with the revenue cruizers established by the Viceroy Li Hung-pan, under which these cruizers, for a monthly fee of Taels 36,000, allowed the opium to pass freely into the ports of Whampoa and Macao. And in the year 1837, when strict orders had been issued by the Emperor to stop all opium traffic at Lintin, the Commodore Hou Shiu-hing, in command of the Viceroy's cruizers, arranged with the commanders of the opium ships at Lintin, to convoy or actually to carry by his vessels the opium from Lintin to its destination, for a fixed percentage of opium. Some of the opium which he thus received, the wily Commodore then presented to the Viceroy as captured by force of arms, and on these meritorious services being officially reported to the Throne, the Emperor bestowed on the Commodore a peacock's feather and gave him the rank of Rear-Admiral. The Annals of the present Manchu Dynasty (partly translated by Mr. E. H. Parker), from which the foregoing statements are taken, allege that the opium annually stored in the original five receiving ships did at first not amount to more than 4,000 or 5,000 chests, but that later on (1826 to 1836) there were, on the 25 receiving ships, some 20,000 chests of opium in any one year.
The extraordinary dimensions which the opium trade thus assumed, with the connivance of the Chinese Authorities, as a forced trade (neither legal nor strictly speaking contraband), especially during the decade from 1826 to 1836, naturally aroused anxious attention both on the part of the English and Chinese Cabinets.
The English Government viewed with apprehension the annually increasing importance which the East India Company's opium monopoly assumed, since 1826, as a source of public revenue. The extent to which the income of the Indian Government had gradually become dependent upon the cultivation and export of opium, likewise caused the English Cabinet much anxiety and perplexity. Parliament also took the matter up and appointed a Select Committee to investigate the questions involved, both in 1830 and 1832. In the latter year, however,
