he war
was looked upon in this light by the Chinese; it will always be so
looked upon by the candid historian, and known as the Opium War."

Within fifteen years after this first war, there was another one, and
again Great Britain came off victorious. China had to pay another
indemnity, three million dollars, and five more treaty ports were
opened up. By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin, the sale of opium in
China was legalized in 1858.

From a small pamphlet, "Opium: England's Coercive Policy and Its
Disastrous Results in China and India" by the Rev. John Liggins, we
find the following: "As a specimen of how both wars were carried on, we
quote the following from an English writer on the bombardment of
Canton: 'Field pieces loaded with grape were planted at the end of
long, narrow streets crowded with innocent men, women and children, to
mow them down like grass till the gutters flowed with their blood.'" In
one scene of carnage, the _Times_ correspondent recorded that half an
army of 10,000 men were in ten minutes destroyed by the sword, or
forced into the broad river. "The Morning Herald" asserted that "a more
horrible or revolting crime than this bombardment of Canton has never
been committed in the worst ages of barbaric darkness."

Naturally, therefore, after the termination of these two wars, China
gave up the struggle. She had fought valiantly to protect her people
from opium, but the resources of a Christian nation were too much for
her. Seeing therefore that the opium trade was to be forced upon her,
and that her people were doomed to degradation, she decided to plant
poppies herself. There should be competition at least, and the money
should not all be drained out of the country. Thus it came about that
after 1858 extensive tracts of land were given over to poppy
production. Whole provinces or parts of provinces, ceased to grow grain
and other necessities, and diverted their rich river bottoms to the
raising of opium. Chinese opium, however, never supplanted Indian
opium, being inferior to that raised in the rich valley of the Ganges.
The country merely had double quantities of the drug, used straight or
blended, to suit the purse or taste of the consumer.

Then, in 1906, the incredible happened. After over a hundred years of
steady demoralization, with half her population opium addicts, or worse
still, making enormous profits out of the trade, China determined to
give up opium. In all history, no natio