air, mixed the
masses of opium with lime and emptied it into the sea. England, her
dignity outraged, hurt at her tenderest point, sent out ships, men and
money. She seized port after port; bombarded and took Canton; swept
victoriously up the Yangtse, and by blocking the Grand Canal at Chinkiang
interrupted the procession of tribute junks sailing up the Peking and thus
cut off an important source of the Chinese imperial revenue. This resulted
in the treaty of Nanking, in 1843, which was negotiated by the British
government by Sir Henry Pottinger.

Sir Henry, like Commissioner Lin, had his orders. His methods, like Lin's,
were admirable in their thoroughness. He secured the following terms from
the crestfallen Chinese government: 1. There was to be a "lasting peace"
between the two nations. 2. Canton, Amoy, Foochou, Ningpo, and Shanghai
were to be open as "treaty ports." 3. The Island of Hongkong was to be
ceded to Great Britain. 4. An indemnity of $21,000,000 was to be paid,
$6,000,000 as the value of the opium destroyed, $3,000,000 for the
destruction of the property of British subjects, and $12,000,000 for the
expenses of the war. It was further understood that the British were to
hold the places they had seized until these and a number of other
humiliating conditions were to be fulfilled. Thus was the energy and
persistence of the opium smugglers rewarded. Thus began that partition of
China which has been going on ever since. It is difficult to be a
Christian when far from home.

It is difficult to get an admission even to-day, from a thorough-going
British trader, that opium had anything to do with the war of 1840-43. He
is likely to insist either that the war was caused by the refusal of
Chinese officials to admit English representatives on terms of equality,
or that it was caused by "the stopping of trade." There was, indeed, a
touch of the naively Oriental in the attitude of China. To the Chinese
official mind, China was the greatest of nations, occupying something like
five-sixths of the huge flat disc called the world. England, Holland,
Spain, France, Portugal, and Japan were small islands crowded in between
the edge of China and the rim of the disc. That these small nations should
wish to trade with "the Middle Kingdom" and to bring tribute to the "Son
of Heaven," was not unnatural. But that the "Son of Heaven" must admit
them whether he liked or not, and as equals, was preposterous. Stripping
these notions of