ENG-1955 — Page 265

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from the Chinese authorities, the Viceroy refused to have anything to do with him. After a few weeks of impasse, during which Napier became seriously ill, he made an ignominious retreat to Macau, under Chinese escort, and died there ten days later.

Meanwhile, informed Chinese opinion was becoming seriously concerned about the activities of British and American traders, in particular about their trade in opium, the popularity of which as a narcotic was rising rapidly in China. In response to a number of petitions from senior members of the Chinese civil service, the Emperor Tao Kuang in 1838 appointed Lin Tse-hsü as Imperial High Commissioner, with orders to stamp out the opium trade.

Having surrounded the European buildings at Canton with troops and armed junks, and cut off supplies of food and water, Lin demanded the surrender, for destruction, of all the opium in the European warehouses, after which every trader must sign a bond promising on pain of death never to bring any more to China. Americans and others surrender- ed their opium and signed the bonds.

By this time Captain Charles Elliot, R.N., was the Superintendent of British Trade. In response to Lin's demand, Elliot ordered his countrymen to surrender their opium, and received their grudging obedience; but he refused to allow anyone to sign a bond. He finally won his point with Lin, and at the end of a siege lasting more than six weeks the British were allowed to leave in peace for Macau.

Interest in the China trade had been steadily growing in Great Britain, and news of the siege at Canton, when it eventually reached London, aroused public opinion to demand that the Government take measures to safeguard British lives and property in China. Relations between Elliot and Lin deteriorated, the Commissioner reiterating his demand for the signature of bonds. At Macau the Portuguese Governor warned Elliot that he could not be responsible for the safety of any British family remaining there. Facing the ships in Hong Kong harbour, where most of the British had taken refuge, the Chinese were building fortifications on Kowloon peninsula. Finally, in November 1839, hostilities broke out.

The arrival, in June 1840, of a powerful British ex- peditionary force, without engaging in any operations of