Sources other than the poppy, and I found them. I found a degree of success. A slight deficient therapeutical point of produce was perfect, and even superior for the best Patna opium, waiting to be churned and studied in position. I found Opium smoking forbidden, yet all the Mandarins were involved in it, not only realizing enormous profits by their direct participation in the trade, but also by levying heavy taxes upon the importation of the articles, and upon its sale in retail.
I was willing to err on the side of caution. I got hold of petty Mandarins and went to the North through them. I renewed former connections and made known my project in certain quarters. The project was one by which the revenues of the Mandarins of the Empire and those of the Crown could be increased a hundred fold, and even more.
The incidents of the last two expeditions have caused a loss of two years, but the thing is yet pending and the more easy of execution, as the province of Kwangtung produces the required ingredients at the lowest rates in incredible quantities. Wealth is there; it cannot be framed but to come to a final arrangement with several Mandarins, whom I see whenever I think proper, and exact from them a guarantee for payment of any sum which I please to name after reasonable bargaining, besides teaching them the process.
He may have a much less yearly pension, and the whole ended in a few weeks, in much less time than the answer of the "Board of Opium" can reach me. I have attained the thing, and I'll do it. The natural answer to this is: Why don't you do it? It will last until the end.
I feel so little fear of giving weapons to be used against me that I'll now show the other side of the question and enter into two considerations of a peculiar nature. I throw in my lot with England and the English. My birth, wealth, and political position (I enjoyed the two in 1887) gave me access to many of the best families in the Kingdom. No one respects and admires more than I do the individual character of the English, but on the other hand, education, national antipathy, and prejudices of all sorts had made me, to a high degree, a bitter foe to the nation.
It was stupid; it was to my ardent desire to hurt England vitally by the same means that would restore to me a fortune even greater than that which I have lost. It so happened that the ideas I had were influenced by injustices and spoliations at home and cushioned by radical change.