CO129-016 - Sir John Davis - 1846 [1-6] — Page 385

their Communications to me

England,

to convert

- previous to leaving

Hongkong

into a station

for smuggling Opium into China._._ The

reverse was disti

very

distinctly avowed by Sir Robert_

Peel in Parliament, and stated by him to

myself:

As the plan of the Opium farm deliberately proposed and approved in a

was

conference

with

at which I had the honor to be present yourself and others of Her Majesty's Ministers,

I need make no remark

on

the gratuitous

assumption of the writers of the enclosed. Letter,

that the Opium farm is probably contrary" to

my

own

my

opinion,

So

as to it's policy.-

far from this being the case, it is

decided conviction that no tay could be

discovered which would press so lightly on the Mercantile. Community of the place or cost so little (in fact nothing) to colleet... Being only on sales of lees than one chest, and solely

levied

$31

levied on the consumption of a pernicious luxury within the Colony, it would be difficult.

to understand how it is to operate to the ruin

of the wholesale and the external trade in- Opium, admitting that it were the wish of Her Majesty's Government to encourage that.

trade..

Little

dispored

as

I am to Court a

contemptible popularity by listening to any suggestions contrary to my own deliberate opinion, I am still less inclined to deprive the Government.

£5,000 annual

of nearly

revenue, for the express purpose of encouraging the smuggling. Trade in Opium, and in an instance of taxation first.

brdered, and then finally sanctioned, by Her Majesty.

I have the honor to be, With the highest respect,

Sir

"Your Most Obedient Humble Servant,

Danis