ect to the
illegality of the trade, when it is as clear as possible that its
existence was well known to the government of China, and that no step
had ever been taken to put it down; but, on the contrary, the means of
continuing it, and of raising a larger duty upon it, were under
consideration; and, in fact, the trade was finally put down, and
discontinued only because it was supposed that it occasioned the export
of a larger quantity of native or Sycee silver.

_May 12, 1840._

* * * * *

_The Opium not the cause of the war with China. Defence of Captain
Elliot._

The noble earl says that this war is to be attributed to the opium!
Why? there was no British opium in China at the very time these other
outrages were committed, and when this very language was held; and, as
far as I am able to judge, there was then no opium in the possession of
the British merchants there. An order had been issued to deliver it up,
and this gentleman had gone down the river for the purpose of
surrendering the whole. The war, then, has grown out of another state of
circumstances. First of all, there was a claim for the surrender of an
Englishman to be put to death, because a Chinese had lost his life in an
affray. Captain Elliot, as became an English officer, instituted an
inquiry to discover whether a certain number of persons, stated to have
been in an affray, had been guilty of the murder or not, and the result
of the inquiry was, that he could not bring the charge home to any one;
that he had no reason to suspect any one. The Chinese government still
insisted that these six men should be given up. Captain Elliot refused,
and that, I take it, is one of the causes of the war.

Another of the causes of the war is this--that a provision had been made
that matters should be restored to their former state, in proportion as
the opium should be delivered up; that the British inhabitants should
have the use of the native servants; that they should have the common
comforts of life, provisions, and all that was necessary for
subsistence; and, finally, that the trade should be re-opened, and
matters allowed to resume their usual course. After having given that
promise, it is discovered that this Chinese lost his life in an affray
in which American seamen were engaged as well as the English; and then a
fourth proposition was advanced, which was this, that every master of a
vessel, proceeding up the Canton river,