corrupting and destroying his people, by supplying them with opium; but
it is easily demonstrable that this was only a pretence for endeavouring
to effect a change in the medium of our dealings with them, vastly
beneficial to the Emperor, and disadvantageous to us. We might have been
permitted to quadruple our supply of opium to his subjects, if we would
have been content to be paid, _not in bullion_, but by taking Chinese
goods in exchange; in a word, to change the basis of our dealings from
_sale_ to _barter_; and all this from a totally groundless notion of the
Emperor and his advisers, that we were draining his kingdom of silver
--in their own words, "causing the Sycee silver to ooze out of the
dominions of the Brother of the Sun and the Moon." Their desperate
anxiety to carry this point, led them to take the decisive step of
seizing a vast quantity of our opium, under circumstances perfectly
familiar to every body; constituting a crowning indignity and injury,
which, without reference to the original legality or illegality of the
opium trade, gave us an unquestionable cause for war against the
Emperor. He seized the person of her Majesty's representative, and those
of many of her principal subjects in China; and under the threat of
inflicting death upon them, extorted a delivery of an enormous amount of
property belonging to her Majesty's subjects. If this was not a cause of
war with any nation, whether civilized or uncivilized, there never was
one; and without going into further detail, we have stated sufficient to
justify, beyond all doubt, our commencement of hostilities against
China. But this occurred so long ago as the month of March 1839; yet, to
the eternal scandal of the then existing Government, no effectual
warlike demonstration was made to redress this flagrant unparalleled
outrage on the British nation, till better councils, those of the
present Government, were had recourse to by her Majesty; and which led
to the quick triumphant result with which the world is now ringing. Till
the present vigorous Government took the affair in hand, we were