William Hall - Narrative of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis from 1840 to 1843

The enormous profits derived from the clandestine sale of opium induced many of the Chinese to embark in it as a speculation, who neither used it themselves, nor were habituated to any other commercial traffic. Official men both smoked and sold it ; hundreds of people gained a livelihood by the manufacture or sale of opium-pipes, and other apparatus connected with its use; and even the armed soldier often carried an opium-pipe in his girdle, with the same unconcern as he did the fan-case which is very commonly a part of his costume.

All this was going on throughout a great portion of the empire during the time that the question of its legalization or of its sterner prohibition was being so warmly debated at court, and discussed throughout the country. But the general impression was, that the importation of the drug would be legalized, and there was little apprehension of the violent persecution which soon commenced.

Instead of the foreigners imposing upon them the barter of opium as a condition of trade, it was the Chinese themselves who begged and prayed that it might be supplied to them; who sought out the opium-selling vessels at long distances, and were even then only permitted to receive it by paying hard cash for it. So determined were the Chinese to possess it at any cost, that they frequently were willing to purchase it for its own weight in silver, balanced fairly the one against the other in the scales. Boats belonging to the Custom House engaged in the traffic. The governor of Canton himself, Tang by name, was known to have employed his own boat to fetch it; and so publicly and undisguisedly was the traffic carried on, that a stipulated sum was paid to the officers for every chest landed, precisely as if it had been a bale of cotton or a box of glass.

It cannot be doubted, however, that after the death of the emperor's son, public attention throughout the empire became more strongly than ever directed to the increasing evils of the use and abuse of opium. Many instances of its pernicious effects now rose to the recollection of individuals who would otherwise have scarcely dwelt upon them. The agitation of the question had indeed led to party feeling upon the subject. The thunders of the emperor against foreigners began to take effect; measures of a severer kind now began to be adopted; and the reaction throughout the empire was almost universal. The shock had not been expected, and it came upon them like an earthquake.

Yet the justice of it appeared evident to many, for the evils had been concealed from none. It seemed as if all on a sudden the highroad to official favour and distinction could be found solely through the degree of energy shewn in ferreting out the lowest opium-smokers, and in publicly giving up the very pipes which were used; indeed it has been said that this enthusiasm was carried so far, that pipes were actually purchased for the purpose of giving them up to the officers, as if it indicated a voluntary surrender of a vicious habit. These were all displayed as emblems of victory, and the most zealous were the best rewarded, while the government itself became astonished at its own apparent success. It now thought itself irresistible, and despised the foreigners more than ever.

A grand crisis was produced by these proceedings in the interior of the country. All traffic of an extensive kind became nearly stopped; the prisons were filled with delinquents; and a great parade was made of the "stern severity" of the government, on the one hand, and of the obedient submission of the people, on the other. Yet, in spite of all this public display, that traffic itself was in reality as flourishing as ever, although perhaps it might have changed hands. Opium was more eagerly sought after than before; the price of it rose in proportion; and, precisely as had been predicted by the free trade or reform party in Pekin, it was found impossible to prevent its introduction into the country by the people themselves, even by the threat of death itself. Fishermen carried with them a single ball, and made a large profit by its sale; in short, the temptations and the profits were so large and irresistible, that hundreds of modes were discovered for conveying it from place to place, in spite of the penalties which awaited detection. The beheading of a few men, and the imprisonment of others, did not deter the mass; the delicious intoxication of the precious drug proved far too attractive to be controlled by the horrors of death or torture.

The truth is, however specious the edicts and writings of the Chinese may appear on paper , they are perfectly futile in reality, when the will of the people and the absence of any early prejudice is opposed to their accomplishment.

Without further pursuing a subject which, though deeply interesting, has been already so much a matter of discussion, we may at once come to the conclusion, that the passion of the Chinese for the pernicious intoxication of opium, was the first link in the chain which was destined to connect them at some future day with all the other families of mankind. The abolition of the privileges of the East India Company first opened the door for the general trade of all foreign nations upon an extended scale; but the trade in opium, which the Chinese were determined to carry on, in spite of all opposition of their own government, and with a full knowledge of the pernicious consequences which resulted from it, was the instrument by means of which the haughty tone and the inapproachable reserve of their government were to be at length overcome.

We now come to the period of the famous Commissioner Lin's appointment to Canton. This was indeed the climax of all the perplexities. Lin himself was the Robespierre, the terrorist, the reckless despot, who represented a certain party in the empire, who conscientiously believed that they could terrify not only their own countrymen, but even foreign nations, into patient submission to their will.

This singular man seems to have been composed of good and bad qualities in equal proportions, but always of a violent kind. In any other country than China, he would have been either distinguished as a demagogue or branded as a tyrant, precisely as circumstances chanced to lead him into a particular channel. He was reckless of consequences, so long as he could carry out his will without control. He was violent, yet not selfish; changeable, yet always clinging to his original views; severe, and even cruel and inexorable, in the measures by which he sought to gain his ends; yet, in reality, he is believed to have meant well for his country, and to have had the interests and the wishes of the emperor, his master, always at heart. He certainly believed that he could control both the people under his own government, and the foreigners who came into contact with them, by force ; and his very errors seem to have arisen from excess of zeal in the cause which he adopted. His talent was unquestionable.

Lin became intoxicated with his own success (for the time, at all events) in whatever he undertook; and expected all his orders to be executed with the same energy and facility with which he gave them utterance. It is said, moreover, that he procured a copy of a remarkable work called a "Digest of Foreign Customs, Practices, Manners," &c., in which bad deeds rather than good ones, and even the names of individual merchants, were brought forward; and that he studied this book with constant pleasure.

On the 10th of March, 1839, this redoubtable commissioner reached Canton, having travelled with extraordinary speed from Pekin, whither he had been called to receive his appointment at the hands of the emperor himself; who is said to have even shed tears, as he parted with him.

He lost not a moment, upon his arrival at Canton, in setting all the powerful energies of his mind to work, to devise means of accomplishing his ends. He determined to endeavour to put a complete stop to the traffic in opium, both on the part of his own people and on that of foreigners; and his great aim was to "control, curb, and humble," the foreign community generally.