the districts concerned be called upon to issue Notifications forbiding merchants and traders and others of the said districts from in any way dealing with the raw opium so plundered, and thus enabling your petitioners, the said cotton-yarn dealers, to ransom or redeem the said opium by paying the necessary expenses. Also, that your Excellency will be enabled and see fit to call upon the proper authorities, through Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Canton, to make better provision for the protection of traders and their merchandize, and in particular the merchandize the traders or dealers purchase, or take in exchange for the cotton-yarn imported into the Yunnan and Kwei-Chow Provinces, there being no other way of remitting the proceeds of sale of such cotton-yarn.
And your petitioners will, as in duty bound, ever pray, &c.
DAVID SASSOON, SONS, AND Co.
(Signed)
558
(And 28 others.)