May, and prepared for the market. The Chinese merchant values most of
all the Shense drug, while the Ynnan and the Szechuen drugs take next
rank. The opium is generally made into flat cakes and wrapped up in
folds of white paper. It is said that it was introduced into China in
the reign of Taitsu, between the years A.D. 1280 and 1295; but it is
worthy of note that up to the year 1736 it was imported only in small
quantities and employed simply for its medicinal properties, as a cure
for diarrhoea, dysentery, and fevers, hemorrhage and other ills. It
was in the year 1757 that the monopoly of the cultivation of the poppy
in India passed into the hands of the East India Company through the
victory of Lord Clive over the Great Mogul of Bengal at Plassey; and
from this time the importation of the drug into China became a matter
of great profit financially. In 1773 the whole quantity imported was
only two hundred chests. In 1776 it had increased to one thousand
chests, while in 1790 it leaped up to four thousand and fifty-four
chests. The Chinese Emperor, Keaking, becoming alarmed at its growing
use and its pernicious effect when eaten or smoked, forbade its
importation, and passed laws punishing persons who made use of it
otherwise than medicinally, and the extreme penalty was sometimes
transportation, and sometimes death. Yet the trade increased, and
in the decade between 1820 and 1830 the importation was as high as
sixteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-seven chests. The evil
became so great that in 1839 a royal proclamation was put forth
threatening English opium ships with confiscation if they did not keep
out of Chinese waters. This was not heeded, and then Lin, the Chinese
Commissioner, gave orders to destroy twenty thousand, two hundred
and ninety-one chests of opium, each containing 149-1/3 pounds, the
valuation of which was $10,000,000. Still the work of smuggling went
on and the result was what is known as the Opium War, which was ended
in 1842 by the treaty of Nanking. China was forced by Great Britain to