Page 335 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

321.

deeply engaged in selling opium for years. By 1839 the opium

trade for the English merchants had assumed nationalistic

overtones, and arguments concerning its morality became ir­

relevant. The American missionaries, who had followed the

lead of the English in most respects, took an independent
55
s an th. 1s ins ance.
t d . 1n
.
t
With the initiation of hostilities between the English
and Chinese in the spring of 1840, the American missionary

attitude softened in regard to the opium trade. Interest in

the outcome of the war overshadowed the missionaries condemna-

tion of English participation in the drug trade. Changing

their views to agree with those of the English, American

missionaries suddenly claimed the major issue in China was

the foreigners 1 right to free trade with the Chinese. Where­

as missionaries previously sympathized with the Chinese and
56
their efforts to end the opium trade, in 1840 they denounced

the refusal of the Imperial government to accede to English

demands for an end to the "Canton system. 11 The Chinese

Repository, the mouthpiece of American missionaries at Canton,

took the lead in supporting English actions. In May 1840

E.C. Bridgman wrote that "China must reapprehend, bend her

55
Barnett, "Americans as Humanitarians," pp. 13-18.
Barnett studies the anti-opium tracts written by American mis­
sionaries in the 1830's and 1840's. Apparently the English
missionaries wrote nothing concerning opium. Danton, Culture
Contacts between the United States and China, p. 74.

56
chinese officials noted the opposition to opium by
American missionaries and Olyphant & Co. Com.�issioner Lin allowed
Charles W. King of Olyphant & Co. and E.C. Bridgman to witness
his destruction of the confiscated opium at �fuampoa in April 1839.
Afterwards the Corrunissioner invited the Americans to take refresh­
ments with him. Such an invitation was considered a compliment
to them.