18.
19.
75
177,020 Picul
Chests
been 160,780 Chests of Opium. They account for those Chests by shewing the legitimate aggregate exportation to Chinese Ports, Macao, Manila, Saigon &c. of 198,979 Chests
152,730
0 Picul.
17. There remain, therefore, only 22,001 Chests in store to be accounted for, not 38,000 Chests as stated by Mr Otart, that only 11,000 and been smuggled, if even every Chest in that balance had found its way into China without payment of duty. However, they further reduce that balance to 20,000 Chests by deducting the old stock of 2,000 Chests in the market on the 31st last December.
18. Your Lordship, however, would be greatly in error, if you were to suppose that carriage of Opium in native bottoms were tantamount to admitting its final smuggling. On the contrary, the greater part of those Chests paid duty even before the establishment of the existing Customs.