war on the part of Great Britain. But the British cabinet failed to approve the action of Lord Napier, and stated that it was its purpose not to establish commercial intercourse with China by force, but by conciliatory measures.
This occurrence strengthened the Chinese government in its policy of exclusion and of maintaining the trade regulations. It has been seen in the extracts from the edicts and its conduct towards Lord Napier that it regarded all foreign nations as subject to the emperor, and that their officials could only approach and hold intercourse with his authorities as vassals. So strongly was this policy imbedded in the imperial system that it could only be eradicated by the rude argument of force. War with Great Britain was for the time deferred, but the treatment of his Majesty's commission had its influence on the decision of the British government a few years later to resort to hostilities. It is to be regretted, for the sake of our Christian civilization, that the conflict which came in 1840, known as the "Opium War," could not have had as just a provocation as that growing out of this insult to the British nation and the death of its representative.
Opium was introduced into China in the thirteenth century by the Arabs, but its use was confined exclusively to medicinal purposes, as in most other countries, and when the European ships began to visit the East it had no importance as merchandise. As late as 1773, when the Portuguese were supplanted in the supremacy of the market by the English, the importation of the drug had never exceeded 200 chests annually. As a
