Page 268 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

254.

Hong merchants for aiding and abetting foreigners' attempts

to circumvent Imperial laws. Moreover, he ordered all for­

eigners to relinquish their entire supply of opium for public

destruction. Foreigners were to sign bonds that their vessels

would "never again dare to bring opium with them"; should they

bring the drug, as soon as it was discovered, the opium would

be handed up and the foreigners would "willingly" submit to

"the extreme penalties of the law." Lin based his edict to

foreign merchants on two assumptions: (1) that foreigners re-

quired the exports of China as a "means of preserving life";

and (2) that in coming to China they should obey China's "laws

and statutes, equally with the natives of the land." This

latter assumption became the crux of the crisis between the

British and the Chinese over opium. In persuading the foreign­

ers to follow his orders, Lin appealed to their honor and offered

them the Imperial benevolence of more wealth in the regular
72
trade. He gave the foreigners three days to comply with the

Commissioner's edict.

On March 19 the Hong merchants called together the

leaders of the foreign residents at Canton to deliver Lin's
edict. The English Superintendent of Trade was at Macao, so

the Hong merchants called on the Canton General Chamber of

7 2
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.
-nis e ic-
A copy o f t, . d . t . is in U.S., Congress, House, Com-
mittee on Foreign Relations, Trade with China, H. Doc. 119, 26th
Cong., 2nd sess. 11 1840-41. This is the official translation by J.
Robert Morrison. Apparently there were discrepancies, although
minor, between this version and others. Chang, Commissioner Lin
and the Opium War, p. 261 footnote. Consular Despatches: Canton,
P.W. Snow, Mar. 22, 1839.