TRADE STOPPED AT CANTON.

505

entirely to prevent their vigilance; and that the home-prepared drug does not yield the same stimulus as the foreign article. As a last resort, he proposes to increase the penalties upon the consumers, laying all the blame upon them, and advises death to be awarded all who smoke opium after a year's warning has been given them. The well known subdivision of responsibility was to be made doubly strong by requiring bonds of every tything and hundred, that there were no smokers within their limits. Officers found guilty were not only to be executed, but their children deprived of the privilege of competing at the public examination. One feels a degree of sympathy for the helpless condition of officers and statesmen sincerely desirous of doing their country service, and yet so sadly ignorant of the only effectual preventative. They might as well have tried to concert a measure to stop the Yellow river in its impetuous flow, as to check the opium trade by laws and penalties. Nothing but the Gospel and its influences could help them, and these they really know nothing of, though they forbade them as far as they did know them; but foreigners did not dare to violate their prohibitions on this head. "China was shut."

The contraband traffic on the river increased to such a degree during the year 1838, that the whole foreign trade seemed likely to be involved, when it suddenly took another direction. On the 3d of December, twelve small boxes containing about two peculs of opium, were seized, while landing, and the coolies carried into the city. They declared that they had been sent to Whampoa by Mr. Innes, a British merchant, to obtain the opium from an American ship consigned to Mr. Talbot. The governor ordered the hong-merchants to expel these two gentlemen and the ship within three days, on the garbled testimony of the two coolies. Mr. Talbot sent in a communication, stating, that neither the ship nor himself had anything to do with the opium, and obtained a reversal of the order to leave. The hong-merchants were justly irritated at this flagrant violation of law, and informed the Chamber of Commerce, that they would not rent their houses to any who would not give a bond to abstain from such proceedings, and refusing to open the trade until they were given; and furthermore declared their intention to pull Mr. Innes' house down if he refused to depart. The Chamber of Commerce protested, stating, "that the inviolability of their personal dwellings was a point

imperatively necessary" for their security; the hong-merchants then resorted to entreaty, stating their difficult position between their own rulers on one side, who held them responsible for executing their orders, and the foreigners on the other, over whom they had little or no power. The Chamber could only express its regret at the unjust punishment inflicted on one of their number Punhoyqua for this, and reässert its inability to control the acts of any foreigner, or give them security respecting the small craft on the river. The hesitation of the Chinese rulers in not immediately arresting Mr. Innes for his violation of the laws, seems to have been prompted by a dislike of personally encountering the foreigners; for with full power in their hands, since one proclamation would probably have sufficed to bring down the whole populace upon their enemies, to the entire destruction of factories and residents, still they forbore, and run the risk of official degradation and banishment, rather than employ all means in their reach.

The governor, as if at a loss what to do next, resolved to show foreigners what consequences befel natives who dealt in opium; and while Mr. Innes still remained in Canton, he sent an officer with a small party of fifteen to execute Ho Laukin, a convicted dealer, in front of the factories. The officer was proceeding to carry his orders into effect near the American flag-staff, when the foreigners sallied out, pushed down the bamboo tent he was raising, trampling on it, and telling him in very loud tones not to execute the man there. Quite unprepared for this opposition, he hastily gathered up his implements, and went into a neighboring street, where the man was strangled. Meanwhile, a large crowd of idlers collected to see these extraordinary proceedings, whom the foreigners endeavored to drive away, supposing that a little determination would soon scatter them. Blows, however, were returned, and the foreigners speedily driven into their factories, and the doors shut; the crowd had now become a mob, and under the impression that two natives had been seized, they began to batter the fronts and break the windows with stones and brickbats. They had had possession of the square about three hours, and the danger was becoming imminent, when the district magistrate came into it, with three or four other officers, attended by a small body of police. Stepping out of his sedan, he waved his hand over the crowd, the lictors pouncing upon three or four of the most active,

whom they began to chastise upon the spot, and the storm was quelled. About twenty soldiers with him, armed with swords and spears, took their stand in a conspicuous quarter; the magistrate and his retinue seated themselves, leaving the hong-merchants and the police to disperse the crowd. The foreigners were also assured that all should be kept quiet during the night, but not a word was said to them regarding their conduct in interfering with the execution, or their folly in bringing this danger upon themselves. This occurrence tended to impress both the government and people with contempt and hatred for foreigners and their characters, fear of their designs, and the necessity restraining them. The majority of them were engaged in the opium trade, and all stood before the empire as violators of the laws, while the people themselves suffered the dreadful penalty.

The Chamber of Commerce, in an address to the governor, expressed its indignation at the square being turned into a public place of execution, "for it belonged to the houses rented by foreigners," and was Ia direct violation of established tenures." "Their minds," the writers said, "were greatly excited at hearing what was to be done; they assembled in the square, and there plainly but peacefully pointed out to the officer in charge that such an occurrence could not be tolerated; no violence of any sort was committed, and the officers of government desisted in their preparations, and withdrew." The subsequent riot was attributed entirely to the populace, and the assertion is made that the foreigners withdrew into their factories "on the assurance that the police should instantly be sent for, and from the most earnest wish to prevent the fatal consequences which might have arisen from any conflict between the foreigners and the populace." The governor replied with dignity. After stating the grounds of the condemnation of Ho Laukin, he proceeds: "I, the governor, with the lieutenant-governor, having taken into consideration that his penalty of death was the result of the pernicious introduction of opium into Canton by depraved foreigners, commanded that he should be led out to the ground of the Thirteen Factories, adjoining the foreign residences, and there be executed. Thus it was designed to strike observation, to arouse careful reflection, and to cause all to admonish and warn one another; in the hope that a trembling obedience to the laws and statutes of the celestial empire might be produced, that the good portion of the foreign com

Knowledge among the Chinese. A meeting of British subjects was also held in March, to make arrangements for a hospital at Whampoa or elsewhere for the relief of British subjects.

Some

The trade on the coast in small vessels was now almost entirely confined to opium. Two attempts were made to penetrate the country in 1835, by Mr. Gordon of Calcutta, under orders of the Bengal government, to learn how the tea-plant was cultivated, but they were mainly unsuccessful. He landed at first near Tsiuenchau fu, and hired sedan-chairs to take his party to the Ankoi (or Ngankí) hills, about forty miles from the coast. Mr. Gutzlaff accompanied him as interpreter, and their reception furnished an additional instance of the friendliness of the people. of the villagers lighted them on their way, and all received them kindly, even the officers, on learning their object, offered no serious obstruction. The second attempt by the same gentleman to reach the Bohea hills, by ascending the river Min, was forcibly stopped by a detachment of troops near Min-tsing firing upon the boat containing the party, and compelling it to return. In this excursion, the people manifested the same willingness to hold intercourse, but when under the surveillance of their rulers, a not unfounded fear of being implicated kept them aloof.

The result fully proved the impossibility of entering the country in an open manner without the permission of the rulers; intercourse with the people, limited as it was, also showed that the name and character of foreigners were generally associated with the opium trade, and that this contraband traffic was becoming a strong argument in the minds of the better class of Chinese against the extension of all trade. The dwellers immediately on the coast were eager for an extension of the traffic, because it brought them large gains, and the officers at the principal ports were desirous of participating in the emoluments of their fellows at Canton; but those who had the good of the country at heart, and there are many such in China, thought that the extension of foreign trade would bring with it unmitigated evil, chiefly from the increased use of opium. That was the only article which would sell, and every effort was made to diffuse it along the coast by both natives and foreigners.

The chief superintendent remained at Lintin on board a small cutter among the opium and other ships anchored there, during the season of 1835-36, and was so well satisfied with his position

LIN APPOINTED TO SUPPRESS THE TRAFFIC.

509

the heinousness of the opium trade inside of the Bogue, and its harmlessness beyond that limit, or to see wherein one branch was so much worse, per se, than the other; still there were sufficient grounds for such action as would show the Chinese government that British power would not protect British subjects in violating the laws of China. The position of the Chinese rulers ill fitted them for learning this nice distinction; they were like a man firing at an enemy through a fog,—a fog rendered thicker, too, by their own ignorance and absurd assumptions.

At this period, the supreme government had taken its course of action. Reports had been received from the chief authorities in the provinces, almost unanimously recommending increased stringency to abolish the traffic as the only likely course to succeed. History, so far as we know, does not record a similar mode of an arbitrary, despotic, pagan government, taking the public sentiment of its own people before adopting a doubtful line of conduct. It was a far more momentous and difficult question in fact than even the Cabinet deemed it to be, while their conceited prejudices incapacitated them from dealing with it prudently or successfully. Hü Nai-tsí was dismissed for proposing legalization, and three princes of the blood degraded for smoking opium; and arrests, fines, tortures, imprisonments, and executions were frequent in the provinces on the same grounds, all showing the determination to eradicate it. The governor of Hukwang, Lin Tseh-sü, was appointed commissioner to proceed to Canton with unlimited powers to stop the traffic. The trade was at this time almost suspended, the deliveries being small and at losing prices. The authorities admonished smokers to reform, and sent the police to search houses for the drug and pipes; but in Canton, the people erected gates across the streets in order first to see that the police had no opium secreted on their persons. Many underlings were convicted and summarily punished, and on the 26th of February, Fung A-ngan was strangled in front of the factories for his connexion with opium, and participation in the affray at Whampoa some months before; the foreign flags, English, American, Dutch, and French, were all hauled down in consequence. The entire stoppage of all trade was threatened, and the governor urged upon foreigners the immediate removal of all opium ships from Chinese waters.

On the 10th of March, commissioner Lin arrived in Canton to enter upon the difficult duties of his office. The emperor sent