Opium in China / extracted from China; political, commercial, and social.

  • Robert Montgomery Martin
Date:
[1847?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Opium in China / extracted from China; political, commercial, and social. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    57/96 (page 55)
    OPIUM BRINGS A NATION INTO SUBJECTION. over or conceal the fact. Though such severe punishments, therefore, be had recourse to, there can no evil flow therefrom. “ In the history of Formosa, written by Yu Wanee, your minister finds it mentioned, that the inhabitants of Java were originally nimble, light-bodied, and expert in war; but when the [European] red-haired race* appeared, these prepared opium and seduced them into the use of it; whereupon they were subdued, brought into subjection, and their land taken possession of. Among the red- haired race, the law regarding those who daily make use of opium is, to assemble all their race as spectators, while the criminal is bound to a stake, and shot from a gun into the sea. Hence among the red-haired race, none is found so daring as to make use of it. The opium which is now imported into China is from the English and other nations, where are found preparers of it alone, but not one consumer of it. Your minister has heard moreover, that the foreign ships coming to Canton pass on their way, the frontiers of Cochin China, and that at the first they se¬ duced the Cochin Chinese into the use of opium; but that these, discovering the covert scheme laid for them, instantly interdicted the drug under the most severe penalties, making the use of it a capital crime, without chance of pardon. Now, if it is in the power of barbarians out of the bounds of the empire, to put a stop by prohibitions to the consumption of opium, how much more can our august Sovereign, whose terrors are as the thunderbolts and vivid lightnings of heaven, render his anger so terrible that even the most stupid, perverse, and long-besotted, shall be made to open their blind eyes and dull ears! “ The great measures affecting the interests of the empire, it is not within the compass of ordinary minds to comprehend. The sacred intelligence, and heaven-derived decisiveness, of the Sovereign may however, unaided determine, and need not the co¬ operation of every mind. Yet it may be, that men of fearful dis¬ positions, unwilling to bear reproach for the sake of their country, will, though well aware that none but severe punishments can stay the evil, pretend nevertheless, that the number of those who smoke opium is so great as to give cause for apprehending, that precipitate measures will drive them into a calamitous outbreak. To meet these fears it is, that the indulgent measure is suggested, of extending to the smokers one year wherein to repent. The point of greatest importance is, that at the first declaration of the imperial pleasure, the commands issued should be of an earnest and urgent character; for if the Sovereign’s pleasure be forcibly expressed, then the officers who are to enforce it will be pro¬ foundly attentive; and if these officers be attentive, the breakers of the law will be struck with terror. Thus in the course of a * This term, originally applied to the Dutch and northern nations, was afterwards extended to the English, of whom it has latterly become the exclusive patronymic.— Trans. E 2