CONVERSATION RESPECTING THE OPIUM TRAFFIC. 571 conceded, no indemnity should have been asked for smuggled opium entirely destroyed by those who had, it may be, illegally, but with honest intention, seized it. That government and ministry, which had paid a hundred millions for the emancipation of slaves, could surely afford to release a pagan nation from such an imposed obligation, instead of sending their armies to exact a few millions, which the revenue of one year, derived from this very article alone, would amply discharge to their own subjects. For this pitiful sum, must the great moral lesson to the emperor of China and his subjects, which could have been taught them at this time, be lost; and might again overcome the immutable principles of right. It may be that the full report of this conversation is not given, and Mr. Gutzlaff, who acted as the interpreter, might have suggested something of this kind, for the envoy himself was not likely to speak of it. His reference to tobacco was very unhappy, since it would be likely to leave the wrong impression upon the minds of the Chinese, that he thought opium was no worse than that narcotic, which they knew was not true. Sir Henry inquired if an envoy would be received at Peking, if he should be sent from England, which Kíying assured him would no doubt be a gratification to his master, though what ideas the latter connected with such a suggestion must be inferred. The conference lasted three or four hours, and when the procession returned to the barges, through an immense crowd of people, nothing was heard from them to indicate dislike or dread; all was merged in overpowering curiosity. It was also remarkable, that this was the anniversary of the day when English subjects. among whom were the three interpreters here present, left Macao in 1839, by order of Lin; on the 26th August, 1840, the plenipotentiaries entered the Pei ho to seek an interview with Kíshen; that day, the next year, Amoy and its extensive batteries fell; and now, the three years' game is won, and China is obliged to bend, her magnates come down from their eminences, and her wall of supremacy, isolation, and conceit, shattered beyond the possibility of restoration. Her rulers apparently submitted with good grace to the hard lesson, which seemed to be the only effectual means of compelling them to abandon their ridiculous pretensions; though it cannot be too often repeated that the effect of kindness, honorable dealing, and peaceful missions, had not To the wellwisher of his fellow-men, this narrative suggests many melancholy reflections. On the one hand, were four or five high Chinese officers, who, although pagans, and unacquainted with the principles of true virtue, had evidently sympathized with and upheld their sovereign in his fruitless misdirected endeavors to save his people from a vicious habit. "Why will you not act fairly towards us by prohibiting the growth of the poppy?"-is their anxious inquiry; for they knew that there was no moral principle among themselves strong enough to resist the pipe. "Your people must become virtuous, and your officers incorruptible, and then you can stop the opium coming into your borders," is the reply; just the same kind of reply, that the callous rumseller gives the broken-hearted wife of the besotted drunkard, when she beseeches him not to sell liquor to her enslaved husband. "Other people will bring it to you, if we should 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 it.” Although nations are somewhat different from individuals in respect to their power of resisting and suppressing a vice, and Sir Henry did right to speak of the legal difficulty in the way of restraining labor, yet how heartless was the excuse, that if we do not bring it to you others will. How favorable the opportunity then presented to the representative of Christendom to refer the representatives of civilized heathendom to the true source of the wealth and civilization of England-the Bible and the religion it inculcated-not to her commerce, or her benign and liberal laws, and assure them, that until they admitted that only safe guide and instructor in morals, all their endeavors to put down the use of opium, as well as other evils, would be ineffectual. Nor was any suggestion made to them, as to the most judicious mode of restraining what they were told they could not prohibit; no hint of the farming system, which would have held out to them a medium path between absolute freedom and prohibition, and probably been seriously considered by the court; nor was any frank explanation made as to the real position the English government itself held in respect to the forced growth of this pernicious article. How much nobler would that government have stood in the eyes of mankind in this war, if its head and ministers had instructed their plenipotentiary, that when their other demands were all paid and CONVERSATION RESPECTING THE OPIUM TRAFFIC. 571 conceded, no indemnity should have been asked for smuggled opium entirely destroyed by those who had, it may be, illegally, but with honest intention, seized it. That government and ministry, which had paid a hundred millions for the emancipation of slaves, could surely afford to release a pagan nation from such an imposed obligation, instead of sending their armies to exact a few millions, which the revenue of one year, derived from this very article alone, would amply discharge to their own subjects. For this pitiful sum, must the great moral lesson to the emperor of China and his subjects, which could have been taught them at this time, be lost; and might again overcome the immutable principles of right. It may be that the full report of this conversation is not given, and Mr. Gutzlaff, who acted as the interpreter, might have suggested something of this kind, for the envoy himself was not likely to speak of it. His reference to tobacco was very unhappy, since it would be likely to leave the wrong impression upon the minds of the Chinese, that he thought opium was no worse than that narcotic, which they knew was not true. Sir Henry inquired if an envoy would be received at Peking, if he should be sent from England, which Kíying assured him would no doubt be a gratification to his master, though what ideas the latter connected with such a suggestion must be inferred. The conference lasted three or four hours, and when the procession returned to the barges, through an immense crowd of people, nothing was heard from them to indicate dislike or dread; all was merged in overpowering curiosity. It was also remarkable, that this was the anniversary of the day when English subjects. among whom were the three interpreters here present, left Macao in 1839, by order of Lin; on the 26th August, 1840, the plenipotentiaries entered the Pei ho to seek an interview with Kishen; that day, the next year, Amoy and its extensive batteries fell; and now, the three years' game is won, and China is obliged to bend, her magnates come down from their eminences, and her wall of supremacy, isolation, and conceit, shattered beyond the possibility of restoration. Her rulers apparently submitted with good grace to the hard lesson, which seemed to be the only effectual means of compelling them to abandon their ridiculous pretensions; though it cannot be too often repeated that the effect of kindness, honorable dealing, and peaceful missions, had not been fairly tried, and the war did do what those means would perhaps have done with less carnage. Arrangements were made on the 29th, to sign the treaty on board the Cornwallis. Kíying and Niu Kien came in the admiral's barge, and Ílípu, who was very infirm and ill, arrived soon after in his own boat, and was lifted on board; Sir Henry, the admiral, and general, all went out to support him into the cabin, for he could not walk, and a couch was arranged for his accommodation. Four copies of the treaty were prepared in both languages, and Mr. Morrison, as the envoy's secretary, first sealed it with his seal, and then Wang, the treasurer of the province, sealed it with the seal of the imperial commissioners. The table was then drawn up for their superiors to sign it; Kíying, Ílípu, and the governor, put their names under their seals, and lastly Sir Henry wrote his name under his seal. After it was signed, all sat down to table, and the admiral, as the host in his flag-ship, gave the healths of their majesties, the Queen of England and the Emperor of China, which was announced to the fleet and army by a salute of twenty-one guns, and hoisting the Union Jack, and a yellow flag, at the main and mizen. The treaty was forwarded to Peking that evening, for the emperor's ratification, and the steamer Sesostris dispatched to Bombay the next day, by which communications were sent announcing the conclusion of the war. The embargo on the rivers and ports was taken off, the troops reembarked, and preparations made to return to Wusung. The six millions were paid without much delay, and on the 15th of September the emperor's ratification was received. The secretary of legation, Major Malcom, immediately left to obtain the Queen's ratification, going by steam the entire distance from Nanking to London. The imperial assent was also published in a rescript, dated September 8th, addressed to Kíying, in reply to his account of the settlement of affairs, in which he gives directions for disbanding the troops, rebuilding such forts as had been destroyed, and cultivating peace, as well as providing for the fulfilment of the articles. It is, on the whole, a dignified approval of the treaty, and breathes nothing of a spirit of revenge, or intention to prepare for future resistance. The officers at Canton, Amoy, and elsewhere, on its receipt, republished it, and soon after dismissed the volunteers to their homes, and restored the garrisons to their MASSACRE OF PRISONERS IN FORMOSA. 573 quarters. Preparations for rebuilding the Bogue forts were shortly after begun, and the injury done to the defences in other places was gradually repaired. The fleet of ships and transports returned down the river, and reassembled at Tinghai, without losing a vessel, at the end of October. Even before leaving Nanking, and in the passage down the river, the troops and sailors, especially the Hindus, were greatly afflicted by cholera, fever, and other diseases, some of the transports being nearly disabled; the deaths amounted to more than a thousand before reaching Hongkong. On reaching Amoy, the plenipotentiary was highly incensed, on hearing of the melancholy fate of the captive crews of the Nerbudda and Ann, wrecked on Formosa. The first was a transport, containing two hundred and seventy-four souls, and when she went ashore, all the Europeans on board made their way over to the main, abandoning two hundred and forty Hindus to their fate, most of whom fell into the hands of the Chinese. The Ann was an opium vessel, and her crew of fifty-seven souls were taken prisoners, and carried to Taiwan fu. The prisoners were divided into small parties, and had little communication with each other during their captivity, which was aggravated by want of food and clothing, filthy lodgings, and other hardships of a Chinese jail, so that many of the Indians died. The survivors, on the 13th of August, with the exception of ten persons, were carried out to a plain near the city, one of whom, Mr. Newman, a seacunnie on board the Ann, and the last in the procession, gave the following account. "On being taken out of his sedan, to have his hands shackled behind his back, he saw two of the prisoners with their irons off, and refusing to have them put on. They had both been drinking, and were making a great noise, crying out to him that they were all to have their heads cut off. He advised them to submit quietly, but they still refusing, he first wrenched off his own, and then put them into theirs, to the great pleasure of the soldiers, but when the soldiers wished to replace his, he declined. As they were on the point of securing him, he accidentally saw the chief officer seated close to him. Going before him, he threw himself on his head, and commenced singing a few Chinese words which he had frequently heard repeated in a temple. The officer was so pleased with this procedure, that he turned round to the soldiers, and ordered them to carry him back to the city. All the rest, 197 in number, were placed at small distances from each other on their knees, their feet in irons, and |