ressed; or at least,
until British connection with it is severed; If asked who are the guilty
persons, I would say, in the first instance, the East India Company;
secondly, the opium smugglers; thirdly, the British government, and
lastly, the British people, who, by silent acquiescence, make the whole
guilt, and the whole responsibility their own.

[Footnote A: See Appendix G.]

The author of the most popular modern work on China, who long
superintended the interests of the British merchants at Canton, and
whose work, to a considerable extent, reflects their views, after
stating the increasing discouragements imposed by the authorities on
foreign commerce, the effect for the most part of opium smuggling, and
other lawless proceedings, observes:--"These (discouragements) are their
(the British merchants) real subjects of complaint in China; and
whenever the accumulation of wrong shall have proved, by exact
calculation, that it is more profitable, according to merely commercial
principles, to remonstrate than submit, these will form a righteous and
equitable ground of quarrel!!"[A]

[Footnote A: Davis's China and the Chinese, (Murray's Family Library,)
vol. i. p. 195.]

The remonstrance here alluded to is WAR, as is apparent from the context
of the passage, as well as from the fact, that by the author's own
showing no other kind of remonstrance remained to be tried. The true
"casus belli" is set forth by anticipation in this passage without
disguise, and by one who knew well, and has clearly described the causes
that were operating to produce a rupture. The opium merchants have
discovered that now, in the fulness of time, it is _profitable_ to go to
war with China, and forthwith the vast power of Great Britain, obedient
to their influence, is put in motion to sustain their unrighteous
quarrel, to the unspeakable degradation of the character of this
professedly Christian nation. The morality of the war on our side, is
the morality of the highwayman; that morality by which the strong in all
ages have preyed upon the weak. And though a handful of unprincipled men
find their account in it, before the people of Great Britain have paid
the expenses of the war, and the losses from derangement and
interruption of commerce, it will cost millions more than all the profit
that has ever accrued to them from the opium trade. From what motive
then, do we uphold a traffic, which is the curse of China, the curse of
India, and a cala