cannot with any grace, ask them to assist us. If we consent, however, to do what we can to assist the Chinese in excluding opium, we are bound in all honour and honesty, first, to discontinue the growth of opium in our own colonies; next, to prohibit the transport of it through the company's territories; and then to restrict British vessels from trading with it along the coast of China. The mere issuing of a decree of the governor in council at Calcutta would effect the former, and a very small force stationed on the coast of China, would accomplish the latter. In putting down the slave trade, it was not considered too much to maintain a naval force on the coast of Africa; and to abolish slavery in the British dominions, the sum of twenty millions was willingly sacrificed; yet slavery was not productive of more misery and death than the opium traffic, nor were Britons more implicated in the former than in the latter. In the case before us, however, no compensation money could be demanded; and only a few light armed vessels would be required; while the real compensation would be, the turning of four millions annually into another channel, to the benefit of our manufactures and the mother country. By paying four millions for opium, the Chinese shew that they have money to spend, and if we can but induce them to take our cottons and woollens instead of our opium, we shall be blessing them and enriching ourselves. The money paid for opium is equal to what we give for our teas; thus the Chinese are parting with their produce for what is worse than useless, while it impoverishes their country and diminishes their population.
The ruin it threatens to China has already arrested
