The Opium War

Document B: Xu Naiji, 1836 It is proposed entirely to cut off the foreign trade, thus to remove the root, to dam up the source of all evil. The Celestial Dynasty would not, indeed, hesitate to relinquish the few millions of duties arising therefrom. But all the nations of the West have had a general market open to their ships for upwards of a thousand years, while the dealers in opium are the English alone; it would be wrong, for the sake of cutting off the English trade, to cut off that of all the other nations. Besides, the hundreds of thousands of people living on the seacoast depend wholly on trade for their livelihood, and how are they to be disposed of?...It will be found, on examination, that smokers of opium are idle, lazy vagrants, having no useful purpose before them, and are unworthy of regard or even of contempt...Since then, it will not answer to close out ports against (all trades), and since the laws issued against opium are quite inoperative, the only method left is to revert to the former system, to permit the barbarian merchants to import opium paying duty thereon as a medicine, and to require that, after having passed the Custom House, it shall be delivered to the Hong merchants only in exchange for merchandise, and no money be paid for it. Foreign money should be placed on the same footing with sycee silver, and the exportation of it should be equally prohibited.

Document C: Lin Tse-Hsu's Letter to Queen Victoria, 1839 We find that your country is sixty or seventy thousand li (3 li make a mile) from China. Yet there are barbarian ships that strive to come here for trade for the purpose of making a great profit. That is to say, the great profit made by barbarians is all taken from the rightful share of China. By what right do they then in return use the poisonous drug to injure the Chinese people? Even though the barbarians may no necessarily intend to do us harm, yet in coveting profit to an extreme, they have no regard for injuring others. Let us ask, where is your conscience? I have heard that the smoking of opium is very strictly forbidden by your country; that is because the harm caused by opium is clearly understood. Since it is not permitted to do harm in your own country, then even less should you let it be passed on to the harm of other countries -- how much less to China! ...Suppose there were people from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into buying and smoking it; certainly your honorable ruler would deeply hat it and be bitterly aroused...Now after this communication has been dispatched and you have clearly understood the strictness of the prohibitory laws of the Celestial Court, certainly you will not let your subjects dare again to violate the law...

Document D: Speech by Thomas Macaulay to the English Parliament, April 7, 1840 The learned from history - and almost every country afforded proof, which was strengthened by existing circumstances in England, to which he had already alluded - that no machinery, however powerful, had been sufficient to keep out of any country those luxuries which the people enjoyed, or were able to purchase, or to prevent the efflux of precious metals, when it was demanded by the course of trade. What Great Britain could not effect with the finest marine, and the most trustworthy preventive service in the world, was not likely to be effected by the feeble efforts of the mandarins of China. But whatever their opinions might be on these points, the Governor of China alone, it must be remembered, was competent to decide; that the government had a right to keep out opium, to keep in silver, and to enforce their prohibitory laws, by whatever means which they might possess, consistently with the principles of public morality, and of international law; and if, after having given fair notice of their intention, to seize all contraband goods introduced into their dominions; they seized our opium we had no right to complain; but when the government, finding that by just and lawful means, they could not carry out their prohibition, resorted to measures unjust and unlawful, confined our innocent countrymen, and insulted the Sovereign in the person of her representative, then he thought, the time had arrived when it was fit that we should interfere.

Document E: Speech by William Gladstone to the English Parliament, April 8, 1840 The right honorable Gentlemen opposite has also asked, "Shall we establish at our own expense a preventive service on the coast of China to put down the smuggling of opium into that country?" Now as to that question he would give an answer by asking another and that was, "Did the right honorable Gentleman opposite know that the opium smuggled into China came exclusively from British ports – that was, from Bengal, and through Bombay!" If that were the fact - and he defied the right honorable Gentleman to gain say it - then we required no preventive service to put down this illegal traffic. We had only to stop the sailing of opium vessels; and it was a matter of certainty, that if we had stopped the exportation of opium from Bengal, and broken up the depot at Lintin, and had checked the growth of it in Maiwa, and had put a moral stigma upon it, we should have greatly crippled, if, indeed, we had not entirely extinguished the trade in it... They gave you notice to abandon your contraband trade. When they found that you would not, they had a right to drive you from their coasts on account of your obstinacy in persisting in this infamous and atrocious traffic. You allowed your agent to aid and abet those who were concerned in carrying on that trade, and I do not know how it can be urged as a crime against the Chinese that they refused provisions to those who refused obedience to their laws whilst residing within their territories, I am not competent to judge how long this war may last, but a ware more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace, I do not know and I have not read of.

Document F: Treaty of Nanking, 1842 Article III It being obviously necessary and desirable, that British subjects should have some Port whereat they may careen and refit their ships, when required, and keep Stores for that purpose, His Majesty the Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty of Great Britain, etc., the Island of Hong Kong... Article IV The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Six Millions of Dollars as the value of Opium which was delivered up at Canton in the month of March 1839, as a Ransom for the lives of Her Britannic Majesty's Superintendent and Subjects, who had been imprisoned and threatened with death by the Chinese High Officers... Article VI The Government of Her Brittannic Majesty having been obliged to send out an Expedition to demand and obtain redress for the violent and unjust Proceedings of the Chinese High Authorities towards Her Britannic Majesty's Officers and Subjects, the Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Twelve Millions of Dollars on account of the Expenses incurred...

Document G: Feng Kuei-Fen, 1860 The most unparalleled anger which has ever existed since the creation of heaven and earth is exciting all who are conscious in their minds and have spirit in their blood...This is because the largest country on the globe today, with a vast area of 10,000 li, is yet controlled by small barbarians...According to a general geography by an Englishman, the territory of our China is eight times larger than Russia, ten times that of America one hundred times that of France, and two hundred times that of England... Yet now we are shamefully humiliated by these four nations not because our climate, soil, or resources are inferior to theirs, but because our people are really inferior... Why are they small and yet strong? Why are we large and yet weak? ...Western books on mathematics, mechanics, optics, light, chemistry, and other subjects contain the best principles of the natural sciences...Most of this information is beyond the reach of our people... What we then have to learn from the barbarians is only one thing, solid ships and effective guns...Funds should be assigned to establish a shipyard and arsenal in each trading port. Several barbarians should be invited and Chinese who are good in using their minds should be summoned to receive their instructions so that they may in turn teach many artisans...Eventually we must consider manufacturing, repairing, and using weapons by ourselves...Only thus will we be able to pacify the empire; only thus can we play a leading role on the globe; and only thus shall we restore our original strength and redeem ourselves from former humiliations.