42 OPIUM : 



taken from the Commons' Report, 1783, vol. vi.* "The importation of Opium to 

 China is forbidden on very severe penalties : the Opium on seizure is burnt, the 

 vessel in which it is brought to the port confiscated, and the Chinese in whose 

 possession it is found for sale is punishable with death. It might be concluded that 

 with a law so rigid no Foreigners would venture to import, nor any Chinese dare 

 to purchase this article ; yet Opium for a long course of time has been annually 

 carried to China, and often in large quantities, both by our country's vessels and 

 those of the Portuguese. It is sometimes landed at Macao and sometimes at 

 Whampoa, though equally liable to the above penalties in either port, as the 

 Portuguese are, so to say, entirely under the Chinese rule. That this contraband 

 trade has hitherto been carried on without incurring the penalties of the law is 

 owing to the excess of corruption in the executive part of the Chinese Government. 

 . . . . In the year 1780 a new Viceroy was appointed to the government of 

 Canton ; this man had the reputation of an upright, bold, and rigid Minister. I was 

 informed that he had information of these illicit practices, and was resolved to take 

 cognizance of them." 



32. 



Opium-smoking England sent an Embassy in 1793, and China was minutely described by 



BARROW and STAUNTON. The habit of Opium-smoking had then been slowly growing 

 for 60 years. Singularly, they only say when speaking of it that many of the higher 

 mandarins took Opium ; they do not describe the mode of smoking. STAUNTON 

 says, " They smoke tobacco mixed with other odorous substances, and sometimes a 

 little Opium." Yet it cannot well be doubted that they referred to the habit of 

 Opium-smoking. In the geographical work called Hai-kuo-t'u-chih we are told that 

 Opium-smoking commenced only in the last years of the Emperor CHIEN LUNG, that 

 is, about 1790. The explanation of this statement is found in the fact that it was 

 only then that the habit reached Peking and became so general that public attention 

 was called to it in Government documents. At about the same time the local 



* Quoted in Poppy Plague, page 40, by J. F. B. TINLING. 



