408
Rerun of Public Occurrences During the
AUG.
stances under view, your lo-dship may be assured the task shall be performed calmly and plainly. Yesterday the honganerchants brought me a direct address under the seals of the high commissioner, the governor, and lieutenant-governor, reiterating the demand for the bond. 1 tore it up at once, and desired them to tell their officers that they might take my life as soon as they saw fit; but that it was a vain thing to trouble themselves or me any further upon the subject of the bond. There had been men, I reminded them, with naked swords before our doors, day and night, for more than four weeks, and as it was to be pre- suined they had orders to kill us if we attempted to escape (though there had heen no previous forinality of a bond of consent) there could be no need for our bonds of consent to the killing of other people at some future period. 'It was competent for the emperor of China to make what laws he saw good, in- curring the risks of their execution, risks which it was not to be denied were very considerable, and about which they should hear more, when I could find a suitable occasion to treat su grave a subject.
»Turning now to other things, I would beg to turn your lordship's partienlar attention to the expressions significant of som: purpose of indemnity or remune- ration, which are,to be found throughout the commissioner's papers; and upon this point it is most material to observe that the first pretensions concerning the burn- ing of the opium have entirely disappeared from the later documents. Indeed, my lord, I have ascertained beyond all doubt, that the surrender of this mass of property (under the declaration that it was taken away from her majesty's sub- jects in the name of her majesty,) has overturned the original schemes (of what- ever nature they were), and that the high commissioner has applied to the court for orders concerning its disposal. In the meantime, he remains at the Bocca Tigris, superintending an elaborate examination, careful repackage, and classifi- cation of the opium into three sorts; carefulness which does not accord reasona bly with destructive intentions. In my judgment, the main body of this opium, in fact all that is saleable, will be turned to the most advantageous account; and I confess I have a suspicion that the present spoliatory measures will end in the legalization of the trade, upon the footing of a government monopoly, with pro- bably some provision for the cessation of imports for one year, and perhaps a limited and annually decreasing amount, after the expiration of that period. This train of events is agrecable to the suggestions of the most enlightened Chinese statesmen; and the actual possession of at least one year's consumption, will enable the government to commence its operation on the favorable footing of making the native consumers pay such prices as will place the government in a situation to reimburse the foreign claimant fully for his opium, and leave a handsome surplus to go to the imperial treasury.
“The actual price of opium in this city is certainly nothing under 1200 dollars a chest: I learn that late deliveries have been made outside at about 600 dollars a chest. Your lordship will judge how easily the Chinese government may form a sufficient fund to defray the charge of indemnity. However, without prolonging this course of speculation, I may say, that these is no doubt at all of the intention to pay something by some means. Let her majesty's government then think fit to respond to these tidings with an immediate and strong decla. ration that it will exact complete indennity for all manner of loss; and I am well assured that such a communication alone will so hasten the purposes of the Chinese government, and so extend the measure of remuneration (certainly