ina to decide.
He had a perfect right to keep out opium and to keep in silver, if he
could do so by means consistent with morality and public law. If his
officers seized a chest of the forbidden drug, we were not entitled to
complain; nor did we complain. But when, finding that they could not
suppress the contraband trade by just means, they resorted to means
flagrantly unjust, when they imprisoned our innocent countrymen, when
they insulted our Sovereign in the person of her representative, then
it became our duty to demand satisfaction. Whether the opium trade be
a pernicious trade is not the question. Take a parallel case: take the
most execrable crime that ever was called a trade, the African slave
trade. You will hardly say that a contraband trade in opium is more
immoral than a contraband trade in negroes. We prohibited slave-trading:
we made it felony; we made it piracy; we invited foreign powers to join
with us in putting it down; to some foreign powers we paid large sums
in order to obtain their co-operation; we employed our naval force to
intercept the kidnappers; and yet it is notorious that, in spite of all
our exertions and sacrifices, great numbers of slaves were, even as
late as ten or twelve years ago, introduced from Madagascar into our
own island of Mauritius. Assuredly it was our right, it was our duty, to
guard the coasts of that island strictly, to stop slave ships, to bring
the buyers and sellers to punishment. But suppose, Sir, that a ship
under French colours was seen skulking near the island, that the
Governor was fully satisfied from her build, her rigging, and her
movements, that she was a slaver, and was only waiting for the night to
put on shore the wretches who were in her hold. Suppose that, not having
a sufficient naval force to seize this vessel, he were to arrest thirty
or forty French merchants, most of whom had never been suspected of
slave-trading, and were to lock them up. Suppose that he were to lay
violent hands on the French consul. Suppose that the Governor were
to threaten to starve his prisoners to death unless they produced the
proprietor of the slaver. Would not the French Government in such a case
have a right to demand reparation? And, if we refused reparation, would
not the French Government have a right to exact reparation by arms? And
would it be enough for us to say, "This is a wicked trade, an inhuman
trade. Think of the misery of the poor creatures who are torn from th