to surrender to him, for paramount considerations of the lives and liberties of themselves and their countrymen, all the stores of opium in their possession. More than twenty thousand chests, of an estimated value of over two millions sterling, were at once placed at the disposal of the superintendent. These were duly handed over to the Chinese at Whampoa, and other places in the Bogue; and the process of destroying the drug was commenced with all due ceremony, and under the direct auspices of Lin, at Chuenpee.

But the surrender of these stores did not satisfy the ends of the Commissioner, who wished to crown his work by the complete stoppage of all further supplies. With that object in view he addressed a letter to the sovereign of the English nation, calling upon her to interdict the traffic in opium for ever. Even in this letter the arrogance of the Chinese revealed itself, and the arguments employed were weakened by minatory language as to the penalties that would follow refusal or procrastination. However, the friendly attitude of the English superintendent and merchants during this critical period was not without some effect. The cordon established round the foreign settlement was gradually withdrawn, and after six weeks' incarceration the Europeans were allowed to leave the factories, and the passenger ships resumed their trips to Macao.

But a still more serious complication sprang out of what in its most interesting aspect was a literary controversy. The law of China made the sale of opium a penal offence, and the Chinese officials claimed the power to execute their law on the persons of Europeans. Not merely did they claim it, but they announced their intention to carry it out in the cases of sixteen Englishmen, whose names were published. Some of these had notoriously never had any connection with opium at all, and they were every one of them honourable merchants, innocent of any culpable wish to injure the Chinese. Not only did Commissioner Lin and the Canton authorities claim the right to condemn and punish English subjects, but they showed in the clearest possible manner that they would take away their liberty and lives on the flimsiest and falsest testimony. Captain Elliot felt bound to

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declare that "this law is incompatible with safe or honourable continuance at Canton."

The Chinese authorities seemingly acted also on the assumption that so long as there remained even one offending European, the mass of his countrymen were to be hindered in their avocations; and consequently a number of petty restrictions were placed upon the transaction of all business relations between the native and English merchants. One of these possessed more than a usual degree of importance as furnishing some clue to the real considerations guiding the policy of China on the foreign question. The withdrawal of silver had excited the keenest alarm among the Celestials, and as some means of putting a stop to it, a rule was passed to the effect that each foreign ship should take away as much bulk of exported Chinese goods as it brought of English articles. By this device it was hoped to ensure the equalisation of the trade. By their acts the mandarins proclaimed that much more than the opium of the foreigners was objected to; and the English superintendent issued a further notice warning all of Her Majesty's subjects to leave Canton with him, or to remain at their own personal peril.*

The very next day after Captain Elliot's notice, a memorial, signed by all the principal English and Indian merchants, was sent home to Lord Palmerston, then Secretary for Foreign

This was dated the 22nd of May, 1839, and in it occurs the following important paragraph with reference to the opium that had been surrendered. "Acting on the behalf of Her Majesty's Government in a momentous emergency, he has, in the first place, to signify that the demand he recently made to Her Majesty's subjects for the surrender of British-owned opium under their control had no special reference to the circumstances of that property; but (beyond the actual pressure of necessity) that demand was founded on the principle that these violent compulsory measures being utterly unjust per se, and of general application for the forced surrender of any other property, or of human life, or for the constraint of any unsuitable terms or concessions, it became highly necessary to vest and leave the right of exacting effectual security, and full indemnity for every loss directly in the Queen." Unfortunately, Captain Elliot's earlier statements had conveyed the impression, and certainly bore the construction, that the English Government was disposed to agree with Commissioner Lin and the Chinese authorities as to the moral iniquity of the practice of smoking opium.

Affairs; and in this document support and protection against "a capricious and corrupt Government" were demanded, as well as early compensation for the two millions' worth of opium surrendered to China at the urgent request of the English superintendent. For the moment Commissioner Lin had triumphed, and his gratified sovereign forthwith rewarded him by raising him to the very dignified post of Viceroy of the Two Kiang, which includes in its jurisdiction the three important provinces of Kiangsi, Kiangsu, and Anhwei, and of which the principal city is Nankin, one of the former capitals of the Empire. The confidence and self-congratulations of the Chinese were certainly not weakened by the fact that, in this critical state of affairs, there was not a single English man-of-war in any part of the Chinese waters. The English residents were at the mercy of the Chinese, and without either sure means of escape or efficient sources of defence. The second anniversary of the Queen's birthday after her accession to the throne found the Chinese question portending the gravest danger, and an accident was nearly producing an immediate conflict; for one of the merchant vessels, whilst firing a salute on this auspicious occasion, discharged a shot in the direction of a Chinese war-junk. damage, fortunately, was done, but a less event than that might have provoked a hostile collision at such a time. A catastrophe might indeed have ensued but for the simple fact that only two or three Englishmen had remained in Canton.

No

Up to this point the English merchants and subjects had endured with meekness all that the ill-will and reforming enthusiasm of the Chinese could do them; but the indignation and resentment felt at their treatment were naturally extreme, and needed only an occasion to display themselves in acts. No class of the community is as sensitive of a slight on the national honour as the English sailor, and none is more prone to resent it in the simple and effectual way of his forefathers. The merits of diplomacy are concealed from a nature that sees only the object before it, and takes no count of the attendant circumstances. The caution and circumspection which seemed prudent to the English superintendent were beyond the understanding and beneath the notice of the

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numerous sailors who, by the stagnation of the trade, were kept in a state of idleness in the Bogue. Collisions necessarily occurred when parties went on shore from the ships, but no serious mishap took place until the 7th of July, 1839. On that occasion a large party of sailors were drawn into a quarrel with the inhabitants of a village near the anchorage at Hongkong, and a villager named Lin Weihe was so much injured that he died the next day of his wounds. A demand was at once made for the surrender of the murderers, as the law of China demanded a life for a life; but, as such a surrender meant handing over the sailor accused to a certain and cruel death, the demand was, of course, refused. There was also no evidence to incriminate any one in particular of this act of manslaughter; but five sailors were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment for rioting on shore.

The Chinese authorities could not, perhaps, be expected to regard this affair with the same discriminating power as is presumably vested in an English jury. As soon as the circumstances were reported in the Canton Yamen, the Commissioner Lin seized his pencil, and proceeded to pour forth his wrath, and to demonstrate over again his literary skill in an edict on the occurrence, which he characterized as "going to the extreme of disobedience to the laws." If an Englishman had been killed, the Commissioner argued that he would at once have ordered the execution of his murderer, therefore it was only right that the slayer of a Chinese subject should be handed over to justice. That a man may not be a murderer intentionally, is beyond Chinese comprehension-in short, all, or almost all the circumstances that we term extenuating are unknown to the Chinese Statute Book. Lin's final commands were that the murderer must be surrendered, and that, until he was, supplies were to be withheld from the foreign ships. Nor was this an empty threat. Although the English had removed to Macao, where it is right to say that, old jealousies forgotten, they received a most hospitable welcome from the Portuguese, the power of the Commissioner reached them even there; and both supplies and servants vanished on the publication of Lin's decree. With the view of not

compromising the Portuguese, Captain Elliot, a few days later, removed his quarters to Hongkong.

The death of the Chinese villager did not long remain without an outrage on the side of the Europeans to in some sense counterbalance it. A small schooner was boarded on its way from Macao to Hongkong by a band of pirates. The crew were all killed, the single English passenger was grievously wounded, and the miscreants escaped with the plunder of the vessel. It was thought, at the time, that this attack was committed by order of the Chinese officials; but later discoveries showed, what ought never to have been doubted, as the capture of a living Englishman would have entitled the taker to Lin's gratitude and highest reward, that it was one of those piratical outrages which, unfortunately, fill a great place in the annals of the Canton river and the Bogue. At this critical moment the opportune arrival of an English ship-of-war restored confidence among the residents, by showing that, although distant, they were still under the protection of the Queen's Government.

At this point the gravity of the complication was still further increased by an official proclamation, signed by Lin and the Viceroy of Kwangtung, calling upon the people to arm themselves, and to oppose with force any attempt on the part of the foreigners to land. Despite the surrender of a vast quantity of opium, the departure of the greater number of the Europeans from Canton, and the practical stoppage of the foreign trade, the Chinese officials were not disposed to rest satisfied with what they had accomplished, and, trusting to their overwhelming numbers, on which their official notices never tired of dwelling, they sought to complete the humiliation of the "outer barbarians." The appeal to force was an act of indiscretion that betrayed the height of confidence, or a strange depth of ignorance; and when the mandarins sanctioned the withholding of water and other necessary supplies, they voluntarily surrendered the advantage which the definiteness of their plans and their diplomatic capacity gave them over the English. The English naval officers at once denounced the withholding of provisions as an act of hostility, and declared a blockade, which was raised