Page 267 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

253.

by ending the production of opium would the trade in the drug

decrease. In a letter to correspondents, it wrote: "While the

India Government produce Opium it will find a sale here at
70
some rate or other.11 Russell & Co. doubtless knew that

the realization of such a hope was but a remote possibility.

Within a few days after Russell & Co. announced its

withdrawal from the opium trade, an Imperial Commissioner

1
1
(ch in-ch ai ta-ch'en) arrived at Canton from Peking. Inas-
much as Governor-general Teng's administration of Opium laws

did not satisfy the Emperor, the latter had decided in late

1838 to send an Imperial Commissioner to implement the Court's

policies. Lin Tse-hsli took up residence at Canton on March

10, 1839. A native of Fukien province, Lin had risen rapidly

through the Imperial bureaucracy. As governor-general of the

central provinces Hupeh and Hunan, he had effectively suppres­

sed the use of opium there. His success and the strong policies

against opium he had advocated in memorials to the Court prompted

the Emperor to send him to Canton, where the opium problem was

greatest. Lin wished to eradicate foreign traffic in the drug
71
as well as the whole Chinese smuggling trade.

Ten days after his arrival Lin issued edicts to the

Hong merchants and to the foreign merchants. He condemned the

70
Letter, Russell & Co. to J.M. Forbes, Mar. 4, 1839,
Forbes MSS.
71
A sketch of Lin is in Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing
Period, ed .. by Arthur Hummel (Washington, 1943-44), pp. 511-14.
Chang, Commissioner Lin and the Opium War, pp. 128, 131-33,
discusses Lin's beliefs and policies.