Opium (21 page)

It was estimated 1 per cent of the population was addicted, usually men between the ages of twenty and fifty-five. This sounds minuscule, but amounted to four million people: C. Toogood Downing reckoned the amount of opium imported in 1836 would cater for more than twelve million addicts. In the coastal Kwangtung and Fukien provinces, where smuggling occurred and contact with foreigners was possible, 90 per cent of the adult population was habituated. Foreign travellers and missionaries recorded opium shops and divans to be as frequent as gin shops in London. Opium use was widespread amongst Imperial civil servants who, by dint of their jobs, had sufficient leisure time to indulge in it: they were corrupted by it too, often engaged actively in its smuggling and retailing.

The Chinese government was caught in a cleft stick. They could not eradicate smuggling for they had no operational navy and a huge coastline. Their officials were rotten to the core. British interests in India relied heavily upon opium revenues. International trade regarded it as a staple commodity. Too many people had too many vested interests. Even the emperors were hamstrung: when Emperor Tao Kwong was asked to legalise opium, he said: ‘It is true, I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison; gain-seeking and corrupt men will for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people.' He had a personal as well as a moral interest in banning opium: three of his sons were addicts and were killed by the drug. He died, it is said, of a broken heart.

It looked like, even as late as 1838, the Chinese would not act and opium would maintain its status quo. The merchants in Canton believed nothing would happen and the edicts and laws were, in James Matheson's own words, ‘so much waste paper.'

Yet times were changing. Early in 1839, the Emperor appointed a special commissioner, Lin Tsê-hsü, commanding him to eradicate the opium trade.

Lin was born in Foochow in 1785. A very intelligent and learned man, he graduated from the University of Peking in 1811. He was a career civil servant with a good record of service: he was also almost unique in that he was a resolute and competent administrator, a just and fair applicator of the law and – most amazingly, bearing in mind his peers – incorruptible. What was more, he had successfully closed down the opium trade elsewhere in China, particularly in his own province of Hunan.

Convincing the Emperor he could clean things up, Lin made an explosive proposal. All smugglers, foreign or Chinese, were to be treated the same under Chinese law. The Emperor agreed and sent Lin to Canton as high commissioner, with plenipotentiary powers and supreme command of Chinese forces in the city. He was specifically briefed to ‘investigate port affairs', a euphemism for looking into foreign trading and the opium business in particular: it is rumoured the Viceroy fainted and remained unconscious for an hour on receiving the news.

A realist, Lin knew he was not only taking on foreign merchants but also his own countrymen: viceregal authorities would be obstructive, the Chinese navy's loyalty doubtful and the Hong traders uncooperative.

The Chinese found it inconceivable that the opium trade was conducted with the knowledge of the British monarch and in 1830, before relations had begun to break down, the then Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces had advised that the best way to stop importation was to appeal to the leaders of the foreign merchants' nations. Lin, who wrote that the British ‘are ruled at present by a young girl. But I am told that it is she who issues commands, and on the whole it seems that it would be best to start by sending instructions to her,' was to send a long and closely argued letter against the opium trade to Queen Victoria.

William C. Hunter, who was asked to translate the letter back into Chinese from English to make sure it conveyed the sense of the original draft, states in his memoir
The ‘Fan Kwae' at Canton,
published in 1882: ‘The document was a most extraordinary one. Prominent is the bombastic style, the outcome of ages of dominion, ignorance of Western official forms through an absence of diplomatic intercourse.'

The letter was delivered to Captain Warner, master of the
Thomas Coutts:
however, what happened to it is unknown. The
Thomas Coutts
reached London, but the letter never reached Queen Victoria. A charitable explanation is that Warner transferred it to a mail-packet using the Suez overland route on which mail robbery was rife. Another opinion has Lord Palmerston holding it back.

Palmerston was of the opinion the opium trade was a Chinese problem and they should counteract it by controlling consumption: besides, he also argued that to stop it would bankrupt India. On the other hand, Lin contended the sale of opium was inhumane and offended conscience. Had his attitude been aired in Britain, he would have had a number of supporters amongst the humanitarian movement and those who would have seen, in the long run, that Britain's reputation would suffer.

With more powers than the Viceroy and the Governor, Lin arrived in Canton in March 1839. He demanded the arrest of the most infamous opium offenders and ordered all opium commerce to halt forthwith, simultaneously demanding all existing stocks be surrendered within three days with every merchant – foreign and Chinese – signing a bond to guarantee a cessation in opium importation. Foreign merchants were reminded they were permitted to stay only as a courtesy. The Hong merchants were criticised for their close relationship with the foreigners, the threat made to execute a few to teach the rest a lesson, based upon their proven collusion.

At first, the foreigner traders and especially the British assumed this outburst was like all the others, a storm which would pass. They also considered themselves outside the reach of Chinese civil law and therefore safe from arrest or prosecution. They were wrong.

Lin then prohibited the foreigners from leaving for Macau. Chinese troops were mustered and armed junks patrolled the river. The merchants rejoined by saying they required more time to gather up the opium stocks.

Fully aware of their part in the opium business, Lin again threatened the Hong merchants who approached the foreign traders: 1037 chests were collected and handed over in the hope this might placate Lin. It did not. The next day, a Saturday, Howqua and his grandson, Mowqua, the most important Hong merchants, were paraded in chains. John Dent, one of the sons of William Dent, the founder of Dent & Co., the second largest trading firm, was instructed to visit Lin, who said if Dent was not in his office by 10 o'clock on Monday morning, 25 March, he would be taken there under guard.

On the Sunday, Elliot arrived. Staying in Macau, he had received news of developments and acted swiftly. All British vessels were gathered to the north-west of the island of Hong Kong and put under the charge of the only Royal Navy warship in the region, the eighteen-gun sloop HMS
Larne.

Lin permitted Elliot entry to the factories then strengthened his blockade, withdrew all Chinese servants and employees and cut off food supplies. The foreigners – with Elliot – were besieged. No one would starve: the factories were well stocked and, besides, the Hong merchants risked sneaking food in at night. However Elliot, acting without consultation with London, decided the British merchants had to comply with Lin's demands and, in May, they handed over their entire stock of 20,283 chests of opium, Elliot undertaking as the Crown's representative that they would be indemnified against loss. He had no power over the merchants of other nationalities but suggested they followed suit.

Much to Elliot's surprise, the merchants complied. Privately, they were more than pleased for they had imported so much back stock of opium they were having a hard time selling it. The price had dropped to an all-time low by February 1838, a chest of Patna opium bottoming at $450. Now they had a buyer in the government. The value of the stock was in excess of £2 million.

Lin was also surprised and pleased. Elliot had not sought to strike a bargain but simply acted. The Hong merchants were appalled: they knew the matter could have been settled with the surrender of less than half the whole stock. Matheson recorded their comments to his partner Jardine in Britain: ‘What for he pay so large? No wantee so much. Six, seven thousand so would be enough.'

It is sometimes stated the Chinese confiscated the opium. This is untrue. It was volunteered by Elliot but he had acted alone, in the name of the British government but without their agreement, which would have been difficult to obtain. Letters took months to reach London and he had to act as a matter of urgency. There was no time for the niceties of domestic British political consideration.

Elliot was not unlike Lin. He was a conscientious, courageous and, above all, honest and sincere man of principle. A career sailor, he was personally against the opium trade which he regarded as evil and a disgraceful stain on British character. In a report to London he described it as ‘discreditable to the character of the Christian nations under whose flag it is carried on.'

Lin's success posed a problem: how to dispose of so much opium? He could not send it to Peking for it would have been stolen
en route
and he could not burn it because the residue left over could still be pilfered and smoked. Instead, he decided to dissolve it. At Chen k'ou, near the present-day town of Tai Peng, 20 miles south-east of Canton, a huge bamboo stockade was erected in which stone- and wood-lined trenches 150 feet long, 75 feet wide and 7 feet deep were dug and filled with water. The 500 coolies employed for the task were made to work in the barest minimum of clothing and were strip-searched at the end of each work shift.

The opium was floated in the trenches to which salt and lime were added. Coolies stirred the brew with poles. When the opium was rotted, it was allowed to flow down gullies into the river. Lin wrote to his emperor:

The inhabitants of the coastal region are coming in throngs to witness the destruction of the opium. They are, of course, only allowed to look on from outside the fence and are not permitted access to the actual place of destruction, for fear of pilfering. The foreigners passing by in boats on their way up to Canton and down to Macao all get a distant view of the proceedings, but do not dare show any disrespect, and indeed I should judge from their attitudes that they have the decency to feel heartily ashamed.

However, two foreigners were permitted to witness the destruction. Both Americans, one was C.W. King of Olyphant & Co., which had never dealt in opium, the other Elijah Bridgman, the first American missionary in China. Whilst attending the stockade, they observed a coolie being beheaded on the spot for being found in possession of a small amount of opium. Afterwards, King was called to an audience with Lin who asked him who was the most straightforward of the foreign merchants to which question King, a devout Quaker, was unsure, much to Lin's amusement. King then warned Lin the British were going to bring steam-powered gunboats to China, which clearly worried him: Lin was aware of British technological supremacy.

Lin was pleased with his opium-destroying success. He removed the blockade of the factories, let trade in legitimate goods recommence and allowed merchants to join their families at Macau: but in doing so, he made a grave miscalculation. He had the foreign merchants over a barrel and could have bargained for an end to opium smuggling. Yet he did not.

Whilst they handed over their opium, the merchants refused point-blank to sign any bond. Elliot, conscious this meant matters were only partly resolved, advised them all to withdraw to Macau. Indeed, he ordered the British merchants to go. Everyone left, save two dozen Americans who continued everyone else's business on a commission basis.

Lin had also made another serious error. He did not reckon with either the power of the market-place or that of addiction for, by removing an entire year's opium supply, he pushed up the speculative price on the next year's harvest to previously unknown heights. Additionally, addicts were desperate for supplies and the price of opium soared.

Despite his missed opportunities, it seems Lin became obsessed with the idea that he had to build on his success and gain further control over the foreigners. In June 1839, he thought he saw his chance.

A number of British sailors rowed ashore to the village of Chien Sha Tsin (now Tsim Sha Tsui) on the Kowloon peninsula opposite Hong Kong. They visited a Chinese inn, became drunk, demolished a small temple, then killed a Chinese peasant, Lin Wei-hsi, in a brawl.

Lin demanded a British sailor, Thomas Tidder, be charged with murder under Chinese law, in a Chinese court. Elliot, who compensated the dead man's family according to tradition, tried and punished the brawlers himself but could not prove who had actually committed the murder. Lin was not to be put off: he wanted a British life for a Chinese one. This was what the Manchu Penal Code laid down. Elliot refused to comply. Lin interpreted this refusal as defiance against the Emperor and issued a proclamation to the ‘savages of the further seas', ordering them to repent their sins by submitting to the Celestial Empire or suffer the consequence. In August, he ceased all trade, besieged the Canton factories again and went with a military force towards Macau where all the British merchants were staying with their families.

As a safeguard, Elliot ordered the British residents on board the merchant ships lying off Hong Kong. Lin forbade local villagers to provision the vessels and ordered any foreigner found ashore to be shot on sight. To such a provocation, war seemed inevitable.

In the first week of September 1839, the predominantly British merchant fleet, anchored in what is today Hong Kong's western harbour, was blockaded by war junks. Elliot sent an emissary ashore: his emissary was Gutzlaff, who had written the letters he was carrying. One demanded the mandarins lift their threat, the other asked local villages not to poison the wells from which the British ships drew their water. The mandarins refused. At 2 p.m., Elliot sent an ultimatum which was ignored. Just before 3 p.m., the British opened fire on a junk. The skirmish, known as the Battle of Kowloon, was the first action in what
The Times
was to call, on 25 April 1840, the Opium War.