-41, and 1841-42.   The several rates of pass-duty preva-
lent during these  twenty years past, have  been as follows: —
From 8th  November, 1830,  to  October,  1835, Rs.  175 per
chest;  from October, 1835, to 7th September, 1843, Rs. 125;
from  7th  September, 1843, to 13th August, 1845, Rs. 200;
from  13th  August, 1845, to 1st December, 1846, Rs. 300; when
the rate was raised  to Rs. 400, at which  it remains.   The
reduction of the  rate to  Rs. 125 in  the  year 1835,  appears  to
have  given the trade a great degree  of activity;  and under it
revenue largely and steadily increased, but it does not appear
by the successive  additions to  the tax  that the revenue has
suffered, though the trade undoubtedly has.  Perhaps govern-
ment are now content with what they get, and are  content  to
gratify their conscience and supply  their coffers at the same
time — by  taxing the trade  so well as they do;  and now
resolving to let it alone on those terms! 
24
   " These tables of the Friend's and our own together suggest
a  number of reflections.  They (the  reflections) may be cut
short by remarking, that British  India now really seems to be
supported by the cultivation of a poisonous drug and selling
it  or smuggling it into  China!  The enterprise, when thus
looked into, does  not  seem very noble;  but then 'what can
people do ?' "
   The principal use made of opium by the Chinese, is in the
form of smoking, and  one great  object in the trade is to  fur-
nish an article adapted to their peculiar tastes.   This depends
somewhat upon the cultivation of the poppy — the quality of
its seed — the goodness of the soil — the manner of collecting
and  converting its juice into a dry extract, or balls convenient
for transportation.  The  Chinese value any sample of opium
in direct proportion to the quantity of hot-drawn, watery ex-
tract obtainable from it, and to the purity and strength of that
extract when dried, and smoked  through a pipe.  Sometimes
the ryots or  native cultivators, in order to increase the weight
of the article, and consequently their  profits in  its  sale, have
resorted to adulterating the juice of  the poppy by mixing with
it  sugar, catechu, molasses, cow-dung, soft clayey mud, pounded
poppy seed, as well as the juice of various plants, but these
adulterations are generally detected  by the government agents :
and the Chinese themselves, having often been imposed upon in
this  way formerly, are now careful to test the purity of the drug,
before purchasing. The Rev. Dr. Smith, formerly of the Church
Missionary Society, in a voyage from Hong  Kong to Shanghai,
in 1845, thus notices this feature of  the trade as  he was enter-
ing  the Woosung river: — "Our own vessel, though not en-
gaged in the opium traffic, carried  750 chests of opium as a
part of her freight, which were discharged on board of one of
the receiving ships stationed at Woosung.  We went on board
this  ship and saw the process of preparing the inspissated juice
of the opium for test, previous to purchase.   On opening the
chests, and  clearing away a  number  of dry poppy leaves, an
oblong dry cake, of a  brown color, was  taken out, weighing
four  or five pounds.  In the boxes made up by the East India
Company, greater care is taken.  The balls are  more round,
and  are placed  in partitions, each  box containing  forty, and 
25
being, moreover, carefully cased in hides.   The bargain is soon
struck with the Chinese broker, who incurs the risk of pur-
chasing for the more opulent  Chinese opium merchants at
Shanghai and in the neighborhood.   A piece  of opium is
taken as a  sample from three separate balls, and prepared in
three separate pots for smoking, to test its freedom from adul-
teration.  This process took nearly half an hour,  during  which
the opium  was mixed with water, and after simmering  and
straining, was kept boiling till, by evaporation, it was reduced
to  a thick  consistency,  like treacle.  Each  box is  sold for
nearly .£200; and we saw about 1500 taels of Sycee  silver in
large lumps, of the  shape of a shoe, weighed out and paid
into the iron chest of the ship.  Shropps, opium  dealers, inter-
preters,  and  native  accountants,  were  closely standing to-
gether on different parts of the deck, which wore a busy and
painfully animated appearance."

                ITS PREPARATION FOR  SMOKING.
   After the arrival  of  the  drug in China, various  chemical
 experiments are  tried  upon  it,  in order to make  it more
 agreeable, and  increase its pleasurable effects on the nervous
 system.   It has been found, that by subjecting it to a process
 of heating, evaporation, filtering, etc. its strength is very much
 increased as well as its flavor greatly improved.  Dr. Williams,
 in his work on China, vol. ii., page  388, gives  the  following
 minute  account of this process, together with a description of
 the pipe used in smoking:
   " The  utensils used  in preparing the  opium for smoking,
 consist chiefly of three  hemispherical brass pans, two bamboo
 filters, two portable furnaces, earthern pots, ladles, straining
 cloths, and sprinklers.   The ball being cut in two, the interior
 is  taken out, and  the opium adhering to, or contained in the
 leafy covering is  previously simmered three  several  times,
 each time  using a pint of spring water, and  straining  it into
 an earthern pot; some cold water is poured over  the dregs
 after the third boiling, and from half a cake (weighing at first
 about twenty-eight  pounds, and with which this process is
 supposed to  be conducted) there will be about five pints of
 liquid.  The interior of the cake is  then boiled with this liquid 
26
for about an  hour, until  all is  reduced to a paste, which is
spread out with a spatula in two pans, and exposed to the fire
for two or three minutes at a time, till the water is all driven
off; during this operation, it is often broken up and respread,
and at  the last drying  cut  across with a knife.   It is  all then
spread out and covered with  six pints of water, and allowed
to remain several  hours or over-night  for digestion.   When
sufficiently soaked, a  rag  filter is placed on the edge of  the
pan, and the whole of the valuable part drips slowly through
the rag into a basket lined with coarse bamboo  paper, from
which it falls into  the other brass pan, about as much liquid
going through as there was water poured over the  cake.   The
dregs are  again soaked and immediately filtered till found to
be nearly tasteless ; this weaker  part  usually makes about six
pints of liquid.
  " The first six pints are  then briskly boiled, being sprinkled
with cold water to allay the heat so as not to boil over, and
removing the scum, by a feather, into a separate vessel.  After
boiling  twenty minutes,  five pints  of the weak  liquid  are
poured in  and boiled with it, until the whole is evaporated to
about three pints, when it  is strained  through a  paper into
another pan, and the remaining  pint thrown into the pan just
emptied, to wash away any portion that may remain in it, and
also boiled a little while, when it is also  strained into the three
pints.   The whole is then placed over a slow fire in the small
furnace, and boiled down to a proper consistency for smoking ;
while it is evaporating, a ring forms around the  edge, and  the
pan is taken off the fire  at intervals to prolong the process,  the
mass  being the while rapidly stirred with  sticks and  fanned,
until  it becomes like thick treacle, when it  is taken out and
put into small pots  for smoking.  The boxes in which it is
retailed, are made of buffaloes' horn, of such a size as easily to
be carried about the person.  The dregs containing the vege-
table  residuum, together with the scum and washings of  the
pans,  are  lastly strained  and boiled with water, producing
about six pints of thin brownish  liquid, which is evaporated to
a proper consistence for selling to the poor.   The process of
seething the crude opium  is exceedingly unpleasant to those
unaccustomed  to it,  from the overpowering narcotic fumes 
27
which arise, and this odor marks  every shop where  it is  pre-
pared, and every person who smokes  it.   The loss  in weight
by this mode of preparation is about one half.  The Malays
prepare it in much the same manner.  The custom in Penang
is to reduce the dry cake made on the first evaporation to a
powder;  and when it  is digested and again strained  and
evaporated, reducing it to a consistence resembling shoe-
makers' wax.

            INSTRUMENTS AND MODE OF SMOKING.
  " The opium pipe  consists  of a tube  of heavy  wood, fur-
nished at the head with a cup, which serves to collect the re-
siduum or  ashes left after combustion;  this  cup is usually a
small cavity in the end of the pipe, and serves to  elevate the
bowl to a level with the lamp.  The bowl of the pipe is made
of earthen-ware, of an ellipsoid, and sets down upon the  hole,
itself having a rimmed orifice on the flat side.   The opium
smoker always lies down, and the  singular picture  given by
Davis, of a * Mandarin smoking an opium-pipe,' dressed in his
official robes and  sitting up at a table, was probably made to
order  by some artist who had never seen  anybody use it.
 Lying  along  the  couch, he holds the pipe,  aptly  called yen
tsiang, i. e.  smoking pistol, by the Chinese, so near to the lamp
that the.bowl can be  brought up to it without stirring himself.
 A little opium of  the size of a pea, being taken  on the end of
a spoon-headed needle, is put upon the hole of the bowl, and
 set on fire at the lamp, and inhaled at one whiff, so that  none
 of the smoke shall be lost.   Old smokers will retain the breath
 a long time, filling the lungs,  and exhaling the fumes through
the nose.   The taste of the half-fluid extract is sweetish and
 oily, somewhat like rich cream, but the smell of the burning
 drug is rather  sickening.   When  the pipe  has burned out,
the  smoker lies somewhat  listless  for a moment while the
fumes are  dissipating, and then  repeats the  process until he
 has spent all his purchase, or taken his prescribed dose."

                        OPIUM SHOPS.
   In many of the  cities of China may be found numerous shops
 devoted exclusively to the sale of the drug, with accommoda- 
28
 tions fitted up expressly for smoking.  The poorer classes gen-
 erally resort to these shops, but the wealthier orders do their
 smoking more  privately in their  own dwellings.   Many of
 these shops  are  represented  to be the most  miserable and
 wretched places  imaginable.   They are kept  open day and
 night, each  being furnished with a greater or  less number of
 bedsteads,  constructed  of bamboo-spars,  and covered  with
 dirty mats and rattans.   A narrow wooden stool is placed at
 the  head of the  bed, which  answers for a pillow or bolster;
 and in the centre of each shop there is a  small  lamp, which
 diffuses a cheerless light through this gloomy abode of vice and
 misery.   The shop-keeper attends on  his  customers,  serving
 them with a pipe, the  prepared  drug and other implements
 used in  smoking.   The  Rev.  Mr. Squire, (of the Church Mis-
 sionary  Society,)  who resided several years  in China, in speak-
 ing of the opium shops at Canton, says:—"Never, perhaps,
 was there a nearer approach to hell upon  earth, than within
 the  precincts of  these vile hovels, where gaming is likewise
 carried on to a great extent.  Here every gradation  of excite-
 ment and depression may be witnessed."  The  Rev. Mr. Pohl-
 man, an American missionary who resided  several years at
 Amoy, states that there are as many as  one thousand opium
 shops in that city alone, where the drug can  be obtained and
 facilities are furnished for smoking.  While the rich have pri-
 vate rooms fitted  up for this purpose, with all the conveniences
 which can administer to their comfort, taste or luxury.

                 PREVALENCE OF  SMOKING.
  The class and number of persons addicted to this practice
 may be inferred from the following facts.  One of the chief offi-
 cers belonging to  the Chinese court, in a memorial to the Em-
 peror, says : — " At first, the use of opium was confined to the
 pampered sons of fortune, with whom  it was an idle luxury,
 but  still used with moderation, and under the power of re-
 straint.   Since then its use has extended upward to the  officers
 and belted gentry, and downwards to the laborer and  trades-
 man, to  the traveller, and even to  women,  monks, nuns, and
priests.   In every place its inhalers  are to be found.  And the
implements required  for smoking it are now sold publicly in 
29
the face of day."   It includes therefore among its votaries, offi-
cers  of high rank and  dignity,  wealthy men, merchants  and
bankers, as well as the common  mechanics and laborers.   But
it has been the general opinion of writers on this subject, that
opium smoking was most prevalent  among the higher classes
of the Chinese, inasmuch as the habit is a very expensive one,
and  this  class of persons are  most exposed to the tempta-
tion.   As to  the  number of persons addicted to the vice,  it
must range between four and five millions.  From a careful
and  somewhat extended inquiry made by persons having the
best means  of knowing as to the exact amount of opium daily
used by those in the habit of smoking, it was ascertained that,
on an average, each person consumed a little upwards of seven-
teen grains  per day.  According to  these data, 10,000  chests
would  supply only one million of persons, and for  the three
last  years, there have been more than 50,000 chests of opium
annually consumed in China in this  way.
   The quantity of opium daily consumed depends very much
on the  habits of  the smoker; at first  he cannot inhale more
than from 3 to 6 grains at a time, but will go on gradually in-
creasing the dose, till in a few  years some  consume even 300
grains daily.  The expenses attending this habit are very great
— so great  that in  most instances it regulates  the  quantity
used, each one consuming as much as he can possibly com-
mand  means  to obtain.  Dr. Smith, while  visiting the opium
smoking shops at Amoy, questioned ten persons indiscrimi-
nately as he met them — most of whom were laborers— as to
the formation, effect, and  expense of the  habit, etc.   Five of
these individuals  consumed a mace  or sixty grains daily, and
it  cost  them  on  an  average two thirds  of their daily earn-
ings to  purchase the article!  This fact shows how amazingly
expensive is  the  habit,  and what  a  fearfully impoverishing
effect it must  have upon all those who, for any length of time,
give themselves up to this vice.  Besides, it is calculated by
Mr. Martin, and other writers well acquainted with the  evil,
and  competent to form a correct judgment in the matter as
any other  individuals that can  be found, that the victims of
this vice do  not live on  an average more than  ten years after
they have  once fairly  given  way to  the  habit.   It brings
                   4 
30
on a train of diseases which make rapid work of destruction on
all the vital organs of the human body.   By means of this vice
then, according to the above data, and  estimating the number
of opium smokers at 5,000,000, more than 500,000 human be-
ings in China find annually a premature grave!   What  other
vice in  the  whole history of the  world ever produced  such
appalling ravages on human life!

                EFFECTS  OF  OPIUM SMOKING.
  Opium is one of the oldest and most valuable articles in the
Materia Medica.  It is used in medicine, in its various prepar-
ations, under a greater variety of circumstances, and to accom-
plish more  important results, than  any other single article.
Strike out this drug from the list of therapeutical  remedies,
and it would be very difficult for the whole  class of narcotics
or sedatives, or even both combined, to  make good its place.
The immortal Sydenham once  remarked, that if he could be
allowed only two weapons with which to combat disease, in
its multifarious forms, opium would be his first choice.  So on
the other hand, the evils growing out of  its  abuse, surpass, in
magnitude,  permanency and extent, those of  all other medi-
cinal agents combined, unless it be that of ardent spirits.
  By a series of experiments, it has been found that opium
given in large doses, operates on the whole animal kingdom as
a powerful poison, causing paralysis, convulsions, stupor and
death; and  the greater the development of the nervous sys-
tem, the  more marked and diversified, the effects of the  drug.
So  in reference to the different races, as well as individuals of
each race, its operations are not uniform.  On the Indian and
Negro, who have a predominance of the sanguine, lymphatic or
muscular temperament, its effects partake more of an animal
nature ; but where there is a greater development and activity
of the brain, together with the nervous system,  it operates
more directly and effectively on the mind.  At the same  time,
its deleterious effects on the body are by no means diminished.
  Again.  The effects of  the opium  on the human system de-
pend very much upon the quantity and frequent use,  as well
as the age, temperament, habits, idiosyncracy, etc., of the indi-
vidual.   Its  first and most common effect is to excite the  intel- 
31
lect, stimulate the imagination, and exalt the feelings  into a
state of great activity and  buoyancy, producing unusual  vi-
vacity  and brilliancy in conversation, and at the same time, the
most profound state of perfect self-complacency.  All idea of
labor, care and anxiety vanish at once  from the  mind.  Then
follow  a succession of gorgeous dreams or a continued state
of ecstasy, almost indescribable.  Mr. Tiffany, in his late work
on the " Canton Chinese," thus happily attempts to sketch this
state of the opium smoker: — " The victim inhales his allotted
quantity and his senses  swim around  him, he feels  of  subtle
nature, he floats from earth as if on pinions.   He would leave
his humble station, his  honest toil, his comfortable home;  he
would be great.  He runs with ease the paths of distinction;
he  distances rivals; wealth  and power wait upon  him, the
mighty take him by the hand. His dress is costly, his fare
sumptuous, his home a palace, and he revels in the pleasures
he  has read of and believed  to be a  fiction.   Music sounds
through his lofty halls, sages assemble to do him honor, women
of the brightest  beauty  throng around him,, he is  no  longer
poor, lowly and despised, but a demigod.  The feast is spread,
the sparkling cup filled to the  brim with hot wine, and he rises
to welcome one whom he has left far behind in the path of
glory, to tender to him triumphant courtesy. And as he advances
a step, he  reels and staggers  wildly, and  competitors, guests,
minstrels, magnificence, all fade from his vision, and the gray,
cold reality of dawn breaks upon  his heated brain, and  he
knows that all was nought, and that he is the same  nameless
creature that he has ever been. A cold  shudder agitates his
frame, weak and  worthless he seeks the air, but finds no relief.
He cannot turn his thoughts to his calling, he is unfit  for exer-
tion, his days pass in sloth and bitter remorse.  And  when
night comes in gloom, he seeks again the  sorceress into whose
power he has  sunk,  and whose finger  mocks while it beckons
him on."
  There seems to be a  wonderful power in the use of this
drug, to attract and captivate.  It holds out a temptation far
more powerful than that  of any other intoxicating agent.  Such
is  the  testimony  of experience as well as observation in the
matter.  This fascination does not arise merely from that pas- 
32
sion in human nature for excitement — that  yearning after
stimulus,  and that horror of ennui which crowd the Parisian"
theatre — the English gin-palace and the  American bar-room ;
but, from  having  experienced or heard of that peculiar state of
ecstasy which can be produced only by this drug, and which
has' not  inappropriately, in some respects, been termed the
" Chinese heaven."
   A writer, in the Chinese Repository for 1836, comparing the
effects of  ardent  spirits with opium, after enumerating several
points of resemblance, concludes  his remarks  (p. 297) as fol-
lows : —« There  is but one point  more of difference between
the intoxication of ardent spirits and that of opium deserving
of  particular attention, and that is, the tenfold force  with
which every argument against the former applies to the latter.
 There is no slavery on earth, to be compared with the bondage
into which  opium  casts  its victim.  There  is scarcely  one
known instance of escape from its toils, when once they have
fairly  enveloped  a man.  The fact  is far too notorious to be
questioned for one moment, that there is  in opium, when once
indulged  in, a fatal fascination which needs almost superhu-
man powers of self-denial, and also capacity  for the endurance
of  pain,  to  overcome.   The  operation  of opium is, on  this
 account, far more deadly by many degrees than its less tyran-
 nous rival."
   It is the after  or secondary effects  of this  drug, which have
such a destructive influence on the constitution.  Its continued
use destroys the natural appetite — deranges the  digestive
organs — impedes  the circulation, and vitiates the quality of
the blood — depresses the spirits, and gradually weakens the
power of the involuntary nerves as well as the volitions of the
 mind; thereby taking away the powers of free agency and con-
verting the man  into the brute.   How expressive the remark
once made by a  distinguished mandarin: It is  not the man who
 eats opium, but it is opium  that eats the man.
   The practice of eating opium as a luxury has prevailed for
more than a century in Persia and Turkey, but that of smoking
it,  originated at  a much later period, and has been confined
mostly to China  and its adjacent provinces.   The effects of the
latter  practice, we believe, are  far more pernicious than the 
33
former.   The truth of this position is supported by two argu-
ments — 1st, The different mode of receiving the drug into the
system; and, 2dly, From  an examination of the facts in the
case.  When opium  is taken  into  the  stomach,  besides  its
local effects, its influence  is communicated  both by the sen-
tient nerves of  the stomach to the cerebro-spinal system, and
thence to the whole  animal economy, and by absorption into
the blood through the veins and lymphatics.   But when opium
is inhaled into the lungs, it comes in direct contact with a far
more extended and delicate tissue, composed in a great meas-
ure  of  nerves, and not only enters the circulation more or less
by absorption, but at the same time, by its inherent nature,
contracts the air-cells of the lungs in such a manner as to pre-
vent the  blood  from  receiving its  due  proportion  of oxygen.
 This radical change in the quality of the blood must have a
most destructive  influence.  The manner of smoking opium
differs materially from that of tobacco.   The process consists
in taking very long  whiffs,  thereby expanding the lungs to
their utmost capacity, and communicating the influence of  the
drug to all  the air-cells, and at the same time retaining it there
 as long  as  possible.   This secret explains in part the almost
 instantaneous  and powerful effect which it exerts upon  the
 whole system.
   In the former case, the poison enters  the  system very  much
 diluted with other ingredients ; but, in the latter, it is received
 in a purer  and  more concentrated form, and its deadly effects
 fall more directly upon the vital  organs of the system.  Now
 as to the facts in the case.   Travellers  in Persia, Turkey, and
 other countries, where the vice  of opium eating has existed for
 a long time, do not  represent the evils to be near as great as
 those of  opium smokers in  China.   The change produced by
 the  former  practice upon the physical system is not character-
 ized by so rapid or marked progress.  Its victims, too, retain  a
 better control, as well as  longer use of  their mental  faculties,
 and are  known oftener to reform.   Other essential points of
 difference might be noticed, but, without dwelling on this part
 of the subject longer, we will here introduce a summary state-
 ment from  various writers who have been careful  observers of
 the  effects of smoking opium. 
34
    Let us  listen, in the first place, to  the  testimony  of the
  Chinese themselves on this subject.  A distinguished Chinese
  scholar, in a memorial to the Emperor, says : — " Opium is a
  poisonous drug brought from  foreign  countries;  and, when
  the poison takes effect, the habit becomes fixed, and the sleeping
  smokers are like corpses — lean and haggard as demons."  He
  proceeds to illustrate in detail, its effects, under these heads, —
  It exhausts the animal  spirits — impedes the regular perform-
  ance of business — wastes the flesh and blood — dissipates every
  kind of property — renders the person  ill-favored—promotes
  obscenity — discloses  secrets — violates  the laws — attacks  the
  vitals,  and destroys life.  Another  Chinese, (holding  a high
  office in  government,) speaking of opium smoking, remarks
  that " When the habit becomes inveterate,  it is  necessary to
  smoke at certain fixed hours. Time is consumed, men's  duties
  are forgotten, and they can  no longer live without this poison.
  Its symptoms are difficulty of breathing, chalky paleness, dis-
 colored teeth,  and  a withered skin.  People perceive that it
 hurries them to destruction, but it leaves them without spirit
 to desist."  Another government officer  writes to  Sir Henry
 Pottinger,  that " Opium is an  article whose flowing  poison
 spreads like flames.  It is neither pulse  nor grain, yet multi-
 tudes of our Chinese subjects consume it, wasting their prop-
 erty and destroying their  lives; and  the calamities arising
 therefrom are unutterable.   How is it possible to refrain from
 forbidding our people to use it ? "  In another state paper, this
 evil is  described by one  of the Emperor's  ministers  "as a
 fearful  desolating pestilence, pervading  all  classes of people,
 wasting their property, enfeebling their mental  faculties, ruin-
 ing their  bodies and shortening their lives."   What stronger
 language can be used to characterize the injurious  effects  of
 any one evil ?  But let us examine what foreign residents and
 travellers in China say on the subject.  Dr. G. H. Smith, who
 resided some years as  a surgeon  at Penang, describes the
 effect of opium  smoking, in the  Medico-Chirurgical Review
 for April, 1842, as follows : — " The hospitals and poor-houses
 are chiefly filled with opium  smokers.   In one that I had the
charge  of, the inmates  averaged sixty  daily ; five-sixths of
whom were smokers of chandoo.  The baneful effects of this 
35
habit on the human constitution are conspicuously displayed
by stupor, forgetfulness, general deterioration of all the mental
faculties, emaciation, debility, sallow complexion,  lividness of
lips and eyelids, languor and lack-lustre of eye, appetite either
destroyed or depraved.   In  the  morning, these creatures have
a most wretched appearance, evincing no symptoms of being
refreshed or  invigorated by sleep, however profound.   There
is a remarkable dryness or burning in the throat, which urges
them to repeat the opium smoking.   If the dose be not taken
at the usual  time, there is great prostration,  vertigo, torpor,
and discharge of water from the  eye.   If the  privation be
complete, a still  more formidable  train of phenomena take
place.  Coldness is felt over the whole body, with aching pains
in  all parts.  Diarrhoea occurs ; the  most horrid feelings of
wretchedness come on ;  and if the poison be withheld, death
terminates the  victim's  existence."   In  the London  Lancet
for 1841, we  find these  observations from James Hill, a sur-
geon of an  English ship,  which visited China  in 1839: —
" The habitual use of opium,  as  practised by the Chinese,
cannot fail to  produce  the most injurious effects upon the
constitution.   The peculiar languid  and vacant  expression,
the  sallow and shrivelled  countenance, the dim  and  sunken
eye,  and the general emaciated and withered appearance of
the  body, easily  distinguish  the  confirmed  opium smoker.
The mind, likewise, soon participates in the general wreck of
the body; and the unhappy individual, losing all relish for
society,  remains  in a  state of  sottish  indifference to every
thing around him but the deadly drug, now his  only solace,
which sooner or later hurries its victim to an untimely grave."
Such is the testimony of two  medical observers,  whose edu-
cation and professional duties gave them superior advantages
for judging correctly of the effects of  this drug.
   Capt. John Shepperd, recently chairman of the East India
Company,who has spent considerable time in  China, says: —
" The smoking of opium has the most  demoralizing effects.
To a certain extent it destroys their reason and faculties, and
shortens life.   A  confirmed opium  smoker is never fit to con-
duct  business,  and generally  unfit for  all social intercourse
with  his  friends  and family.  You may tell  him  by his in-
flamed eyes, and haggard countenance." 
36
   Mr.  T. Lay,  who accompanied  Beechey's  expedition  as
naturalist,  states in his  journal, while  among the  Chinese,
that the opium smoker may be readily identified by his "lank
and shrivelled limbs, tottering gait, sallow visage, feeble voice,
and the death-boding glance of  his eye.  These are so super-
lative in their degree, and so closely blended in their union,
that they at once bespeak him to be the most forlorn creature
that treads the earth."
   Lord Jocelyn, who was engaged as  military secretary  in
the campaign of 1840, thus adverts to  the use of opium  as
witnessed  at  Singapore  : — " One of the streets in the centre
of the town  is wholly devoted to shops for the sale of this
poison; and  here in the  evening may be seen, after the labors
of the  day  are over, crowds of Chinese, who seek these places
to satisfy their depraved  appetites.  The rooms where they  sit
and smoke, are surrounded by wooden couches, with  places
for the head to rest upon, and generally a side-room is devoted
to gambling.  The pipe is a reed of about an inch in diame-
ter, and the aperture in the bowl for the admixture of opium
is not larger  than a pin's head.   The drug is prepared with
some kind of conserve,  and a very small portion is sufficient
to charge it, one or two whiff's being the utmost that can  be
inhaled from a single pipe, and the  smoke is taken  into the
lungs as from the  hookah in India.    On a beginner,  one  or
two pipes will have an effect, but an old stager  will continue
smoking for  hours.  At  the head of each  couch is placed a
small lamp, as fire must be held  to the drug during the process
of smoking;  and  from  the  difficulty of filling  and  properly
lighting the pipe, there is generally a person who waits upon
the smoker to perform that office.  A few days of  this fearful
luxury, when  taken to excess, will give a pale  and  haggard
look to the face, and a few months,  or even weeks, will change
the strong and  healthy  man into a little better than an idiot
skeleton.   The pains they suffer when deprived of the drug
after long  habit, no language can  describe ; and  it is only
when to a certain  degree under its influence, that  their facul-
ties are alive.  In  these houses devoted to their ruin, these
infatuated people may be seen, at nine o'clock in the evening,
in all the different stages.  Some entering, half distracted,  to 
37
feed the craving  appetite they have been obliged to subdue
during the day, others laughing and talking wildly under the
effects of a first pipe, whilst the couches  round are filled with
their different occupants, who  lie  languid, with an idiot smile
upon their countenance, too much under  the influence of the
drug  to care for passing events, and fast emerging to the
wished-for consummation.   The  last scene in this tragic play
is generally a room in the rear of the building,  a  species  of
dead-house, where lie stretched  those who  have passed into
the state of bliss  which the  opium smoker madly seeks — an
emblem of  the long sleep to which he is  blindly hurrying."
   Mr. R. M.  Martin, who  is well known as the author  of
several valuable works  on India and the  British Colonies, has
recently published a large  work  on  China.   Mr. Martin for
some time held the situation of her  " Majesty's Treasurer for
Colonial, Consular  and Diplomatic  Services  in  China,"  and
was also a  " Member of her Majesty's Legislative Council  at
Hong Kong."  His opportunities, therefore, of acquiring infor-
mation, official and by observation  were  superior, and in  a
chapter on  this subject, vol. ii. page  176, he remarks  thus: —
" No  language would convey a description of the sufferings
of those to whom opium  has become  a necessary part  of
existence;  no picture could impress the  fearful  misery which
the inmates of an opium smoking shop exhibit.  Those dens
of human suffering  are  attended  by unfortunate women — as
opium in the early use  is aphrodisiac, and as such prized by
the Chinese.  In few, but very few instances, if indeed in any,
moderation in opium is exercised:  once fairly begun, there is no
cessation, until poverty and  death ensue; and when digestion
has nearly ceased and  deglutition even becomes painful, the
utmost effect of the drug is merely to mitigate the horrors  of
existence.   Those who begin its use at twenty, may expect to
die at thirty years of age;  the countenance becomes pallid,
the eyes assume a wild brightness, the memory fails,  the gait
totters, mental exertion  and moral courage sink, and a frightful
marasmus or atrophy reduces the victim to a ghastly spectacle,
who has ceased to  live before he has ceased to exist.   There  is
no slavery so complete as that of the opium taker: once habit-
uated to his dose  as a factitious stimulant, everything will be
                  5 
:w
endured rather than the privation;  and  the  unhappy being
endures all the mortification  of  a  consciousness  of  his own
degraded  state, while  ready to sell wife and children, body
and  soul,  for the continuance  of his wretched  and transient
delight;  transient indeed —for at  length  the  utmost  effect
produced  is a temporary suspension of agony, and finally no
dose of the drug will  remove  or relieve  a state  of  suffering
which it  is utterly impossible to describe.  The pleasurable
sensations and imaginative ideas arising at first, soon pass
away; they become fainter and fainter,  and at  last entirely
give place to horrid dreams and  appalling  pictures of death:
spectres  of fearful  visage  haunt the mind; the  light which
once seemed to emanate from heaven is converted into  the
gloom of hell; sleep,  balmy  sleep, has fled forever;  night
succeeds  day  only  to  be clothed with never-ending  horrors;
incessant sickness, vomiting, diarrhoea, and total  cessation of
digestive  functions ensue;  and death at length brings, with its
annihilation of the corporeal structure, the sole  relief to  the
victim of sensual and  criminal indulgence.  The opium shops
which I visited in  the East were perfect types of hell upon
earth."
   Sir J. F. Davis, the late  Governor of Hong  Kong, published
a work  on China  some  years since, and in giving a brief
sketch of Chinese  commerce, remarked  as follows: —" The
engrosing taste of all ranks and degrees in China for opium, a
drug whose importation has of late years exceeded the aggre-
gate value of every other  English import combined, deserves
particular notice, especially in connection with the revenues of
 British India, of which it forms an important item.  The  use
 of this pernicious  narcotic has  become  as extensive as  the
 increasing demand for it was rapid  from the first.  The con-
 traband  trade  (for opium has  always  been  prohibited as
 hurtful to the health and morals of  the people) was originally
 at  Macao; but the  Portuguese drove  it to  the Island  of
 Lintin, where the  opium is kept stored in armed ships, and
 delivered to  the Chinese smugglers by written orders from
 Canton,  on  the money being  paid at that  place.  A  late
 memorial to the Emperor from one  of the censors laid open
 the  evil  in  all its deformity.  I have learned, says he,  that 
39
those who smoke  opium  and eventually become its victims,
have a periodical longing  for it, which can  only be  assuaged
by the application  of the  drug at the regular time.  If they
cannot  obtain it when  this daily period arrives,  their limbs
become  debilitated, a  discharge  of  rheum  takes  place  from
the  eyes and nose, and they are altogether unequal to  any
exertion ; but, with a few whiffs, their strength and spirits are
immediately restored  in a surprising manner.   Thus opium
becomes to opium  smokers their very life; and when they are
seized and brought before magistrates, they  will sooner suffer
a severe chastisement than inform against those who sell it."
  In 1847, Rev. Dr. Smith published a work  detailing his
researches in China, in the years 1844, '45 and '46, while on an
exploring expedition, with instructions from the Church  Mis-
sionary  Society  to collect information upon the moral and
religious character  and wants  of  the  Chinese.  His attention
was therefore particularly called to the influence of the opium
trade as furnishing a great obstacle to the introduction of Chris-
tianity into China, and in  his work as well as public speeches
on  his  return to England, he was  faithful in exposing  the
effects of this evil.   Since then, Mr. Smith has been appointed
Bishop  of Hong Kong.  Mr.  S.  spent the winter of 1846 at
Amoy, and the  following  sketch  is,  in part, the result of his
observations on  this subject: — "During  my stay at Amoy, I
made many inquiries respecting the  prevalence and effects of
opium smoking, and often visited, with  a missionary friend,
some of the shops  in which opium was sold.   The first opium
house which we entered was situated close to the entrance to
the taou-tais palace.  Four or  five rooms in different parts of
a square court, were occupied by men stretched out on a rude
kind of couch, on which lay a head-pillow, with lamps, pipes
and  other apparatus for smoking  opium.   In one  part of the
principal room the  proprietor stood, with delicate steel-yards,
weighing out  the prepared drug, which was  of  a  dark, thick,
semi-fluid consistency.   A little company of opium  smokers,
who had come hither to  indulge in the expensive  fumes, or to
feast their eyes on the sight of that which increasing poverty
had placed beyond  their reach, soon gathered around us and
entered  into  conversation.  Lim-pai, who accompanied us — 
40
himself a reclaimed opium smoker — earnestly took part in the
conversation with  his countrymen.   They  formed a  motley
group  of sallow, sunken cheeks,  and glassy, watery  eyes, as
with idiotic look and vacant laugh, they readily volunteered
items of information, and described the process of their own
degradation.   They  all  assented to the  evils and sufferings of
their course, and professed a desire to be forced from its power.
They all complained of loss of appetite,  of the agonizing crav-
ings of the early morning, of prostration  of strength,  and of
increasing feebleness, but said that they could  not gain firm-
ness of resolution to overcome the habit.   They all stated its
intoxicating effects to be worse than those of drunkenness, and
described the extreme dizziness and vomiting  which  ensued,
so as to incapacitate them  for  exertion.   The oldest  man
among their number, with a strange inconsistency and candor,
expatiated on  the  misery of his course.  For three years,  he
said he had abandoned the indulgence, at the period of Com-
missioner Lin's menacing edicts  and compulsory  prohibition
of opium.  At the conclusion of the British war, the opium
ships came unmolested  to  Amoy;  he had opened an  opium
shop for gain, and  soon he himself fell a victim.  He enlarged
on the evils  of opium smoking, which he asserted to  be six :
1. Loss of  appetite; 2.  Loss of strength; 3.  Loss of money;
4. Loss of time;  5.  Loss of longevity;  6. Loss  of  virtue,
leading to  profligacy and gambling.   He  then spoke of the
insidious approaches of  temptation,  similar to those of the
drunkard's career.   A man was sick,  or had a cold ; a friend
recommended opium, and he fell into the snare.   Or again,
some acquaintance would meet him  and press him by urgent
solicitations to accompany him to an opium house.  At first
he  would refuse to join in  smoking;  by degrees his  friends
became cheerful; their society was pleasant; his scruples were
derided; his  objections speedily  vanished;  he  partook of the
luxury: it soon became essential to his daily life, and he found
himself at length unable to overcome its allurements.
  " I subsequently visited about thirty other opium shops in
different parts of the city.  One  of these opium dens was a
narrow, dark, and  filthy hole, almost  unfit for a human being
to enter, and appropriately joining a coffin-maker's shop. From 
41
the people we gained various particulars as to the nature and
extent of the opium traffic.  The large native wholesale dealers
were in the habit of strongly manning and arming a boat, in
which they proceeded  outside the boundaries of the  port to
the Six Islands.   There the foreign opium vessels lying at
anchor were similarly  armed and prepared for  resistance, in
event of the Chinese authorities attempting to  capture them.
The native boats returned with the chests of opium to Amoy,
and might be seen, with  some  European flag flying  aloft,
passing swiftly through the harbor, with sails set, and all the
crew  plying their oars.   They always formed too strong a force
to  encourage the  hope of  successful pursuit,  either  by the
pirates or  mandarins.  The wholesale native smugglers then
retail the opium balls separately to the retail dealers and pro-
prietors of opium  shops.   No  secrecy is observed respecting
this article of universal traffic.  I have seen three consecutive
houses kept by opium venders.   The people say  that  there
are nearly a thousand such  establishments in Amoy.  Public
notices on the corners of streets frequently invited the attention
of  passers-by to opium ' three winters old,' sold in the opposite
houses.   To the better class of these  shops the  servants of
rich men might be seen resorting, in order to purchase the pre-
pared drug, and to carry it in little  boxes, or, if the quantity
were moderate, on little bamboo  leaves, to their masters for
smoking at their own houses.  They all asserted that they
paid no bribes to the mandarins, saying that these also  smoked
opium, and, therefore,  were prevented by shame  from  inter-
fering with  the people.  They assented to the probability of
bribes being paid to the native  authorities by the large whole-
sale purchasers, who go outside the harbor to buy opium from
the foreign ships.   Among other proofs of the full cognisanqe
of the local authorities, as well as of the very general prevalence
of  opium  smoking, may be mentioned the fact  of persons be-
ing met with in almost every street, who gain their entire live-
lihood by manufacturing the bowls of opium pipes, which they
publicly expose for sale in every direction."
   Dr. Ball, after having  resided in  Canton many years, with
the best opportunities  for  observation, writes from that city,
December 1850, in reference to the use of opium, as follows: 
42
   " We  do not know how  far back  into  the  country it has
found its way, but there is reason to fear that it is well known
and used to a very great extent along the sea-coast and up the
large rivers.  I am more and more convinced that we have as
yet but a limited knowledge of the fearful ravages which this
demon is making with the happiness, the property and the
lives of the inhabitants.   There is very good reason to believe
that the smoking couch, the pipe, and other smoking apparatus,
are found in many of the  trading-houses and shops, and in the
dwellings of the rich, and  indeed of all ranks.  In other words,
these things  are becoming  fashionable.  There  are, besides,
multitudes of smoking-shops, where the smokers meet by day
and by night to refresh themselves with the fumes of this ex-
hilarating stupefying drug, to pass  a merry hour, or to drown
their  sorrows and their cares in a profound stupor.   If those
who are  engaged in  producing and vending this destructive
poison, and are  making their thousands out of the  lives and
property  of this unfortunate people, could pass through these
streets and see  the withered, smoked, walking  skeletons, (the
smoker never, I believe, becomes more  fleshy by the use of the
opium;)  could they  go to their dwellings  and  see families
wretched and beggared by drugged fathers and husbands; if
they could see the multitudes, who have lost house and home,
dying in the streets,  in the fields,  on  the banks of the river,
without even a stranger to care for them while alive, and when
dead, left exposed to view till they become  offensive masses;
if those who are directly  or indirectly engaged in this trade
could but witness such scenes, their souls would rise  in indig-
nation against a traffic so  vile, so destructive to the lives, prop-
erty and happiness  of their fellow-creatures.   They  would
abominate it and abandon  it.   The common  feelings of hu-
manity would prompt them to do it; for  many, if not the
majority, concerned in this trade are men from the better walks
of life, and by no means destitute of the common sympathies
of our nature."
   We might extend  these quotations,  detailing the  effects of
opium smoking as seen and  described by various  other travel-
lers or residents in  China,  but  deem it  unnecessary.   The
witnesses we have already  summoned cannot be  accused of par- 
43
tiality or exaggeration in their descriptions, as they could have
had no motive or inducement whatever to resort to any such
means.   Most of them were  officers holding important trusts
under the English government, and were well acquainted with
the state of things in China, having resided there, some of
them, twenty years.   It will be seen  that  there is great simi-
larity in  these  descriptions, though  expressed  in different
language.   While it may appear that the evidence already sub-
mitted as to the  evil effects of this drug was abundantly suffi-
cient, still we wish to notice briefly its use in two places very
differently situated from  China.   If we take for instance  an
island or province, where the population is permanent, with no
great change or  increase from abroad,  and where the general
use of opium has prevailed for ten years or more, we shall then
have still  stronger evidence of  its pernicious effects.   The
Island of Formosa,  situated in the Chinese seas, was visited in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the Dutch and Por-
tuguese merchants,  and became a place of considerable trade
and wealth.   This island  then  had a noble  race  of people,
distinguished for their industry and enterprise.   But in the his-
tory of  Formosa, we  find the following  striking passage: —
" The natives of this place were  at first sprightly and  active,
and being good soldiers, were always successful in battle.  But
the people called Hung-maou (Red-haired)  came thither, and
having manufactured opium, seduced some of the natives into
the habit of smoking it.  From these the  mania for it rapidly
spread throughout the whole nation;  so  that, in process of
time, the natives became feeble and enervated,  submitted to
foreign rule, and were ultimately completely subjugated.   Now
the English are of the race of foreigners  called Hung-maou.
In introducing opium into this country, their purpose has been
to weaken  and  enfeeble the Central  Empire.  If not  early
aroused to a sense of  our  danger, we shall find ourselves, ere
long, in the  last step towards ruin." *
  The other place referred to, is Assam, a small province lying
on the eastern  frontier of  Bengal, and added to  the British
possessions  by conquest in  1825.   Mr. Bruce,  superintendent
* See Chinese Repository, vol. v. p. 393. 
44
of the tea plantations in Assam, in his report presented a few
years since to the East India Company, remarked as follows :
" I might here observe,  that  the  British government would
confer a lasting blessing  on the Assamese and the new set-
tlers,  if immediate and  active  measures were taken to put
down the cultivation of  opium  in Assam, and afterwards to
stop its importation.  If  something of this kind  is  not  done
and done quickly too, the thousands that are  about to  emi-
grate from the plains into Assam, will soon be infected with
the opium mania, that dreadful plague which has depopulated
this beautiful country, turned  it into a land of wild beasts,
with which it is overrun,  and has degenerated  the Assamese
from a fine race of people to  the most abject, servile, crafty
and demoralized race in India.  This vile drug has kept and
does now keep down the population,  the  women  have fewer
children compared with those of other countries, and the chil-
dren seldom  live to become  old men,  but in  general die at
early manhood; very few old men being seen in this unfortu-
nate country in comparison with others.   But those who have
resided long in this unhappy land, know the  dreadful and im-
moral effects which the use of opium produces on the native.
He will steal, sell  his property, his children, the mother of his
children, and, finally, even  murder  for it.  Would it not be
the highest of blessings, if our humane  and  enlightened gov-
ernment would stop these evils, and save Assam, and all those
about to  emigrate into it as tea cultivators, from  the  dreadful
results attendant on the habitual use of opium ?   We should
in the end be richly rewarded,  by having a fine  healthy race of
men growing up for our plantations, to fell our forests, to clear
the land from jungle and wild beasts, and to plant and culti-
vate the luxury of the world.   This can never be effected by
the enfeebled opium consumers of  Assam, who are more
effeminate than women."

             CHINESE LEGISLATION  UPON OPIUM.
  In  view of all  these  facts, the  question  naturally arises,
What has China done to  oppose the introduction or arrest
the progress of such evils ?  Has she ever, as  a government,
adopted any decided, systematic measures to  prevent them ? 
45
 It would  seem, at first thought, that a  nation so large and
 powerful might have easily abolished this entire traffic.
   What then has been the history of Chinese legislation upon
 this subject?   Prior to the year 1800, opium was included in
 the  tariff of maritime  duties  under  the  head of medicinal
 drugs,  and was treated by government as an article intended
 exclusively for medical purposes.  And the duty exacted upon
 its importation  was a mere  nominal  sum, without  any par-
 ticular reference  to  raising  a  revenue.  But the  practice of
 smoking the "vile dirt"  had already taken deep root, and its
 evil effects  were beginning  to awaken the attention  of the
 Chinese government.   In 1799, one  of the Emperor's chief
 ministers, "fearing lest the practice of smoking  opium  should
 spread among  all the people of the inner land, to the waste
 of their time and the destruction of  their property," presented
 a memorial requesting that the sale of the drug should be
 prohibited, and that offenders  should be  made amenable to
 punishment. Soon after this, the Chinese government enacted
 special laws to prevent both  its importation and its use, de-
 nouncing at the same time the  severest penalties on  the con-
 travention of their orders.  In  1809, the Governor of Canton,
 then holding the seals of the commission of maritime customs,
 published  an edict, requiring the Hong * merchants, when pre-
 senting a petition for a ship to discharge her cargo  at Wham-
 poa, to give a bond that she had no opium on board ; and, in
 case of refusal,  the vessel  should not be permitted to land, but
 should be  expelled from the port.
  In 1815, the governor of another  province sent up a report
 to the Emperor, complaining that some traitorous natives had
 established themselves as dealers in  opium at Macao; and in
 reply, commands  were given to  carry the laws into  vigorous
 execution.  But the  traffic was  still carried on at these two
 cities, either by bribing or  deceiving the local officers.  Finding
 their laws ineffectual to prevent the importation  or use of the
 drug, the government issued  still more stringent prohibitions

  * The Hong merchants (Chinese) were twelve in number, licensed by govern-
ment as intermediate agents in trade, between foreign merchants and the Chinese
people, becoming responsible for the good conduct of the former, and, at the
same time, securing to the Emperor the payment of all maritime duties.
              6 
46
in 1820, and commenced in earnest to inflict the penalties of
violated laws.   This step forced the opium merchants to with-
draw their  ships  from Macao and Whampoa, to Lintin,  an
island in the harbor, without the jurisdiction of the provincial
governors.  As one of the results of this  change, foreigners
were kept  somewhat at a distance, and  the  Chinese them-
selves became more active participators in the traffic.
   In 1830, '32 and '34, one edict after another was issued,
declaring that the "injury done by the influx of opium and by
the increase of those who inhaled  it, was nearly equal  to a
general conflagration" and denouncing upon  the seller and
smoker of  the poison, the bastinado, the wooden collar, im-
prisonment, banishment,  and the  entire  confiscation of  his
property;  yes, even  more,  the  severer  penalty of  capital
punishment,  either by  public  decapitation or strangulation.
But notwithstanding all  this,  the  trade  kept constantly  in-
creasing.   A most  foul system of bribery and corruption had
been practised in every gradation of office  to  evade the laws.
The love of  gain  had proved stronger  than fidelity to the
Emperor's  commands. The "flowing poison" had been doing
not only its work of death on the body of every one coming in
contact  with  it,  but it had penetrated  deep  into  the  soul,
corrupting  all the better  faculties of the mind.  In this state
of things, Heu Naetse, Vice-President of the  Sacrificial Court
at Pekin, having  closely watched for years the evil effects of
the trade, both upon the Chinese people and officers, urged in
a memorial to the Emperor that the traffic  should be legalized,
either by an exchange of commodities or by imposing a duty
upon the importation of the drug, inasmuch as its introduction
by smuggling could  not be prevented.   The Emperor con-
sulted his  ministers as well  as  the  governors of the different
provinces,  most of whom  opposed the legalization, and after a
prolonged  and thorough  discussion of the whole subject, it
was finally concluded to  put a stop to the trade by enforcing
rigorously  the laws against it.   As edicts and proclamations
had thus far  proved unavailing, it was resolved by the  High
 Court  at  Pekin, to depute  an  Imperial Commissioner to
 Canton, clothed with the  highest powers and authority.   The
officer  chosen for this purpose was Lin,  a  man about fifty 
47
years of age, distinguished for his talents and literary acquire-
ments, born and  bred in  one of the maritime  provinces, and
well acquainted with all the arts of foreigners.  He was con-
sidered a true  patriot, of incorruptible  honesty, in high favor
with the Emperor, who is said to have personally communicated
his instructions to him ; expressing at the same time, his "deep
sense of the evils that had long afflicted his children by means
of the flowing poison,"  and adverting  to  the  future, paused,
wept and  said, " How, alas! can  I go to the shades of my
imperial father and ancestors until these direful evils are re-
moved."
   In March, 1839, Commissioner  Lin arrived in Canton  to
enter upon his arduous and  responsible duties, with the inten-
tion  to effect  the  "utter annihilation  of the opium  trade."
Finding on examination that the fines, imprisonment, tortures
and executions, which had  occasionally been inflicted on the
Chinese people, for violating  the laws  against selling  or
smoking the drug, had not  perceptibly checked its traffic,  he
determined to lay the axe at the  root of the tree.   He gave
 orders at once, that no more passes or permits should be given
 to foreigners who wished to  go from Canton to Macao  or
 Whampoa,  and  commanded  that all the opium,  whether
 stored in  the  factories or on  board  of  ships  in the harbor,
 should be immediately  surrendered.  After  issuing several
 edicts, he  succeeded in compelling the merchants to give  up
 20,283 chests  of opium, and to sign a bond that they would
 forever cease  from trading  in  the article, Lin forthwith dis-
 patched a messenger to the Emperor, requesting instructions
 as to the  disposal  of the drug; and in reply he was directed
 to destroy every chest near  Canton, so that  both the  " natives
 of the Celestial Empire and foreigners might witness and be
 aware of  the entire destruction of  the destroying  poison."
    The place  selected  for carrying into effect this order, was
 Chinkow, a few miles from Canton, lying  on  the water and
 convenient for transporting  the opium.  Mr. King, an Ameri-
 can merchant, was permitted to be present,  and thus describes
 (Asiatic Journal, 1839)  the place and manner of destroying
 the poison: — " The larger part of the  foreground was covered
 by three  vats of  perhaps 75  feet by 150, each  opening by 
48
sluices into the river.  The chests of opium after being 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 precaution seemed to be used by the officers to ensure
the complete  destruction of the  drug,  the spot  being well
guarded, the workmen ticketed, etc.; in  fact, we turned from
the scene fully  satisfied that the work was being  performed
with  rigid faithfulness, and much disposed to wonder that,
while  Christian governments are  growing and farming this
deleterious drug, this pagan monarch should nobly  disdain to
enrich his treasury with a  sale that would not fall  short of
Rs. 20,000,000."

       THE  HISTORY  AND RESULT OF THE  OPIUM WAR.
   This bold and  decisive  measure of  Lin to  suppress the
opium traffic, led to a war between England and China, com-
monly denominated the "Opium  War."  Without giving a
detailed  account of this war, we will briefly state the  more
prominent points at issue, together with some remarks as to
its  character and termination.   The  abstract  right  of the
Chinese  government to seize and destroy this opium was not
called in question, either by English merchants or members of
Parliament.  Neither the fact, that the  opium was smuggled
into China,  in  violation of the laws of the nation,  and there-
fore forfeited, was made a subject of controversy.  But various
circumstances connected with the history of the trade, and the
manner of seizing the opium, as well as the general treatment
which foreigners received from  the Chinese, became the prin-
cipal  grounds of complaint  and pretexts  for war.  It was
alleged  that the Chinese had permitted the trade to go  on
almost forty years without  strictly  enforcing the laws, — that
they had themselves become active participators in  the traffic,
— that  most of the  opium  seized was on board  of vessels 
49
beyond the jurisdiction of the Chinese government, and that
holding certain English merchants as prisoners until the opium
was all given up, and expelling others from Canton and Macao
on suspicion of being concerned in the trade, was an insult to
the English nation.   Great austerity and exclusiveness, and
many instances of violence practised by the Chinese in their
intercourse with foreigners, were adduced as violations of the
laws or established usages of all civilized nations.
  Another argument advanced in  favor of this war, was to
obtain indemnity for the loss of these  20,283 chests of  opium,
estimated to be worth $12,000,000.  Capt. Elliot, the superin-
tendent  of  trade,  in his  public call on  British subjects to
surrender all the opium in their  possession into his  hands, to
be  delivered over to the order of Commissioner  Lin, declared
himself responsible for its loss on behalf of her Majesty's gov-
ernment.  And accordingly the merchants, in confirmation of
this pledge of  Capt. Elliot, afterwards sent a petition  to the
Lords of her  Majesty's  government, urging the  following
reasons  as  a  claim : — " That  the  trade in  opium  had been
encouraged and  promoted by the Indian  government, under
the  express sanction and  authority,  latterly,  of the   British
government and  Parliament, and  with  the full knowledge
also, as appears from the  detailed evidence before the House
of Commons on the renewal of the  last charter, that the trade
was contraband and illegal."
   The English  government itself  had, in  fact, directly ap-
proved of the  traffic, and  was deeply interested in its con-
tinuance.   For we  find that the  parliamentary committee,
appointed in  1832, expressly for the purpose of considering
the opium monopoly, in all its  bearings,  moral,  political and
economical, concluded their report, which was accepted, as
follows : — "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 prin-
cipally upon the  foreign consumer, and which  appears upon
the whole less  liable to objection, than any other which could
be  substituted."   The charter,  therefore, of the East India
Company was  granted in 1833, with  the  express knowledge
and understanding, on the  part  of Parliament, that the traffic 
50
 in opium was to constitute a portion  of its regular and legiti-
 mate business.  Important  changes were made in the condi-
 tions of the  company as  to its direction and control, by this
 new  charter.  Prior  to 1833,  it was merely a company  of
 Traders, but afterwards it became the Representative, and, all
 its officers, the Agents of  the English government for adminis-
 tering the affairs of British India.  In 1833, the whole revenues
 of  British India  (including the opium monopoly) were in-
 vested  in the company, in  trust for  the  British crown, and,
 since that time, the greatest possible encouragement has been
 afforded to the manufacture of this drug.   It is sold at Cal-
 cutta  by the  Board of  Customs  under  the   direction  of
 government,  and avowedly for  the purpose of being exported
 to China.    And in 1834, the  very next  year after the new
 charter, the  Superintendent of  British  trade  in  China, in  his
 despatches to the English government, speaks of the opium
 traffic as one  " which it  was of the most vital  importance  to
 cherish and protect."  This advice has been well heeded now
 for almost, twenty years by  the government of Great Britain.
   Thus we  see that England was an interested party,  and
 would naturally be disposed to justify recourse to war, in order
 to secure indemnity for loss and a continuance of the trade.
 The Chinese government had  endeavored to arrest the traffic
 by punishing severely and in various ways their  own subjects,
 and  also remonstrating, entreating and threatening  the Eng-
 lish, but  all to no  purpose.   They  saw their  country  and
 people becoming impoverished and ruined — the severe pun-
 ishment of  their own subjects of no avail, so long as the
 English continued  to sell thousands of chests  of opium, in
 spite  of entreaties  and threats, and in contempt of all law.
 What more  could they do ?   Nothing ?   They might  have
 attempted to take possession of the opium ships  by force; but
 this  would  have been attended with a fearful  amount  of
 bloodshed, as these  opium  storeships were all  armed  like
 ships of war and filled with desperadoes.  The opium was all
forfeited by being brought there contrary to the laws of the
 nation, and the harbors, where the opium ships were stationed
 were a part of  the Chinese possessions and under their juris-
 diction  as much as the land.  The Chinese government had 
51
a right, by the laws of nations, forcibly, if necessary, to seize
the opium.   But they effected  its  surrender without violence
or loss of life, and when they might have  legally sold it for
more than  $12,000,000, they  destroyed  every chest  of  it,
openly and  publicly, disdaining to raise a revenue from  the
ruin of their own  people.  They could not therefore  regard
this  war  in any other  light than an  outrageous invasion of
their rights and  property.
   Many of the English at Canton and in India had long been
desiring war, alleging that the Chinese had used violence upon
their merchants, and would not open their ports generally to
all kinds of trade;  but the secret cause of all this was kept v
out  of view as  much as possible.   The cry of war — war —
was raised and  re-echoed in every possible way.  All circum-
stances and  means and pretexts were  used to make a cause
for war, and excite the nation to it.  But the real cause of all
these troubles — the opium trade — was as much as possible
kept out  of  view.   The Parliament  and people of England,
and of every country, must be mystified in  all possible ways
in respect to the Chinese troubles.  The East India Company
— including the great body of Europeans in India, and many
thousands in England — were  deeply interested in the matter,
receiving a  large  revenue from this   source.   The  opium
traders and  smugglers  in  China and  India were  of course
interested to the  amount  of  $12,000,000, the  value  of  the
opium which the  Chinese had seized and  destroyed.  All
parties  concerned, except  the Chinese government, wished
also to continue the trade.   Men who  had so great interests
at stake,  whose characters also were  implicated, would of
course employ  the best talents and all possible means that
money  could command — writers, attorneys and  orators, to
make the " worse  appear the better cause."   Numerous pam-
phlets and reviews appeared on the subject, magnifying  the
grievances of the  English, and finding all manner of fault
with the conduct of the  Chinese.. Still there were some noble
exceptions.   Several members of Parliament publicly exposed
the evils of the  opium trade, and resisted most strenuously all
warlike measures.   Said Lord Sandon : — " It is a disgrace to
a Christian country to carry on the opium trade as we have 
52
done."  Said W. H. Lindsay, P. M.: — " As it is, nothing can
be more injurious to the British  character, than the  mode in
which the opium trade is  at  present  conducted.  It is  real
smuggling accompanied by all its worst  features of violence,
and  must frequently be  attended with  bloodshed and loss  of
life."  And even Capt. Elliot, the representative  of the English
government in  China, was constrained to  make this confession
in one of his messages: — " No man  entertains a deeper
detestation of the disgrace and sin  of this forced traffic than
the humble individual who signs this despatch.   I see little  to
choose between it and piracy; and it  is rapidly staining the
British  character with the  deepest disgrace."   One  of the
leading Quarterlies at the time  remarked  on the subject as
follows: — "We  may  deceive  ourselves for the moment, but
we shall not deceive our contemporaries, nor the next gene-
ration.  The Opium  War will stand out in history  as the
blackest stain on  the character of Britain, being an outrage on
justice, on public principle,  and on  the independent rights  of
nations."
   That the Chinese government has always been earnest and
sincere in resisting the introduction of opium, there can be no
doubt.  Their laws prove this fact, and such  is the testimony
of all disinterested foreigners residing in China.   Says a writer
in the Chinese Repository (for 1840, p. 416) : — "The  oppo-
sition of the  Chinese government to the opium trade has been
steady and strong during a  period  of forty years;  the  prohi-
bitions have been as clear and as explicit, and the measures  to
carry them into effect as constant and  vigorous,  as the  com-
bined wisdom  and power of the  Emperor and  his ministers
could make  them."   They refuse also to  allow the cultivation
of the poppy in China, which in soil and climate is  admirably
fitted for its production. *  If they would only allow the opium
to be produced in China, its importation would soon  cease,
and thus a heavy drain of silver be saved to the nation.  They
will  not, however, impose any tax or duty upon its importa-
tion,  though they might in this way  raise  a large revenue.

  * It should be stated, that the poppy is cultivated to  some extent in Yunan and
other provinces,  in  the southern part of China, but against the express laws of
the Chinese government. 
53
And all proposals or suggestions in reference  to  encouraging
the cultivation of the poppy, or that the trade in the  drug be
legalized, originated in the opinion and fear  that its contra-
band introduction could not be prevented.  This is a lamentable
state of things in a great nation like China, with 350,000,000
of inhabitants.   The  Emperor, when urged  to  legalize the
trade, replied  in these memorable words: —"  It is true," said
he, " I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing  poison;
gain-seeking and  corrupt men will, for  profit  and sensuality,
defeat my wishes;  but nothing icill induce me to derive a reve-
nue from the vice and misery of  my people."
   Much has been said respecting the anti-social and non-inter-
course character and  principles of  the  Chinese government.
It was so when Europeans first went to China.   They allowed,
to  some  extent, commercial, but not political or diplomatic
intercourse.  This has been their foreign policy from time imme-
morial.  It  seems to be interwoven as a part of their national
character and existence.  And has the conduct of Europeans
been such as to overcome this prejudice and secure their con-
fidence ?  Look at the whole history of  the  opium trade for a
half century and more.   Has  not this cause,  more than any
other, tended not only to perpetuate but also increase  this ex-
clusive and  non-intercourse practice ?  Again.  What has been
the history of Java,  Assam, Ceylon, Eastern and Western
India  and other nations  where Europeans had obtained free
access ?   Have not all these nations been subjugated by these
foreign powers ?   The Chinese knew these facts well.  Was
it strange then, that when such  a fate  befalling their neighbors
stared them also  in the face, they should  persist more than
ever in their non-intercourse policy ?   Was not this their only
resort, to avoid coming  into hostile  conflict with foreign na-
tions?  And was this a  criminal thing,  and did it  afford any
reason or justification  for recourse to war ?  It is not pretended
but that the Chinese  were guilty of many grave and serious
provocations to war, aside from this traffic;  their treatment of
Lord Napier, and certain measures employed to obtain redress
for evils, real or imaginary, inflicted  upon them by foreigners,
were highly censurable.   But would the present war ever have
arisen, had it not been for the English persisting in this  smug- 
54
gling trade ?   Sir George Staunton, than whom there is no
higher authority in Britain, being thoroughly versed in Chinese
history and affairs, declared in Parliament that, " If there had
been no opium, there had been no war."
   The Chinese, being inexperienced in the tactics of modern
warfare,  soon found themselves overpowered by British arms,
and were not disposed to continue long so unequal a contest.
After several unsuccessful encounters, which threw four of their
principal cities into the hands of their enemies, and finding
Nanking blockaded, and Peking, the capital itself, threatened,
Keying, High Commissioner of the Emperor, addressed a com-
munication to Sir Henry Pottinger, commander of the British
forces, requesting a cessation of hostilities, and soliciting an
interview with  reference to terms of peace.   The articles of
treaty proposed by the  English plenipotentiary were : — 1st.
Lasting  peace between the two empires.  2d. The  Chinese
government  to pay twenty-one millions  of dollars before the
expiration of three  years, twelve being for the expenses of the
war, three for debts due the English merchants, and six for the
opium destroyed.  3d. The ports of Canton, Amoy, Fugh-
chau,  Ningpo, and Shanghai, to be thrown  open to British
trade and residence, under such restrictions as shall be satis-
factory.  4th. The  island  of Hong  Kong to be ceded to the
Queen.  5th. All British  prisoners  to be released.   6th. All
Chinese  in the hands of the English to be pardoned and  held
guiltless.  7th.  Correspondence to be conducted hereafter on
terms of perfect equality*  8th.  When the treaty  receives the
Emperor's assent, and  six millions of dollars are paid, the Eng-
lish forces shall withdraw from the river  and  the  places  now
occupied, but Chusan  and Kulang to be  retained till all pro-
visions of the treaty are completed.
   After these several items had been discussed between the
two parties, the trade in opium, the chief cause of their dis-
turbances, was introduced.  The Chinese anxiously inquire,
" Why will you not prohibit the growth of the poppy in your
 dominions,  and thus effectually stop so pernicious a traffic?"
" Your people must become virtuous and your officers incor-
ruptible, and then you can  stop the opium coming into your
country," is the reply.  The  Chinese,  conscious that  their 
55
people had not moral principle enough to resist the use of the
drug, nor physical force sufficient to  prevent its  introduction
by smuggling, earnestly desired the adoption of some measure
by the English themselves which would eradicate the evil, root
and branch,  and  therefore pressed  the  question  still  more
urgently.  " Other people will bring it to you,  if we stop the
cultivation of the poppy;  if England chose  to  exercise so
arbitrary a power over  her tillers  of the  soil, it would not
check the  evil," adds the  envoy.  " You  cannot  do  better
than legalize its importation, and  thereby limit, if not remove
the  facilities which now exist  for smuggling."   The Chinese
acknowledged the plausibility of the argument, but  expressed
themselves persuaded that their master would  never listen to
a  word on the   subject.   They were evidently disappointed
that some proposition to put an end to this infernal traffic was
not made a part of the articles of agreement; and, while appar-
ently hesitating and raising objections on this point, it was
intimated that  any delay or refusal  to accept  the  conditions
already before them, would lead at once to a renewal of hos-
tilities.   Thus  they  were absolutely  compelled to accede to
just such terms as their  enemies proposed, or else see their
country plunged still deeper into all the horrors of a sanguin-
ary war.
   There  are two or three  points in  these  articles  of treaty,
deserving more  particular attention.   We find  of the twenty-
one  millions of  dollars exacted of the  Chinese, six put down
as indemnity  to  the  owners of the  20,000 chests  of opium
which were destroyed.  According to the laws and usages of
all civilized nations,  contraband goods are  liable to  forfeiture
and confiscation.  This  is  the penalty invariably attached to
the violation  of such laws.'   No one questioned  for a mo-
ment that the Chinese government had perfect right to enact
such laws, and when violated  to seize the smuggled article, if
need be,  vi et armis.  But  instead of selling the opium and

  * " The very idea  of indemnifying smugglers who have lost their property by
the just operation of the laws, which they violated, seems preposterous.  They
knew the risks they  incurred ; they were their own insurers; they have  reaped
a profit in past years, and  the total loss which they have now suffered, is only
a deduction from those profits." — Asiatic Journal, 1839. 
56
depositing the proceeds in the public treasury, the Emperor
ordered every chest to be publicly destroyed as an evidence
of his  detestation  of the  drug.   The owners had been  fore-
warned again and  again ; they knew full  well what might
justly be the consequence  of their forbidden course.  And why
only half of the estimated value of the opium claimed ?  The
smugglers ought to  have  lost the whole in equity — all was
forfeited.  On what principles then of jurisprudence, or for
what reasons was  only half its value exacted ?   Do the Eng-
lish  government ever pay for smuggled goods  when  seized?
Do they ever destroy them when  their use would  be injurious
to their people ?
   This treaty required that five of the principal cities of China
should be thrown open to British trade  and residence under
certain restrictions, which  should be satisfactory to the English
as well as the  Chinese;  and the  island of Hong Kong to be
ceded  outright  and forever  to  the Queen.  The professed
object of this provision was to open the  chief ports of China
for general  trade and commercial intercourse,  which might
prove  equally as beneficial to that nation  as to others.   But
what  has been  its practical effect ?  Has it not opened the
door still wider, and given a more permanent foothold  than
ever for the opium traffic ?   The  Canton  Circular of 1846,
speaking of the high price which  the drug brought at  that
time, very significantly remarked thus:—"We  need not ask
then the question,  Who has been chiefly benefitted by the war
in China, justly called the Opium War?"
   Hong Kong is an island, eight miles in length, and from two
to four miles in breadth, near the  mouth of Canton river, and
thirty-seven miles eastward of Macao.   It now contains a
population of about 15,000, and, besides being very accessible
to  any part of the  Chinese coast, possesses one  of  the  best
harbors in the world.   The English selected this island  as a
great  depot  for trade,  and have expended, according to Mr.
Martin's estimate,  six or eight  millions of dollars on public
improvements, such  as roads, wharves, buildings, etc.  Most of
the  English officers reside here, and  are  supported by govern-
ment  at an expense  of more than two hundred thousand dollars
annually.  The salary of the governor alone is between thirty- 
57
two and thirty-three thousand dollars.   The  principal article
of commerce carried on here is  opium.  Besides numerous
shops and stores, several large receiving ships are stationed the
year round in the harbor.  In 1845, an important event occurred
here in the history of the trade, viz., Governor  Davis licensed
the  public sale of opium by retail.  Mr.  R.  M. Martin, then
treasurer and  member of the  Executive Council, earnestly
opposed the measure, and  in  his work on China already re-
ferred to, vol. ii., p. 186, expresses his dissent in  part in the fol-
lowing strong  language : — " Twenty opium  shops have been
licensed in Hong Kong, within gun-shot of the Chinese em-
pire, where such an offence is death!   Hong Kong has now,
therefore, been made the lawful opium smoking shop, where the
. most sensual, dissolute, degraded, and depraved of the Chinese
may securely perpetrate crimes which degrade men far below
the level of the brute, and revel in a vice which destroys body
 and soul; which has no parallel in its fascinating seduction, in
its inexpressible misery, or  in its appalling ruin.  When  the
 Governor proposed the conversion of Hong Kong into a legal-
 ized opium shop, under  the assumed license  of our most gra-
 cious and religious sovereign, I felt bound as a sworn member
 of Her  Majesty's Council in  China to endeavor to  dissuade
 him from this  great crime; but  no reasoning  would  induce
 him to  follow  the noble example of the  Emperor of China,
who, when urged to derive a revenue from the  importation of
 opium, thus righteously recorded his sentiments in an answer
 which would have been worthy of a Christian monarch: —' It is
 true I cannot prevent the introduction  of the flowing poison;
gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, de-
feat my wishes ; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue
from  the  vice  and misery  of my  people?   But  money was
deemed of more consequence in Hong Kong than morality; it
was determined in the name of Her Majesty  to  sell the per-
mission  to  the highest bidder by public  auction — of the
exclusive right to poison the Chinese in Hong Kong—and to
open a given number of opium smoking shops, under the pro-
tection of the police, for the commission of this appalling vice.
Would  we  have acted  thus towards France or Russia, and
established a smuggling depot on their shores in a prohibited 
58
and terrific poison?  We dare not.  Why then should  we
legalize and protect this  dreadful traffic on an  island given to
us by the government of China as a residence and for com-
mercial intercourse ? "
  Thus, the war, instead of putting an  end, or even a check
to this evil, has actually afforded greater facilities for prosecut-
ing the traffic.  It was never in a  more flourishing and vigor-
ous state than at the present time.  More than 50,000 chests are
now annually shipped to China, taking off in return thirty-five
millions of dollars, a sum greater by one half than is paid
on the whole imports from all other countries.   According to
the most recent intelligence, it is estimated the sale will reach
60,000 chests the present year.  The article is landed all along
the coast, and smoked publicly in the chief cities.  And  not-
withstanding the  supply has rapidly increased,  the  demand
more than keeps pace with it; and such in all probability will
continue to be the case, for many years, if not  ages, to  come,
unless  Divine Providence should interpose to arrest its progress.
The old laws prohibiting its use and traffic still remain un-
changed.   That their nature with  the penalties attached may
be correctly understood, we will here copy them as they now
stand  in  the  Xlth volume of the penal code of China: —
" Dealers  in opium shall  be  exposed with the  wooden collar
about their necks one month, and then sent to the army on the
frontier.  Accomplices shall be punished with a hundred blows
and transported three years.  Those who open shops to sell
opium  and entice the  sons of respectable families to  smoke,
shall be condemned to death by strangling  after a period of
confinement.  Accomplices shall  be punished with a hundred
blows and transported three years.   Masters of boats, consta-
bles, and neighbors shall be punished with  a hundred  blows
and  three  years'   transportation.  Officers of government  at
court who buy and smoke opium, shall be dismissed from  the
service, receive a hundred blows, and exposed with the collar
about their necks two months.   Soldiers and common people,
who buy and smoke  opium, shall be punished with a hundred
blows and exposed with the collar  one month."
  But  these laws, to  all practical purposes, are a dead letter on
their statute book.  Since the war  with England, scarcely any 
59
attempt whatever has been made  by the Chinese to  enforce
them.   Prior to this war, punishment for their violation was of
very frequent occurrence.  It is somewhat difficult to account
for the present inactive course of the Chinese government, in
respect to  an evil which is exerting  such a destructive influ-
ence  on   that  people.   Dr.  Williams remarks  that " This
conduct can  be  explained  only on the  supposition, t that
having suffered so  much, the Emperor  and  his  ministers
thought safety from future  trouble lay  in  enduring what
was past curing;  they had already suffered greatly in attempt-
ing to  suppress it,  and  another  war might be caused  by
meddling  with the dangerous  subject, since too it was now
guarded by well armed vessels.  Public  opinion was still too
strong  against, or else  consistency  obliged  the  monarch to
forbid legalization, which he could hardly avoid acknowledging
was the least of two evils."  It is an easy thing for a  govern-
ment  to  pass laws  interfering with people's  appetites  and
tastes, but a very difficult thing to enforce  such laws.   Some
portions of our own  country,  with a  population as moral  and
orderly as  can be found on the globe, understand this difficulty
well, where laws have been  enacted to suppress the  sale of
intoxicating drinks,  the execution of which has encountered
very powerful opposition.  How much greater then must be
this difficulty, among  a  population  like the  Chinese, in  at-
tempting  to prohibit the  sale and use of an article far more
fascinating than ardent spirits, and especially when the princi-
pal depredators, as in the  present case, are relatively so great
and powerful as the  English ?

                   PROFITS OF  THE  TRADE.
   The enormous profits which the  East India Company and
merchants receive from  this  traffic,  constitute an  important
feature in its  character, and  distinguish it from  all other
articles of commerce.   Connected  with  this  fact  is  also
another equally important, viz., the immense drain of specie
from  China.   " The Friend  of India,"  for  July 26, 1849,
printed at  Serampore, and of the highest authority in matters
of  this kind, published the following facts bearing on  this
point:__" The clear profit of the British government of India 
60
from the consumption of opium by the Chinese at the end of
the official year, 1848-9, including of course the tax on Malwa
opium at Bombay, will be found  to have fallen  little short of
three crores  and twenty lakhs of rupees, or three millions, two
hundred thousand pounds sterling, ($15,488,000.)   It is  the
most singular and most anomalous traffic in the world.  To
all present appearances, we should find it difficult to maintain
our hold of India without it;  our administration would be
swamped  by  its financial embarrassments.  Its effects on
Chinese finances  must be as disastrous as  it is beneficial to
our own.  The trade is not legalized  in China, and the drug
is paid for in  hard cash.  The annual drain of the precious
metals from China through this article is therefore between
five and six  millions sterling.  No wonder that the Cabinet
at Pekin are struck dumb by this  'oozing out' of silver,  and
that we hear, from time  to time,  of the  most resolute deter-
mination to  extinguish  the trade.   But  with  more than a
thousand miles of sea-coast to guard and so small a protective
navy, and nine-tenths  of the officers in it venal to a proverb,
that Cabinet is helpless."
  Here  we  have a  clear profit in one  year to the British
government  in India,  £3,200,000, or  $15,488,000, which  ac-
crued from the sale of 54,000 chests of opium.   The sales for
the  five previous years  were as  follows : —1843 - 4,  39,847
chests;  1844-5,  53,902; 1845-6,  38,217;  1846-7, 40,960;
1847-8,43,901; amounting in  all, with those of  1848-9, to
270,827 chests, averaging 45,138 each  year.  Estimating  the
sales of the five first years at the same rate as those of 1848-9,
(and we believe the average price  obtained was considerably
higher,) we have an annual revenue during  the last  six years
to the East India Company of $12,946,247, amounting in all
to nearly $80,000,000.   The  sales for 1850 and '51 were  still
greater:— At Bombay, 1850, 24,031 chests, and 1851, 24,673  ;
at Calcutta,  1850,  34,860, and 1851, 34,014, making at both
cities, 1850, 58,891 chests, and 1851, 59,687.   This amount of
sales makes an annual revenue of over $15,000,000, which,
added  to  the preceding sum, gives us  $110,000,000.  Yes,
besides  the  expense  attending the  production,  transportation
and sale of the drug  in India, this single article of trade  has 
61
yielded this vast sum of clear profit to the East India Com-
pany,  since  the declaration  of  peace  between  China and
England.  Well might the writer of the above  article fear, in
case of its removal, that the British  government would  " find
it difficult to maintain its hold  in India, and that its adminis-
tration there would be swamped by financial embarrassments.'
  The immense expenditure  attending the use  of this article
in China, is a consideration of no ordinary importance.  We
have seen that the  average number of chests sold from 1843
to 1852, was  over 48,800  per annum;  and according  to the
best authorities, the  average price which the Chinese of late
years have  paid for opium has been $700 per chest.  At this
rate the  annual expenditure would be $33,600,000, and for the
last  eight years, it would  amount to $268,800,000.  From  a
careful examination  of the amount of opium sold during the
six years immediately preceding the  war, that is, from 1833 to
1839, we find the average  quantity to fall  but  little short  of
30,000 chests per annum, which, at $600* per chest, makes an
annual expense of $18,000,000, and  during this period of six
years, the sum  of   $108,000,000.  From  1823  to  1833, the
average  sale was 12,000 chests annually, which, at the  same
rate and for this period  of  ten years, amounts to  $72,000,000
more.   If we  now  add the  $21,000,000 which the Chinese
paid the English government at  the close of the  war, for the
destruction of  the 20,000 chests of opium  and also for losses
by the Hong merchants, together  with the  expenses attending
the war, we have the round sum  of  $469,800,000; nearly one
half of which  found its way directly into the treasury of the
East India Company, and the  remainder into the pockets  of
those engaged in the traffic.
  And we may safely calculate that the  opium  consumed by
the  Chinese, prior to  1822, cost them $10,000,000  more.   We
have then the  immense sum  of $480,000,000  expended  by
  * In 1839 when the Chinese destroyed the 20,000 chests of opium, it was valued
at $12,000,000, that is $600 per chest. This was considered at the time a
moderate estimate ; no complaint was made against it on the part of the Chinese :
since then the average price has not varied much from $700 per chest.  The
highest for which it was ever sold, was $2,650 per chest in 1821; and the lowest
$360 in 1796. 
62
China, within  the  last half century, for  this  single  article
alone ; and  all this too in  express violation of the repeated
edicts of the Emperor.  There are, in addition, the perquisites
or bribes paid  to local officers and the profits  of  the retailer,
which undoubtedly would annually increase the expense from
$8,000,000 to $10,000,000 more.  The exact amount of profit
made in  the retail trade cannot be definitely stated, as it must
vary at different times and places, and then it depends upon a
variety of circumstances, which  it is very difficult to investi-
gate.  But  from a careful  examination of all the means at
our command, we  are satisfied that it  must on  an average
considerably exceed twenty-five per  cent.   And what  return
of commodity  or equivalent  in value does this immense  outlay
bring to China?   Nothing!  No, nothing  but  loss of health,
waste of property, mental imbecility, moral degradation, and
destruction of  life.   These evils cannot be reckoned in dollars
and  cents :  figures  and language both utterly  fail to portray
their magnitude and extent.
  The clear profit to merchants  engaged in  the traffic,  is
represented  by Mr. Martin to average about 15 per cent.   It
is stated that in consequence of realizing such sure gains, in
so short a time and with so little trouble in the opium trade,
they are unwilling to embark in any other branch of commerce
or business.  It  should be  borne  in mind that cargoes of
opium, in point of value and certainty of sale, are very  unlike
those of  all  other goods.   The vessels that transport the drug
from India to  China, generally carry from  800  to 2000  chests,
which, selling  at $700 per chest, will produce in return from
$500,000 to $1,400,000.   In 1848 one  ship  carried 1800 chests
from Bombay  to Hong Kong, and sold it for $750 per chest,
receiving for this  single  cargo  $1,350,000.  The steam-ship
Ganges sailed from Bombay, November, 1852,  to Hong Kong
with 2500 chests, the sale of which  at  the same rate would
amount to $1,875,000.  Suppose a vessel  carries  1000  chests
and  sells for  $700,000 ; this at  15 per cent, would net the
owner $105,000,  and 2000  chests  twice that amount.  We
will mention in illustration  only one  instance of the immense
wealth obtained in this way.   Mr. Jardine, (of  the  firm  of
Jardine,  Matheson & Co.) being about  to  return  to  England 
63
a few years since, divided with his partners £3,000,000 (almost
$15,000,000) of profit in trade, the greater portion of which had
been accumulated in the space of ten years.
  How true  it is  that, ever  since the world began, the com-
merce which has reckoned among its  articles the bodies and
souls of men, has been most lucrative, whether it be in one
that deals directly in flesh  and bones as so much merchandise,
or one which tempts with poisonous drugs and fiery drinks.
   It should be borne in mind, also, that the profits received by
merchants from this traffic are divided among a small number
residing in China, India, and England.  The profits received
by the East India Company, amounting to almost one half of
the whole receipts,  go, not  only to enhance the  value  of its
capital stock, but to support the Indian government, its numer-
ous  officers, its large army, navy, etc. The  expenditures of
Great Britain in carrying on its commercial and political oper-
ations in the East Indies are immense, and constantly increas-
ing.  To sustain these extensive operations requires a very great
revenue.   It would  not answer to tax the home government for
such purposes.  This revenue must be raised  from some for-
eign  source.
   Win, Sturgis, Esq., of Boston, whose experience in  the
China  trade, though not  in opium, extends back more than
half a century, in  a  lecture delivered not long since before the
Boston  Mercantile  Library  Association, stated, that in  1818,
$7,000,000 in  specie was carried from the  United States  to
China  to  pay our importations from  that country, but now,
most all our purchases are paid by bills of exchange on Eng-
land, from the proceeds of  the opium trade.  This fact may
serve to explain the  manner  in which  trade is  carried on with
China.  Formerly the exports of  that nation were far greater
than the imports. From 1800 to 1830, European nations and the
United States  were obliged to ship every year large quantities
of  specie  to  China in payment  for silks, teas, and other mer-
chandise.   But the  opium  trade — taking  the   place of all
useful articles  of  manufacture, or of any other production —
increased to  such an extent  that, soon  after 1830, the balance
of trade was turned against China.    Consequently this bal-
ance of trade in the regular  exchange of commodities must be 
64
paid in specie, and  is just so  much drain  on the bullion  of
China.  Dr. Williams states that, from 1835 to 1850, it aver-
aged yearly more  than  $15,000,000, which  would amount  in
this period to  more  than $200,000,000.  It is true, however,
that all the opium sold in China is paid for in specie, but then
only about one third of it  actually leaves that country.   The
balance is taken to  brokers at Canton or  Hong Kong, and
converted into what are termed " Bills of Exchange," which
are used in China by merchants in payment for teas, silks, and
other  commodities.   These bills  of exchange are frequently
brought to India and also to England, and are used in London,
Liverpool, and other cities in the way of trade with China.
   There  is one other important fact stated  in the paragraph
already quoted, viz.,  the  inability of the Chinese government
to enforce its  laws.   This inability  arises mainly from  three
causes.  1st, From  the  character of the Chinese  people  as
affected by the article in trade;  and 2dly,  from the  peculiar
exposure of the  country; and  3dly,  from the present  state of
its government.   The Chinese people have naturally excessive
acquisitiveness and fondness for  those  temporary enjoyments
which  do  not require great efforts of body or mind.   Besides,
they have never  been trained  to the rigid  exercise of moral
principle or decision  of character.  Large rewards therefore  in
the way of bribes  appeal powerfully  to their love of gain, and
when  once they have tasted the bewitching pleasure of this
drug,  they readily yield  to the temptation.   And the longer
such habits are indulged, the more powerful the control of the
propensities over  the intellect and  conscience.   Thus all,
whether bribed or  engaged in  vending, or using the " flowing
poison," become more and more corrupt.   Such persons will
resort  to  all manner of  expedients to evade law ; and no de-
pendence whatever can be placed in them, either as individuals
or officers.  What can a government do with such subjects, in
a country too  of more than one thousand miles of sea-coast,
indented with numerous  harbors, inlets and  rivers, inviting the
wholesale opium smuggler with his richly laden vessel, armed
with all  the forces which wealth and  skill  can command—a
country moreover, whose seaports, villages and coasts, are con-
tinually thronged by millions of inhabitants goaded on by  an 
                            65

insatiable craving for this fascinating drug — a country defended
by an army and navy always small, but rendered inefficient and
treacherous by this very poison itself, and with nine tenths of
its  own  governmental  officers venal — surely  a cabinet with
such subjects, with such defences  and such agents,  must be
helpless indeed!

                FINANCIAL EFFECT ON CHINA.
   We have already seen what an immense drain of specie this
traffic annually makes on China.  Though she always received
small supplies from  tributary  provinces, her mines originally
must have ranked among the richest in the known world.   But
to such an extent has this drain been carried, that many of the
older mines are  now entirely exhausted, and government by
the last reports was actually  engaged in making surveys to
discover new ones.  Dr. Williams  states the following impor-
tant fact, that  " The opium trade has been for fifteen years
nearly fifteen millions of dollars in  excess of the  regular ex-
change of commodities, and the drainage of the country for this
balance will probably go on  as long  as the  taste for this per-
nicious narcotic  continues or  there  is specie to pay for it."
Thus we see, that, notwithstanding the immense quantities of
tea and silks which  are annually  exported  from  China, their
value does not begin to equal the expenditure  for opium, an
article of luxury, or rather of destruction, which brings no equiv-
alent in return.   Another recent writer represents the finances
of China  to have  been in  an embarrassed state  for  several
years past, caused by a  diminution of its revenue, but which
some attribute, with more reason, to the vast quantity of silver
which leaves the country to pay for the opium  smuggled into
the Celestial Empire by the English.  And may  not this be
one of the agencies which look towards the downfall of that
great nation ?   May it  not  be one of the principal causes of
the numerous rebellions and outbreaks of violence  wrhich have
lately  occurred in China?
   Besides this constant drain  of silver  in diminishing the re-
sources of China, the consumption of opium operates  power-
fully  in  other ways  to impoverish  the  country.  Political
economists make the wealth  of a nation to be made up of the 
66
 wealth of all  the individuals  composing  it;  and  that  the
 original sources of wealth are three — labor, land, and capital.
 Whatever lessens either of these, or their productiveness when
 employed  upon each other, lessens  the wealth of the whole
 nation.  Capital may be employed in two ways, either to pro-
 duce new capital or merely to afford gratification, and in the
 production  of that gratification,  may be  consumed without
 replacing its value.  The first may be  called capital, but the
 last expenditure.  If the first is  large, the last  will be small,
 and vice versa.   Without any change in the amount of wealth,
 capital will be increased by the  lessening of expenditure, and
 lessened by the increase of expenditure.   Let us apply these
 well established principles  in political economy to the use of
 opium: — A man buys a quantity,  and smokes it, when he
 would be better without it.  The expense of the article and
 the time employed in obtaining  and smoking it are an entire
 loss.  His labor also becomes less productive.  The capital of
 course produced by his labor is diminished.  And the expendi-
 ture goes on constantly  increasing, while the  capital  is at the
 same time constantly  diminishing, thereby impoverishing the
 individual  more and  more.  Such  is the simple  history of
 millions of  cases  in China.  And such is the natural and ne-
 cessary tendency of the abuse of  this narcotic from beginning
 to end.  Its use in this way is a palpable and gross violation
 of all  correct principles of political economy, and must tend
 inevitably and  powerfully to  diminish all the sources  of na-
 tional  wealth.  The  impoverishment will appear  still more
 striking, if we  bear in  mind that  its  use is confined mainly to
 men, who are always  considered  the greatest producers,  and
 who, after having formed the habit, live on an average  only ten
 or twelve years.
   The Canton Circular for 1846, a commercial paper, speaking
 of the state and prospects of trade generally in China, remarks
 that, " With respect to the opium trade, as at present conducted,
 it  is certainly  a great evil, and indirectly injures  the  sale of
other merchandise."  This evil prejudices the Chinese against
 all commercial intercourse with foreigners, and destroys all de-
sire or  ambition on their part  to  improve their circumstances
or cultivate habits of  industry, besides  stripping them of all 
67
their  resources.  Had the influence of this drug never been
felt in China, we have good evidence to believe that it would
have  proved  the best market in the world, for the  sale of
European  and  American manufactures.  It is a fact, that in
proportion as the opium traffic  has  increased, that in British
manufactures has decreased.  It has been said that the Chi-
nese  were adverse  to  commercial intercourse with  foreign
nations; but what is the evidence in proof of this statement ?
Lord Napier, whose testimony is entitled to  the greatest re-
spect, wrote  in the year 1834, that " The Chinese are  most
anxious to trade with us;" and again,  " It is  a perfect axiom
that the Chinese people  are  most anxious for our trade, from
the great Wall to the southern extremity of the empire."  Sir
George Robinson also  states that, in 1835, " The people are
intensely desirous to engage  in traffic."  Mr. Gutzlaff affirms
that " English woollens are in great demand, yet we have still
to look for that time, when the spirit of British enterprise shall
be roused, for in regard to China it is almost dormant."   Lord
Napier indeed, said, that the " Tartar Government was anti-
commercial."  It may be so.  But why is  not commerce
carried to the fullest extent  of the privileges which are pos-
sessed?   Simply, as Capt. Elliot stated,  because the  opium
traffic is  " intensely mischievous  to every branch of trade."
Mr. Dunn, who spent many years among the  Chinese,  says,
" They possess a strong predilection for commerce, and a great
taste for foreign manufactures.   The  principal barrier to the
rapid increase in the consumption of  British goods is, I con-
ceive, the opium trade.   Stop this,  and you  will have  their
warmest friendship — a friendship that will so facilitate and
increase the consumption of your manufactures, that a few
years only would show them  to be your best customers."  Mr.
R.  B. Forbes, an American  merchant, in some excellent re-
marks upon the " China trade," states that the  abolition of the
opium  traffic would enable us  (Americans) to dispose  of  a
large quantity of manufactured goods in that country.  Mr.
Martin inquired of one  of the chief officers at  Shanghai, how
trade could be best promoted; he immediately, and with great
sternness, answered, "Cease sending us millions' worth of opium,
and then our people will have more money to purchase  your
manufactures." 
68
   The recent  discoveries of great quantities of gold in Cali-
fornia and Australia will, in process of time, be productive of
an immense amount of commerce upon the Pacific ocean, and
vastly increase the  population in  all those  parts of the world.
China cannot fail to be greatly benefitted by these discoveries,
and changes in trade as well as in population, and will become
by these means more  and more open to foreign intercourse.
Her  inhabitants will be inclined as well as able to purchase
far more than they have hitherto done, the  manufactures and
productions of other nations.   And  such is the enterprise, the
industry,  and  the love of  gain among  the Chinese, that an
immense  trade will ere  long spring up between  this  great
nation and other  civilized  portions of the globe, — more par-
ticularly with Great Britain and the United States.   Already
are the suspicions of the former nation excited in reference to
the prospective changes of trade in those parts of  the world.
A leading paper of London lately called the attention of the
British  public  to  the  increasing trade of this country in the
East, and,  with  other observations, made the following re-
mark:— "America is  seeking for the commerce of China by
California, and for that of the  Indus  by the opposite coast;
and, in the race  of competition  before us,  it is a problem
whether  our rival, trading with independent countries, and
with  races  of  men  that  are comparatively wealthy, because
they are  free, will not beat us from the markets, confining us
to the internal  trade of impoverished India."

            SMUGGLING CHARACTER OF THE  TRADE.
   Another feature of this trade deserves  particular notice, viz.,
its smuggling  character.   All enlightened and even civilized
nations have ever regarded it as a fundamental principle, that
a nation may enact whatever laws of commerce  its interests
may be  supposed to  require.   It has a right* to  permit  or
restrict, to encourage or prohibit any articles of merchandise it

  * This principle  or right is based on the common usage of all nations, and not
on that great principle of Christian Ethics, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
The extreme exclusiveness  and arrogant assumptions  of the Chinese in their
treatment of other nations,  cannot in all instances be justified by the funda-
mental principles of Christianity or of universal brotherhood. 
69
may deem necessary.   Any known or intended infringement
or violation of this right by another nation  is and should be
considered one of the greatest national crimes.  And to take
advantage of  the peculiar circumstances of a nation, and force
it to yield partially or wholly  this right to its great detriment,
is, to say the  least, highly dishonorable.   How has  this estab-
lished right been respected by the English  government in its
intercourse with  China in the sale of opium ?  At first, and so
long  as  it was  employed  for medicinal purposes only, its
importation with a small  duty was  allowed.   But when  it
began to be  used somewhat extensively for its intoxicating
qualities, followed by  the  most pernicious effects, not only
in draining the  country of  its legal currency, and thereby
deranging trade  generally, but in the  loss of  time,  health,
property, mental  and physical capacity  for labor, and  greatly
increasing theft, fraud,  licentiousness, violence  and  premature
death, the Chinese government, to prevent these dreadful evils,
and save  their country from ruin, utterly prohibited  its im-
portation, thus making it a contraband article.
   Their right to  do this has  never been called in question, as
there was  no  violation  of treaty stipulation, and the interests
of the country being jeopardized, required such  a measure.
But it was entirely disregarded.  The drug has been smuggled
into that  country in  rapidly  increasing quantities for more
than fifty  years,  in  face of wholesome  laws,  earnest  remon-
strances and severe threatenings, and the direful effects on the
inhabitants of China,  all  of which was  well known  to the
parties concerned.  Having borne these constantly augmenting
evils for forty years, the  Chinese government  attempted to
apply a remedy,  not by punishing British, but Chinese smug-
glers, and by destroying the condemned drug, wherever found
within their limits.  Thereupon England declared war against
China,  and after having destroyed an  immense  amount of
property and killed thousands of her subjects, agreed on terms
of peace, compelling the injured party to pay all the expenses
of the war and  the value  of the opium destroyed, without
even allowing that party to have the pernicious drug declared
in the treaty  a  contraband  article.   And still  the work of
death  is  carried  on  more vigorously than  ever  by  British
                y 
70
merchants, sustained and  encouraged  by the British govern-
ment, through its  representative, the  East  India  Company.
A system of smuggling on a grander  scale  and with greater
profits, followed at  the same time with  more disastrous results,
the world has never witnessed.  What a spectacle!   An en-
lightened nation having interwoven into the very texture of
its government the  principles of Christianity, and yet in view
of all the  nations  of the  earth, not merely  trifling with, but
trampling  in  the dust  a great national acknowledged right,
and pouring in unnumbered  and direful evils upon more than
three  hundred millions of unenlightened and unchristianized
persons, against the most earnest remonstrances and severest
threats  of their  constituted government.   In view  of such
treatment, what opinions and impressions must  these three
hundred millions of pagans form of such a nation ?   Should
such  a  course of conduct prevail  among the  nations  of the
earth, utter ruin both  of governments and  people must in-
evitably ensue.*

       MORAL AND  RELIGIOUS BEARINGS OF THE TRADE.
   There  is still  another important view of this trade which
ought not to be overlooked — its moral and religious bearings.
It exerts a powerful influence among the  Chinese  in three
ways to prevent the introduction and  spread of Christianity:
— 1st,  It creates insuperable prejudices;  2d, Is the parent of
many other vices ; and 3d, Depraves, if  not destroys their moral
natures.  The epithets which  they apply to the article itself
are a proof of this prejudice — "smoking dirt," "vile  dirt,"
" flowing poison,"  " black commodity," " black dirt," etc. etc.
 And  the peculiar  traits of character which they attribute to
dealers in the drug show also  the strength of their prejudices,
and how difficult it is  for them to think of imitating  the ex-
ample  of  such persons, or to  receive " any good thing " from
 such a  source.  This prejudice is manifested  still more strik-
ingly in the interviews  of the Chinese with the professed
teachers  of  religion.   Dr.  Medhurst, who  lived  for many
   * " We know it is a smuggling trade, one which the Indian government, could
 the case  be reversed, and the Chinese send opium to India, would put down by
 the halter.'" — Madras Athenaum, Feb., 1848. 
                             71

years in China and visited its principal maritime cities, says:
— " Almost the first word uttered by a Chinese when anything
is said concerning  the excellence of Christianity is, ' Why do
Christians bring us opium, and bring it directly in defiance of
our laws ?  The  vile drug has destroyed  my son, has ruined
my brother, and well nigh led me to beggar my wife and chil-
dren.  Surely those who import such a deleterious substance,
and injure me for the sake of gain, cannot wish me well, or be
in possession of a religion better than my own.   Go first and
persuade your own countrymen to  relinquish this nefarious
traffic and give me a prescription to correct this vile habit, and
then  I will listen to your exhortations on the subject of Chris-
tianity.' "   The Rev. Dr. Smith, (now Bishop of Hong Kong,)
in a  speech before  the  Church Missionary Society, London,
1847, remarked on this point as follows : — " If those who pro-
fess to doubt the magnitude of this obstacle to the progress of
Christianity in  China,  could hear the more patriotic of the
Chinese, frequently with a sarcastic smile, ask the missionaries
whether they were connected with those individuals who brought
them poison, which so many of their countrymen ate and per-
ished — they would  perceive it is vain — I will  not say it is
vain  — but it is certainly inconsistent in us as a nation to send
the Bible to China.  The same breeze that wafts the Christian
missionary to that benighted land,, brings on its wings the ele-
ments of moral destruction in that illegal traffic, which stamps
with inconsistency the country of Christian missions."
   The Rev. Mr. Talmadge, stationed as a missionary at Amoy,
in a  letter dated  Oct. 1850, describes the opium trade " as the
great curse of the  country; destroying property, health  and
morals, and consigning the soul to eternal death ; and what is
peculiarly painful is the  fact, that this nefarious trade is carried
on by  men from  Christian lands; so  that the leading idea
which  the Chinese  have of the Christian religion is, that  it
permits its votaries to  violate  all law, and  promote habits
which even the heathen  class with the lowest vices.  Wherever
we go, in the cities and villages, we are continually liable to
be questioned about opium.  It is a  great hindrance to the
progress of the gospel among the Chinese."
   The American missionaries, in a report  of their labors at 
72
Canton,  published  in  the  Missionary Herald, for June, 1850,
refer to this subject as  follows : —
  " Before closing this communication, we wish to advert to
the obstacles we encounter in the opium trade, and the exten-
sive use among the Chinese of this drug.  This most seductive
vice is on the increase, carrying poverty and disease wherever
it goes, and  is rapidly impoverishing the  empire.   We  have
only a limited knowledge of  the evil which this practice occa-
sions ; but what we see, proves conclusively its bad effects.  It
is  draining the country of  specie, at the rate of about twelve
millions of dollars annually, and that too from a land where  no
national bank, or system of  credit, enables the government or
people to get along with a substitute  for the  precious metals.
The contraband trade in opium induces a disregard of all law,
and leads to  smuggling in other articles ; while it raises up and
encourages a set of miscreants and  pirates along the coast,
who are too  ready to act against their own authorities in con-
nection with the foreign vessels  bringing  the  article on the
coast.   It places a temptation  to  indulgence  before a people,
who have confessedly  but little principle to resist even what
they know to be wrong, and  thus does much to  destroy  all
moral rectitude and strengthen habits of vice.   Its use, as well
as its abuse, destroys property, health, intellect and life, either
partially or wholly, and has done so already in a great degree.
And, lastly, its introduction constantly sets against us the best
portion of the Chinese people, who  associate  foreigners  of
every name and occupation with this  pernicious traffic."
   In the Memoirs of Rev.  W. M. Lowrie, who  had spent sev-
eral years as a missionary in China,  and was drowned in the
Chinese seas, Aug. 1847, being thrown overboard by pirates,
we find, p. 207, this statement:—" One of the very greatest
difficulties in the way of Christian missions  in  China, arises
from the prevalence of the use of opium, and it is to be feared
that it will long continue in  the way.   When a man acquires
a taste for opium, there is nothing he will not do to gratify it;
and its use is most deleterious.  It injures his bodily health, it
stupefies his mental powers,  and it deadens his moral feelings,
and when the habit of using it is once confirmed, it is almost
impossible to abandon it.   The fondness for opium is one of 
73
the strong chains in which Satan has bound this great people,
and it is a heart-sickening reflection that this evil luxury is sup-
plied to them by the merchants of the two nations which pro-
fess to be actuated by the purest Christianity."  Dr. Malcolm
also, in his Travels in Southeastern Asia, vol. ii., p. 159, in remark-
ing on the influence of the opium trade, says, " We have little
reason  to wonder at the reluctance of China to extend  her
intercourse with foreigners; nearly the whole of .such intercourse
brings upon her  pestilence, poverty, crime and disturbance.
No person can  describe the horrors of the opium trade.   The
influence of the drug on  China is more direful  and extensive
than that of rum in any  country, and worse to its victims  than
any outward slavery.  That men of correct moral sensibilities
and  enlightened  minds,  should be  so  blinded  by custom or
desire of gain  as to engage in this  business, is amazing. . . .
 That the government of British India should  be the prime
 abettors  of this  abominable  traffic, is one  of the greatest
wonders of  the nineteenth century.  The proud escutcheon of
 the nation that declaims against the slave trade, is thus made
 to bear a blot broader and darker than  any other in the Chris-
 tian world."
    That  this traffic is the parent of many vices, and  debases
 the moral nature of  man, thereby furnishing a  most powerful
 obstacle to the spread of Christianity, requires  but little proof
 after the detailed account of  the evils which we have already
 presented.   A  single practice that necessarily  and  invariably
 begets in rapid succession, idleness, poverty, fraud, dishonesty,
 licentiousness,  theft, piracy,  and even murder, needs  yet a
 word  in any language  fully  to characterize it.   The whole
 physical system is prostituted, the intellect stupified, the con-
 science perverted, and the will brought into complete  subjec-
 tion to one  all-controlling passion, converting its possessor into
 a brute — nay more, a  sot!    Such  characters  surely  must
 afford almost hopeless materials for Christianity to reach and
 renovate.

              PROBABLE  RESULTS OF THE  TRADE.
    What is  to be the probable result of this traffic upon China,
 is a question of momentous interest.   How long is it to con- 
74
tinue to drain the country of its specie — embarrass its finances
— corrupt its officers — impoverish and ruin  its inhabitants?
Are the difficulties attending this contraband trade still to be
the occasion  of frequent broils and  interruptions of commer-
cial intercourse as  in years past, between the Chinese and for-
eigners ?  Must there be another opium war ?  Is this ancient
and  extensive country to be ruined commercially,  politically
and  morally ?  Will  the  Chinese suffer the  devastations of
this evil to go on till the great Celestial Empire with her three
hundred and  fifty millions of inhabitants lose, like some neigh-
boring provinces, her own independence and become tributary
to a foreign power ?   Or, to escape such a melancholy fate, will
her government either resort to the extensive cultivation of the
poppy within her own borders,  or else legalize the importation
of the drug from abroad?  Are there any  rational prospects
that  China will ever extricate herself from these dreadful evils ?
We  are constrained to reply, that  neither the light  of experi-
ence nor the prospects of the future afford us any well-grounded
hopes of such a  desirable  result.

              RESPONSIBILITY OF  ITS  RESULTS.
  Who is responsible then for the continuance of these evils?
And who has power, and to whom does the duty belong to  put
an end to this dreadful traffic? — the merchants engaged in
carrying it on ? — or the East India Company, whose treasury
is so much enriched by its profits? — or the English govern-
ment that confers upon this company such chartered privileges ?
Formerly the whole trade — not only in India, but  the trans-
portation to, and the sale of the drug  in China, was a complete
monopoly of  government; but now that monopoly is confined
to India, whence all the supplies come, and where government
has the entire control of its cultivation, manufacture and sale,
which it can  at any time either abandon or  prohibit. But we
have no reason whatever to expect that the merchants will vol-
untarily relinquish a traffic so lucrative, nor that the East India
Company (an incorporated body, in common parlance, with-
out a soul,) will totally change its revenue laws, which have
been constantly increasing its  resources for more  than  fifty
years.   We  must then look  to the English  government as 
75
primarily and chiefly responsible  for this traffic, and to Parlia-
ment in particular.  Clarkson and Wilberforce, by their devoted
and unwearied labors to abolish  slavery in the British posses-
sions, won immortal fame ; but  here is an evil of far greater
magnitude, enslaving the souls as well  as the bodies of many
millions, fostered too for more  than half a century by govern-
ment itself.   As the East India Company is this very year to
petition  Parliament for a  renewal of  its charter, who will
fearlessly come forward, like Clarkson and Wilberforce, to ex-
amine into this evil, expose its terrible effects and call  for their
removal ?
   How can the Chinese regard the English in any other light
than wholesale smugglers  and wholesale dealers  in  poison ?
The latter can expend annually  over  two millions  of dollars
on the coast of Great Britain to  protect its own revenue laws,
but at the  same time set at bold defiance similar laws of pro-
tection enacted by the  former.  The English are constantly
supplying the  Chinese a deadly poison', with which thousands
yearly put an end to their existence.   In  England  even  the
druggists are expressly forbidden to sell arsenic,  laudanum or
other poison, if they have the least suspicion that their cus-
tomer intends to commit suicide.   But in  China every facility
is afforded and material supplied under the  British flag, and
sanctioned by Parliament itself, for wholesale slaughter.  How
long will an  enlightened and Christian nation continue to farm
and grow a  means of vice, with  the proceeds  of which even,
when in her  possession, a benighted and pagan nation  disdains
to replenish  her treasury, being drawn from the ruin and mis-
ery of her people ?  Where is the consistency or humanity of
a nation, supporting armed vessels on the  coast of Africa to
intercept and rescue a few hundred of her sons from a foreign
bondage, when, at the same time, she is forging chains to hold
millions on the coast of China in a far more  hopeless  bond-
age?  And  what must the world think of the  religion of a
nation  that   consecrates churches,  ordains ministers of  the
gospel, and  sends abroad  missionaries of the cross, while, in
the meantime, it encourages and upholds a vice which is daily
inflicting misery and death upon more than  four millions of
heathen ?  And what must be the verdict of future generations, 
76
as they peruse the history of these wrongs and outrages ?  Will
not the page of history, which now records £20,000,000 as con-
secrated  on  the  altar of humanity to  emancipate  800,000
slaves, lose all its splendor and become positively odious, when
it shall be known that this very money was obtained from the
proceeds of a contraband  traffic on the  shores of a weak and
defenceless heathen  empire, at  the sacrifice, too,  of  millions
upon millions of lives ? 
APPENDIX.
             THE  INCREASE  OF  REVENUE FROM  OPIUM.

   The following is an extract from the Friend of India, published at Serampore
on the increase of the opium revenue in Bengal.  This measure, considered in
its consequences, must excite feelings of sorrow in every  philanthropist.   How
painful to see a Christian government encouraging a trade fox pecuniary reasons
which a Heathen government for moral reasons is  endeavoring  to prevent.
The Chinese laws  prohibit the importation of opium under severe penalties,
but the government is afraid to enforce these laws upon those trading under the
English flag, lest they should be again involved  in an "opium war."   They
must suffer the trade to go on, impoverishing  their country and debasing the
character of their people, or legalize the importation  of opium and allow it to
be cultivated in  their own territory, both of which they  believe to  be morally
wrong.
                   [From the Friend of India, November 25, 1852.]
   "  The  notification  regarding  the quantity of opium to be  brought to sale
during the ensuing twelvemonth, has just appeared in  the Calcutta Gazette, and
we find that  it will fall  little short of 40,000  chests. The last sale realized
1140 Rs. the chest;  and the  average of the year  has been, we think,  about
1000 Rs.   We have, therefore, the prospect of a  gross  income of more than
.£4,000,000  sterling  from the opium of the Gangetic valley  in the ensuing
twelve months, and as the returns from  the Malva opium were stated  by Mr.
Melville at 80  lakhs, we  may  calculate  on  a gross return   of £5,000,000
sterling from this source, of which £3,750,000 will be clear profit.
   " The returns from the sale of the drug here, and from the  opium passes at
Bombav, are therefore equal  to nearly one fifth of the gross  revenues  of the
British empire in Tndia.  The revenue  thus drawn from the peculiar propen-
sities of a distant foreign nation  is the most singular fiscal  phenomenon to be
found  in the history  of finance;  but  the revenue  itself is not  less precarious
than it is singular.  It is, of course, well known that  opium may be grown in
great abundance in many parts of China.  The  cultivation of it, however, is as
strictly forbidden  as its importation, but as the Chinese government is much
stronger in the interior of the country  than on the line of coast, it is enabled to
                    10 
78
enforce the prohibition in its various provinces, while at the same time it  is
utterly powerless  regarding the opium introduced  by sea.  We  cannot but
suppose that the Chinese will some time or  other take into consideration the
utter impossibility  of restraining the importation of opium, which, while it con-
tinues  contraband,  must be paid for in silver, and will therefore grant permission
for the introduction of  the drug.
   " In that case, we must bid adieu to our opium income of three or four millions
sterling a  year, and turn about  for some other source of revenue, and this  it
will be no  easy matter  to discover.  It is a cause of legitimate anxiety that we
should be  obliged  to depend for our regular expenditure  on so precarious  a
revenue.   Since our military expeditions began in 1838, we have, with occa-
sional  intervals, been engaged in a constant succession of wars in Affghanistan,
in Scinde, in  Gwalior, in the Punjab, and  in Burmah,  but it is a fact  not
generally recognised that during these fourteen years of warfare, the net profit
derived from opium in  Bengal and Bombay has exceeded  the entire expense of
all our military expeditions.  It was said that Arkwright  and the  spinning
jennies carried us through the wars  which arose out of the French Revolution.
With  equal truth may  it be affirmed, that it is the opium which has carried us
through the six wars, — the present included — in which we have been engaged
since we crossed the Indus.   But, it is a fitting subject for the consideration of
our Indian  statesmen to make provision as far  as possible for the future, though,
in all probability, proximate contingency of the loss of our opium revenue, and
to make some  arrangement for meeting our permanent expenditure from per-
manent sources of  revenue."
   And thus England is extending her power, her  dominion and territory from
revenues obtained by forcing opium  on China.   The Scinde war resulted in the
conquest and annexation of Scinde, and the  Punjab war, in  the annexation of
the Punjab to  the  British possessions.   The  Burmese war is now in progress,
and will undoubtedly terminate in the conquest and annexation of a large part
of the  Burmese empire.   Can such an  unrighteous course  in a nation always
prosper ?

                 TESTIMONY  OF A  BOMBAY PAPER.

   We  copy below, from the Bombay Telegraph & Courier, of May 17,  1852,
the introduction of an  able and  extended  review of the former edition of this
work.   The writer confirms the correctness of all'the facts  therein contained,
and exposes, as may be inferred from these statements, most fearlessly the evils
of the  traffic : —
   " We remember to   have been  told, when expressing  admiration  at  the
immensely lofty warehouses of Liverpool, that the bricks were cemented by the
blood of the African slave.
   " In   examining  the  colossal  institutions of British India, we may in like
manner be  told that they are partly maintained by the life-blood of the Chinese.
In other words, we sell  them opium,  whereby sooner or  later they destroy
themselves, and, by the profits of the trade, we support the political, juridical
and educational institutions of this vast country. 
79
  " Whether we consider the few lacs of rupees annually appropriated to native
colleges and schools, or the crores  expended on the maintenance of governors
and  councils,  magistrates  and  collectors, judges  and  police,  generals  and
armies, it is an indisputable  fact,  in Indian finances, that a very considerable
portion of these sums is received from the Chinese as an equivalent for a per-
nicious drug.
  " The most  astounding fact of the opium trade needs yet to be specified, viz.,
that Christian sensibilities have not yet been adequately roused in relation to its
iniquities and horrors.
  " That a professedly Christian government should, by its sole authority and on
its sole responsibility, produce a drug which is not only contraband, but essen-
tially  detrimental to the best interests of humanity;  that  it should annually
receive into its treasury crores  of  rupees, which, if they cannot, save by a too
licentious  figure, be  termed 'the price of blood,' yet  are demonstrably the
price of the physical waste,  the social wretchedness and moral destruction of
the Chinese; and yet that  no sustained remonstrances from the  press, secular
or spiritual, nor from society, should issue  forth against the unrighteous system,
is surely an astonishing fact  in the history of our Christian ethics.   This fact
can, however,  be easily explained.
   " There  is a prestige about this great trade which serves to hide its intrinsic
repulsiveness.
   " On the principle whereby the  slayer of an individual is execrated as a mur-
 derer, and  the slayer of 'ten thousand'  is treated as a hero and half deified,
 we can understand how a trade,  which,  if carried  on by one  or two of ' the
 baser sort,' would be denounced  as smuggling and piracy, is  divested of its
 illegal and  immortal  characteristics  by the patronage which emblazons it, the
 numbers connected with it, the immense  capital embarked in  its prosecution,
 the  glittering  private fortunes realized by it,  and, more  than all, the immense
 addition to  government finances.
   " We find it very difficult to entertain the idea that a traffic whose main-spring
 is in government regulations, whose affairs are conducted by government officials,
 whose sales are in the flush of day, at public auctions in a city of palaces, whose
 dealers are princely merchants; which employs as its transports splendid clip-
 pers, whose commanders  are ' educated men,' and, still more, whose return-
 freights are solid, weighty silver; and, to crown  the  whole, whose  operations
 from beginning to end are sanctioned by the explicit enactments of the Imperial
 Parliament, can be — as we dare venture to say it may be demonstrated to be —
 commercially suicidal, politically inexpedient,  nationally  dangerous, juridically
 contrary to the law of nations, ethically unjust, and, in relation to that  God who
 desires ' mercy and not sacrifice,'' wholly iniquitous and abominable.   And  yet,
 however difficult it may be  to entertain the idea, ' God is  true, though every
 man  a  liar;' moral  principles are  unswerving and  moral statistics are un-
 varying.
   " The Christians of Britain have not yet been raised  on this  subject.  Not
 more than  one in a hundred knows the real character of  the trade.   They wait
 to be instructed and roused.  They are slumbering because  ignorant.
   " There  is a power in England, which,  when concentrated, is irresistible by 
80
Parliament and by ' Companies,'  the  power of Christian sentiment and feeling
— the power of enlightened 'public opinion.'   This it was which swept
slavery from the isles of Western India.  This it is which, if once roused, will
sweep government opium smuggling from Eastern India.  Before the principled
determination of Christian philanthropists the difficulties  of finance will be as
nothing.   They have  already given twenty millions  of pounds sterling to set
Africans free; they will on the  same principle  let go  a  revenue of  three
millions,  to emancipate  China.   The  tide of sentiment at  home  against the
trade is beginning to set in ; its surges are heard  advancing, and when it shall
reach its  full, it shall sweep away this detestable system "

                 TESTIMONY  OF A CALCUTTA PAPER.
  Below  will  be  found the opening and closing paragraphs of a  long article
on the opium traffic from the Calcutta Morning  Chronicle  of November  17,
1852 : —
  " That the British government should, for no better reason than that it opens up
an immense resource, foster the cultivation of the poppy for the express purpose
of forcing it on the Chinese, against the will of the Chinese government, needs
no other test of impropriety than that Englishmen would resist such an endeavor
to the uttermost were it possible to make the attempt on England, and therefore,
let plausibility invent what excuses it may, the real bearing of the question —
in a purely moral point of view — is  declared by that simple fact.  But it is
worth considering what other nations think of our proceedings in this  matter,
and notwithstanding there is little hope of reclaiming our rulers where the profit
from their monopoly is so immense, we are  induced  to show how the  subject
has been  treated by  a denizen of the country whose principles we are so loudly
denouncing with  reference to its traffic in slavery.   A friend having kindly
supplied  us with a copy  of a Brochure  entitled  ' An Essay on  the Opium
Trade,' written by a citizen of the United States, we have been at the trouble
of perusing the same, and are  bound to confess we find  it replete with strictures,
only too just, upon the conduct of Great Britain in upholding the system which
is pouring, wholesale, its enervating and debasing influence over the whole land
of China.   Dr. Nathan Allen (of Boston we suppose, as the pamphlet has been
there published) is  the writer.  Our author's information seems both  correct
and precise."       ........
  " It is something  more  than pity that we should have left an opportunity to a
foreigner to level a censure so severe as is couched in the extract we now make.
' That the government of British  India should be the  prime abettors of  this
abominable traffic, is  one of  the greatest wonders of the nineteenth century.
The proud escutcheon of the nation that declaims against  the  slave trade, is
thus made to bear a blot broader and  darker than any  other  in the Christian
world.'   With one more quotation we shall take our leave of  Dr.  Allen's
brochure, in respect  to which it will suffice to say we would it had less of truth-
fulness in it;  but the facts are as glaring as they are undeniable,  and their
impropriety does not admit of any moral defence.*'