The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-07 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1840.

REPORT OF THE MILITARY COMMISSION.
(Free of Postage. )
The SECOND EDITION of
THE NAVAL AND MILITARY GA-
ZETTE of Saturday, -contains
THE WROLE OF THE REPORT.
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Document, will be in course of publication during the whole
of the week.
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THE BOOK OF ARCHERY.
By GEORGE AGAR HANSARD, Esq.,
Gwent Bowman, Author of " Trout and Salmon Fishing in

THE CHINESE QUESTION

violate the laws of the country to which they traded, their
Government could not interfere to protect them from any
loss which they might bring upon themselves.
For what, then, is the Government responsible? Will
it be said that they are responsible for not giving Captain
Elliot arbitrary powers to enforce against British mer-
chants trading to China the Chinese fiscal laws, which
the Chinese authorities themselves had neither the will
nor the power to enforce? • If this country could have
borne that its merchants should be subjected to ar-
bitrary control by a British officer, and such con-
trol had been exercised, we have seen by the results
of Lin's measures what would have been the cense-
qu-nce—not the suppression of the traffic, but its
dispersion into the channe'‘e where it is least under control.
The coasts of China to an unlimited extent are accessible
to it, anti there it flourishes, far from any British authority,
and equally safe from Commissioner Lin. The moral of
this is one which has lone been known in England;
namely, that the only available means of checking the
consumption of pernicious stimulants is not by prohibiting
them, but by admitting them to consumption at the highest
duties which arc consistent with the suppression of contra-
band traffic.
The remaining party who has been charged with abetting
the trade in opium is Captain Elliot. We have seen that
Captain Elliot, in his despatch of the 16th November, 1839,
foresaw the possibility of such a charge being brought by
half-informed persons, but he could hardly have supposed
that it would be brought by persons who had read, or had
an opportunity of reading, the long series of his despatches
from 1836 to 1839—those, for instance, from which it ap-
pears that from the early part of 1836 he remonstrated
with the Chamber of Commerce at Canton (ante, p. 70),
and that he constantly spoke of it to his Government as
" a source of painful reflection," (p. 53); as a subject
which he never adverts to without reluctance," a " dis-
tressing degradation" (p. 73) ; as .4 rapidly staining the
British character with deep disgrace" (p. 77) ; as iavolv-
ing danger and shame, and leading to some catastrophe by
which " His Majesty's Government would be drawn into
the necessity of very urgent, expensive, and hazardous
measures upon the most painful grounds" (p. 71). For
holding these opinions, he stated at the time that " a tor-
rent of censure had been poured upon him through the
medium of the Canton newspapers" (p. 72). Let us now
see with what sort of censure he was visited at home, by
persons who had before them in the Parliamentary volume
all the despatches above cited, though not at the moment
the additional despatch of the 16th November, 1839.
On the 24th ultimo (we are writing in April, 1840) a
short debate took place in the House of Commons; and on
that occasion Sir George Staunton alleged that Captain
Elliot had countenanced the opium trade, and adduced in
proef a passage in one of Captain Elliot's despatches, in
which he speaks of the obstruction to it as producing an
" unfortunate effect on the general trade." Undoubtedly
the embarrassment of the general trade was an unfortunate
effect ; and if Sir G. Staunton will look at Captain Elliot's
despatch of the 21st of February, 1837 (at p. 53 ante), he
will find I hat Captain Elliot, whilst altogether objecting to
the opium-trade on other grounds, argued against it even
on the mere ground of policy, because, being itself ex-
ceedingly fluctuating and liable to accidents, it was, never-
theless, the wheel which turned the whole machine of
commerce in those parts, and obstructions to it became thus
a great commercial evil. This is an evil which Captain
Elliot never thought of disguising or extenuating ; but
instead of finding in it any reason for countenancing the
trade, it is what he insisted upon as a ground for getting
rid of it in the only way in which such evils can be got rid
of,—that is, gradually, by the introduction of an innocent
substitute.
It is further affirmed by Sir G. Staunton, that the Go-
vernment is responsible for the opium-trade down to the
period when Lin's measures were taken, because Captain
Elliot only ordered the receiving-ships to quit the coast on
the I] th September, 1839, whereas, if he had given this
order three years, or even seven months, before, all would
have been safe. Lord Palmerston answered, that Captain
Elliot had no power to do so; to which Sir G. Staunton
rejoined that he did it at last, and therefore he might have
done it at first.
Now, let Captain Elliot's position be regarded, and then
let es see what is the worth of such an argument as this.
When the trade was a monopoly in the hands of the East
India Company, the ships could not trade without licences,
and the licences contained an obligation to obey the orders
of the supercargoes at Canton. When the trade was freed,
the superintendents succeeded to the duties of the super.
cargoes, but not to their powers • because, as no licences
were required, no obligations could be enforced. When
Captain Elliot had appeared to contemplate the exercise of
the supercargoes' power, and to prevent a steam-verse
from going up the river, Lord Palmerston explained the
state of the law to him, and cautioned him against the as-
sumption of an authority which he did not possess, and ad-
vised him not to issue orders which might be set at nought'
and thereby impair the respect due to his office.
How comes it, then, says Sir George Staunton, that he
had the authority, and could give effect to it, on the 11th
of September, 1839? The answer is, that he had no more
legal or official authority then than before ; but that from
first to List his authority was an authority of moral Ulu.
ence ; an authority of circumstance ; an authority of guid-
ance, persuasion, and management. In 1836, there WAS a
trade worth millions, sanctioned by a Committee of the
House of Commons, contributing largely to the revenues
of British India, connived at by Chinese viceroys, and dear
as their very life's blood to this Keun-Min-Foo and that
Kwangheep. There were a set of British merchants, eager
and independent, some of them certainly (Mr. lures for
example) perverse and turbulent, and all, according to Sir
George Robinson, divided into factions and animated by
a violent party spirit ?—and these persons were to be
governed by management without power. At that period
Captain Elliot, standing alone in his opinions, may well be
conceived to have taken the measure of his authority and
found it wanting; and it then behoved him, in obedience
to his instructions, not to issue orders which, bring set at
nought, would only have brought his vice into contempt.
These were the circumstances of 1836.
But in September, 1839 there was a different set of cir-
cumstances ; every sort of violence on the part of the
Chinese, jeopardy and extremity on the part of the mer-
chants—the trade embarrassed--two millions of property
confiscated—a fleet in danger—and peace or war upon the
issue. If it be asked whence came Captain Elliot's authority
over the merchants in such circumstances as these, the
answer is, that it was the authority of a man eho had
placed himself at their bead when a leader was wanted ;
who had forced his way to them in the moment of danger ;
who had been ready in every emergency ; had shrunk
from no responsibility ; whose jusgment had been tried,
and whose foresight had been proved ; who had shared
their prison and accomplished their deliverance; and,
finally, it was the authority of a commanding mind on a
critical occasion. If Sir George Staunton had been upon
the spot at that particular period, and had himself fallen
under the operation of one of Lin's edicts, bidding him to
" tremble intensely," he would possibly have felt more
disposed than he might have been under other circum-
stances to obey an older for leaving China, however little
warranted by law.
In the private accounts of these transactions some
descriptions have been given of the breathless anxiety
with which the merchants confined in tnc factory watched
the approach of Captain Elliot, as, sailing and pulling in
his four-oared gig, he eluded the chase of the Chinese
guard-boats ; and a picture has been drawn, too, of the
enthusiasm with which he was received when he landed on
the quay. If Sir George Staunton had been one of those
merchants, perhaps he would be betterjable to understand
the nature of the authority which Captain Elliot exercised
over them from that time forward, and how it came to be
greater in extent than that which be had been enabled to
exercise in 1636.
But the despatches which were received in this country
a few days ago (March 27, 1840) arc now to be added to all
the previous evidence of Captain Elliot's opinions and con-
duet on this head; and that evidence may be well wound
up with the following passage from his despatch of the 16th
November, 1839:—" if my private feelings were of the
least consequence upon questions of a public and important
nature, surely I might justly say that no man entertains a
deeper detestation of the disgrace and sin of this forced
traffic on the coast of China than the humble individual
who signs this despatch. I see little to choose between it
and piracy ; and in my place as a public officer I have
steadily discountenanced it by all the lawful means in my
power, and at the total sacrifice of my private comfort in
the society in which I have lived for some years past."
We have now passed in review the main accusations
which have been preferred, and have stated the conclusions
to which we have come in discharge of the several British
parties who have been alleged to be responsible for the
opium trade. But the great and governing principle to be
looked to in this matter is, that moral evils are to be met
by moral cures ; that vice is to be encountered, not by ex-
cluding the material product which subserves to it, but by
imparting to the heart of the sinner an impulse which shall
give him the victory over his sin. If this remedy be
within reach, trade may take its course, and will carry
nothing to the shores of China but what is useful and
salutary in articles of commerce, together with civilizing
knowledge, and in God's good time (let us hope) the
doctrines of the Christian faith. Without this remedy,
all legislative prohibitions and penalties will be ineffec-
tual ; the opium of Malwa will press in when the opium
of Bengal is kept out; what cannot enter by the river
will find a way by the inlet or the creek ; and even if all
the Indian opium were excluded, there would remain the
supply to be derived from growing the poppy in China,
which war one one of the schemes recommended to the
Emperor by tbnse very Ministers who advocated the pro-
hibition of foreign opium.
The questions of responsibility on account of the con-
tinuance of the Opium Trade in 1839 being disposed of,
those which remain to be considered relate to the proceed-
ingsLios taken on behalf of the British merchants on
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assumed, together with the circumstance of a remoteness of
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obsolete before it had made half its voyage,—these features
of their Chinese business considered, it was plainly the part
of the Government to interfere with it as little as petsible,
by circumstantial instruction, but to take care that the
business should be in good hands, and knowing the man
well to trust him largely. They were unable to retain the