pathized with and supported the emperor in his sincere and earnest efforts for its suppression.
More stringent orders were sent to Canton on the subject, and the arrests for violation of the prohibitory law became more frequent. One that attracted much attention was that of a Mr. Innes, a British merchant, and a Mr. Talbot, an American, in 1838, charged with complicity in the landing of opium at the factories. Both men were ordered to be expelled; but the American, upon investigation, was declared innocent. Owing to the hesitation of the British superintendent to execute the order of expulsion of Innes, a strong feeling of resentment was stirred up in the Chinese population, and the factories were threatened with mob violence. To show that the authorities regarded the foreign merchants as responsible for the opium traffic, they ordered a Chinese who had been detected in receiving the drug to be executed in the foreign quarter, and the officials were in the act of carrying into effect the sentence of strangulation of the culprit in front of the American consulate when they were driven away by a sudden onslaught of the foreign merchants. A short time afterwards another execution was successfully performed on the factory premises, which so outraged the residents that the consuls of all nations hauled down their flags, and for a time the trade was entirely suspended.[1]
At this period it would seem that the unlawful importation had become so open and notorious that the opium, which had in previous years been smuggled into
- ↑ For full report by U. S. Consul Snow, H. Ex. Doc. 119, p. 2, 26th Cong. 1st Sess.
