told him (Captain Elliot) that I was sure the thing could
not go on."

Mr. Gladstone.--"How long ago have you told him that you were sure the
thing could not go on?"

Mr. Inglis.--"For four or five years past."

Chairman.--"What gave you that impression?"

Mr. Inglis.--"An immense quantity of opium being forced upon the Chinese
every year, and that in its turn forcing it up the coast in our vessels."

Chairman.--"When you use the words 'forcing it upon them,' do you mean
that they were not voluntary purchasers?"

Mr. Inglis.--"No, but the East India Company were increasing the quantity
of opium almost every year, without reference to the demand in China; that
is to say, there was always an immense supply of opium in China, and the
company still kept increasing the quantity at lower prices."

Three years later, just after the war, Sir George Staunton, speaking from
experience as a British official in the East, said in the House of
Commons, "I never denied the fact that if there had been no opium
smuggling there would have been no war.

"Even if the opium habit had been permitted to run its natural course, if
it had not received an extraordinary impulse from the measures taken by
the East India Company to promote its growth, which almost quadrupled the
supply, I believe it would never have created that extraordinary alarm in
the Chinese authorities which betrayed them into the adoption of a sort of
_coup d' etat_ for its suppression."

Sir William Muir, some time lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces
of India, is on record thus: "By increasing its supply of 'provision'
opium, it (the Bengal government) has repeatedly caused a glut in the
Chinese market, a collapse of prices in India, an extensive bankruptcy and
misery in Malwa."

The most interesting summing-up of the whole question I have seen is from
the pen of Sir Arthur Cotton, who wrote after sixty years' experience in
Indian affairs, protesting against "continuing this trading upon the sins
and miseries of the greatest nation in the world in respect of
population, on the ground of our needing the money."

What was China doing to protect herself from these aggressions? The
British merchants and the British trade agent had by this time worked into
the good-will of the Chinese merchants and the corrupt mandarins, and had
finally established their residence at Canton and their depot of
store-ships at Whampoa, a short journey down the river. In 1839