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.

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    without the means of continuing life. So that the Heavenly court, by granting, in the oneness of its common benevolence, per¬ mission for the sale and exportation thereof,—-and that without stint and grudge,—has indeed extended its favours to the utmost circuit [of the nations], making its heart one with the core of Heaven and earth. “ But there is a tribe of depraved and barbarous people, who having manufactured opium for smoking, bring it hither for sale, and seduce and lead astray the simple folk, to the destruction of their persons, and the draining of their resources. Formerly the smokers thereof were few, but of late, from each to other the practice has spread its contagion, and daily do its baneful effects more deeply pervade the central source—its rich, fruitful, and flourishing population. It is not to be denied that the simple folk, inasmuch as they indulge their appetite at the expense of their lives, are indeed themselves the authors of their miseries : and why then should they be pitied ? Yet, in the universal empire under the sway of the great and pure dynasty, it is of essential import, for the right direction of men’s minds, that their customs and manners should be formed to correctness. How can it be borne that the living souls that dwell within these seas, should be left wilfully to take a deadly poison ! Hence it is, that those who deal in opium, or who inhale its fumes, within this land, are all now to be subjected to severest punishment, and that a perpetual interdict is to be placed on the practice so extensively prevailing. “ We have reflected, that this poisonous article is the clan¬ destine manufacture of artful schemers and depraved people of various tribes under the dominion of your honourable nation. Doubtless, you, the honourable 'sovereign of that nation, have not commanded the manufacture and sale of it. But amid the various nations there are a few only that make this opium; it is by no means the case that all the nations are herein alike. And we have heard that in your honorable nation, too, the people are not permitted to inhale the drug, and that offenders in this particular expose themselves to sure punishment. It is clearly from a knowledge of its injurious effects on man, that you have directed severe prohibitions against it. But what is the prohi¬ bition of its use, in comparison with the prohibition of its being sold—of its being manufactured,—as a means of thoroughly purifying the source ? “ Though not making use of it one’s self, to venture nevertheless on the manufacture and sale of it, and with it to seduce the simple folk of this land, is, to seek one’s own livelihood by the exposure of others to death, to seek one’s own advantage by other men’s injury. And such acts are bitterly abhorrent to the nature of man—are utterly opposed to the ways of Heaven. To the vigorous sway exercised by the celestial court over both the civil- f 2