20; and there is a story that he was moved to action by the
untimely fate of his eldest son, who had fallen a victim to the
seductive poison.

Commissioner Lin, whom he selected to carry out his prohibitory policy,
was a fit instrument for such a master, equally virtuous in his aims
and equally tyrannical in his mode of proceeding. Arriving at Canton,
his first object was to get possession of the forbidden drug, which was
stored on ships outside the harbor. This he thought to accomplish by
surrounding the whole foreign community by soldiers and threatening them
with death if the opium was not promptly surrendered. While its owners
or their agents hesitated, Captain Elliot, the British Superintendent of
Trade, came up from Macao, and demanded to share the duress of his
nationals. He then called on them to deliver up the drug to him to be
used in the service of the Queen for the ransom of the lives of her
subjects, assuring them that they would be reimbursed from the public
treasury. No fewer than twenty-one thousand chests, valued at nine
million dollars, were brought in from the opium ships and formally
handed over to Commissioner Lin. The foreign community was set free, and
the drug destroyed by being mixed with quicklime.

War was made to punish this outrage on the rights of the foreign
community, and to exact indemnity for the seizure of their property.
Canton was not captured, but held to ransom, and the haughty Viceroy
sent into exile. Other cities were taken and held; and, in 1842, a
treaty of peace was signed at Nanking by which five ports were opened to
foreign trade. The embargo on opium was not withdrawn; but the defeat of
the Chinese resulted in a virtual immunity from seizure together with a
growth of the traffic, such as to justify the ill-odored name which that
war still bears in history.

Treaties with other powers followed in quick succession. On demand of
the French Minister, the Emperor recalled his prohibitory decrees
against Christianity and issued an Edict of Toleration. If the opening
of the ports gave a stimulus to trade, the decree of toleration opened a
door for missionary enterprise. As yet, however, neither merchant nor
missionary was allowed to penetrate into the interior; while the capital
and the whole of the northern seacoast remained inaccessible. This was
obviously a state of things that could not be permanent; yet fifteen
years were to pass before another war came to settle the terms