Ch 17 - A Clash of Cultures

The Imperial Commissioner

High Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu moved against the growing drug problem by cutting off trade at Canton and destroying over 1,500 tons of opium. His forceful tactics angered and threatened the British, who decided not to withdraw from China, but to stand their ground.

While Governor-General Deng Tingchen's vigorous campaign against opium was underway in Canton, yet another debate erupted in Beijing over the best way to eliminate China's illicit drug traffic. Emperor Xuanzong was keenly interested in the debate because the drug trade had sharply cut revenues from the Canton Customs Office and, it was argued, had caused a significant drain on China's silver reserves. One powerful proposal presented in June 1838, demanded capital punishment for all opium addicts who did not reform within one year. Even though most government officials judged it too harsh, the proposal won the support of a small cadre men that included fifty-four-year-old Governor-General Lin Zexu.

A native of Houguan in Fujian Province, Lin Zexu was a well-educated, old-fashioned man, an upright and incorruptible exemplar of Old China. After serving an informal apprenticeship as aide to the governor of Fujian Province, Lin joined the Hanlin Academy in 1811, which advised the emperor and helped draft imperial documents. An effective organizer and ambitious bureaucrat, he quickly rose through a number of the most responsible offices in the bureaucracy, including the post of provincial governor-general. This accomplished administrator, leading scholar and bureaucrat, who wrote stylized Confucian poetry in his spare time, earned a reputation as a man who could be counted on to do the right thing in a difficult situation. His proven morality, integrity and incorruptibility earned him the nickname, "Lin the Clear Sky," and his opinions were highly regarded at the court of Emperor Xuanzong.

Governor-General Deng Tingchen succeeded in stopping the drug trade through Canton, but the increased coastal opium trade by British and Chinese smugglers continued to alarm Beijing, both for moral reasons and the fact that even illegal imports had to be bought with Chinese silver. In July, September, and October of 1838, Governor Lin Zexu submitted a series of memorials to the emperor that harshly condemned any suggestion of legalizing opium. He also described his own success in suppressing the drug traffic by enforcing a tough anti-opium program in his home jurisdiction of Hebei and Henan. Lin had nineteen personal audiences with the emperor to confer on the opium problem and his arguments and past accomplishments left a strong impression. On December 31, 1838, Emperor Xuanzong appointed Lin Zexu as High Imperial Commissioner of the Celestial Court, vested him with extraordinary powers and charged him with suppressing the Canton opium traffic. Lin's aggressive and severe system of justice was remarkably successful against Chinese dealers, brokers, addicts, and corrupt officers who conspired with smugglers in Hebei and Henan, but foreign smugglers presented a more difficult problem.

Lin Zexu set out from Beijing on January 8, 1839, and after an arduous journey arrived in Canton to a tumultuous welcome on March 10, where he established his headquarters at the Yuehua Academy. Mr. W.C. Hunter, an American merchant who witnessed the arrival, described Lin as an impressive figure with "a dignified air, rather a harsh expression, a large man, with a heavy black mustache and long beard... ." Lin belonged to a small, influential group of reformers who sought to "find in antiquity the sanction for present-day reform." He helped compile practical information for use in governing on many subjects, including geography and the history of foreign countries. Lin looked to the precedents set by generations of Chinese officials who had played Central Asian tribes against each other and to whom commercial relations were considered petty matters. Despite being one of the most experienced and best-informed men of his day, Lin still thought of England as dependent on China and did not comprehend the significance of British demands for free trade and international equality. The very concept of a commercial empire was a radical challenge to the Chinese world order, which knew only one empire and subject peoples.

To China, Great Britain appeared as a revolutionary state and its colonial expansion seemed a very alarming phenomenon. Commissioner Lin had studied the West through foreign newspapers and, with the help of an American medical missionary in Canton, become familiar with those tenets of international law dealing with the right of states to prohibit contraband and to declare war. He had to find a way to stop the British opium trade and maintain the status quo in China. Rather than using force against foreign traders, which would have been difficult at best, Lin tried to admonish and exhort them using the perspectives of natural law, common sense, Chinese prohibitions, regulations and government policy. Nothing worked. Undaunted, Lin Zexu still held a trump card to nullify British sea power and on March 18, 1839, he played that card.

Commissioner Lin issued an edict to the entire foreign trade community in Canton to chastise them for breaking Chinese law by participating in the opium drug trade and to remind them their access to the profitable Chinese market was at the emperor's indulgence. The edict also warned that any Chinese citizen who dealt in opium "shall be instantly visited with the extreme penalties of the laws," adding that making opium smoking a capital offense was under consideration. Well aware the opium trade had grown well beyond tolerable levels, Lin acknowledged that foreigners may not have understood the severity of China's prohibitions against opium and did not wish to simply "cut them off without instructive monition." Nevertheless, his edict amounted to a strongly worded three-day ultimatum:  surrender every ounce of opium being held aboard the receiving ships and sign a bond pledging never again to engage in opium traffic, or face the death penalty and the confiscation of all drugs. He never mentioned monetary compensation for the opium nor did he show consideration for Britain's economic interest in the opium trade.

Commissioner Lin did give foreign merchants an exit. Compliance with his edict would erase past behavior and secure the future profitability of the China market. He personally, along with Canton's governor and lieutenant-governor, would implore the emperor to bestow "imperial rewards" to encourage the future "good faith" of foreign merchants. Lin expressed his intention to fully and vigorously enforce the law and vowed not to quit until the opium problem had been solved. He threatened to permanently close Canton and every other Chinese port and, if necessary, use Chinese naval and military force to ensure obedience to his demands. Lin noted that China would not suffer from a cessation of trade, but "from the moment such measures are taken, the livelihood of your several nations must come to an end." The edict also stated that Lin knew who was and was not dealing in opium among the foreign merchants residing in the Thirteen Factories District and offered rewards to any merchant who would force an opium dealer to give up his stock and sign the required bond against future trafficking.

Lin Zexu issued a second edict, delivered in person to the hong merchants. He warned them of being too friendly with foreign merchants and for trying to shield them. He also warned if they continued cooperating with them in the opium trade, then "I, High Commissioner, will forthwith solicit the Imperial death-warrant and select for execution one or two of the most unworthy of you. Never say that you did not receive early notice!" Commissioner Lin's edicts caused a tremendous amount of anxiety among the foreign merchants, principally because it was such a marked deviation from past behavior. The Chinese had always been careful not to press their advantage to the point of pushing foreigners beyond the limit of their endurance or putting them in fear of their physical safety, but this was different. Lin intended to to take advantage of the merchant's weak position and isolation and put them in fear of their bodily safety. Ironically, Commissioner Lin's edict struck fear into the one race of people that, even though limited in material resources on the spot, had the power and resolve to bring them from the other side of the world. If there was one thing the British never forgave, it was being frightened.

Captain Charles Elliot was at Macao when Commissioner Lin issued his edicts and the British had no representative on the spot to advise them. William Jardine had retired from his firm in January 1839, and had long since sailed for England. Neither William Jardine and James Matheson commanded the support of the entire British community, which was now split into various factions. On March 19, Commissioner Lin issued yet another edict through the Hai Guanbu which forbid all foreigners from leaving for Macao. This was new and word of it was quickly sent off to Elliot at Macao.

The old China hands tried to convince the newcomers that nothing bad could happen. After all, the trade could not be stopped and the opium was safe aboard receiving ships at Lintin or on opium clippers up the coast. On the morning of March 21, the last day of Lin's ultimatum, the merchants decided to stall the issue by sending a message to the Commissioner with Wu Shaoyong and Lu Wankin explaining the complexity of the business interests involved. A definite reply would be sent the following Wednesday, March 27. Later that day, the merchants discovered that Lin had closed the Customs Office and cut off normal communications with the Whampoa Anchorage by ordering armed junks to patrol the river. Armed troops were also reported to be assembling in the suburbs.

Later that night, the merchants learned that Commissioner Lin believed they were trifling with him and threatened that if the opium were not turned over to him immediately, he would demonstrate his intentions the next morning. A few merchants, James Matheson among them, suspected a trick, but the greater majority had no intention of considering Lin's edicts an empty threat. A total of 1,037 chests of opium, valued at nearly £140,000, were offered for surrender, including some owned by the hong merchants. Wu Shaoyong and Lu Wankin went to the Commissioner's residence the following morning with the offer. Lin angrily refused, stating, "There are tens of thousands of chests and I have demanded them all. Do you think my words are only air?" Lin ordered the two men to tell Mr. Dent, an old China hand and senior executive of Dent and Company, "that I want to see him. Why, he alone has six thousand chests and I shall get them out of him!"

In the confusion and fear spreading through the British community, Dent first agreed to, then refused Lin's demand. On Saturday morning, March 23, Wu Shaoyong and Lu Wankin appeared at Dent's residence stripped of their rank and wearing iron chains around their necks. The two men tearfully pleaded with Dent to go to the Commissioner's residence, but he continued to refuse. Instead, John Inglis, a partner of Dent and Company, volunteered to inform Lin that Dent would not move without a guarantee of safe conduct from Lin himself. In a meeting with four senior Chinese officials, Mr. Inglis was informed that since Sunday was a day of worship among the foreigners, Dent did not have to present himself until Monday morning at ten o'clock.

Chief Superintendent of Trade Captain Charles Elliot wrote Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston numerous times to warn him the expanding opium trade would in time lead to a serious crisis. Realizing almost at once the long-expected crisis had finally arrived, Elliot notified Governor-General Deng Tingchen that recent events had destroyed all confidence in the local authorities and asked him if it was China's intention to engage the British in a war. Next, Elliot ordered all British merchantmen outside the Pearl River to assemble their ships in defensive positions in the anchorage between the Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong, a small, sparsely populated speck of land about thirty square miles in size. He instructed Captain Blake, commanding the eighteen-gun sloop H.M.S. Larne, the only British warship in the area, to take charge of protecting the British merchantmen. Elliot knew full well that some of the ships he ordered to Hong Kong were opium clippers and that he was, in effect, ordering the British Royal Navy to protect the smuggling fleet. Despite the potential for embarrassment in his orders, Elliot felt his first responsibility was to protect British lives and property.

Before leaving Macao for Canton, Charles Elliot authorized Captain Blake to act as he deemed necessary should events in Canton reach a sufficiently alarming level. Elliot finally reached Canton at six o'clock Sunday evening, March 24, where he joined the traders at the British factory and took charge of the situation. Early the next morning, Elliot learned that Mr. Dent was due to enter the city to meet Commissioner Lin and promptly declared he would never allow it. He had no sooner concluded a briefing for the whole community on the current state of affairs, exhorting them to remain united in their efforts, than Commissioner Lin broke the tense stalemate by announcing the withdrawal of all Chinese factory workers and servants in the factories, the cessation of all trade and the siege of the British factory. Approximately 350 foreigners in the Thirteen Factories District were confined to their compounds without servants, cooks, porters, food, or water. Although the Chinese took precautions to totally isolate the foreign compound, there was never the slightest risk of starvation. The factories were well stocked with flour and salted beef and a number of faithful hong merchants routinely smuggled fresh food into the compound.

To the Chinese, Lin Zexu's actions were both appropriate and well within the realm of behavior required by the unequal nature of China's tribute system. To Charles Elliot, the British and the international community in Canton, Lin's conduct amounted to an act of piracy that threatened the liberty, property and lives of British subjects. By gradually increasing the pressure, Lin achieved the very effect he calculated. Elliot's actions at Macao had already shown he assumed some degree of responsibility for the opium trade in China;  now he must assume it all. Elliot knew that, since the British held control of such a large stock of opium, he would have to admit British recognition of the illegal opium trade. If he took any other stance, he would shoulder future blame for the death and ruin of his countrymen. It occurred to Elliot that surrendering the opium stock would not only end the siege against the factories and restore trade, but would be a good way to hold the Chinese responsible for the financial loss. Without instructions or guidance from England, Captain Charles Elliot took personal responsibility in the matter and made a courageous decision, one that would shortly hand the British Government a casus belli.

Acting on behalf of the Queen and the British Government, Elliot issued a surprising public notice to the Canton community on March 27, 1838, which ordered "all Her Majesty's subjects now present in Canton" to surrender to him all opium under their control by six o'clock that evening, to hold all British ships and vessels engaged in the opium trade subject to his immediate direction, and to forward a sealed list of all the British owned opium in their possession. Elliot took full responsibility for possession of the opium and guaranteed the owners they would be compensated later. He also cautioned that anyone who did not turn over their opium stock to him would have to deal with the Chinese on their own. The merchants reacted almost casually. Here was a chance to "sell" their entire opium stock to Britain for a promissory note. With the opium trade at Canton halted, they were already overstocked and next years shipment would drive opium prices way down. If Lin decided to destroy the entire supply, it would only have the effect of driving prices higher for next year. Most merchants decided it was a good business deal and immediately indicated their intent to comply.

After reviewing the books of each merchant, Elliot calculated there were some 20,000 chests of opium either in stock or aboard ship in the vicinity of Canton. Without verifying the accuracy of his figures, Elliot wrote Commissioner Lin Zexu and advised him that was the amount he would surrender. There is no way of knowing Commissioner Lin's immediate reaction, but it is certain he felt gratified. In his reply to Elliot, Lin said, "The real sincerity and faithfulness shown are worthy of praise. ...This is the day and time for reformation;  if embraced, the enjoyment of unending advantages will be the result." Lin ordered the chests collected from the receiving ships, the warehouses at Whampoa and the opium clippers at sea and delivered to the beach at Fort Chuanbi, where he would personally take delivery. He advised the traders that once the first quarter of the opium stock was surrendered, the servants, cooks and porters would be returned;  delivery of the second quarter would restore the services of the passage boats operating between Whampoa and Macao;  delivery of the third quarter would end the siege of the factory district;  and surrender of the last quarter would restore trade activity in Canton.

For six weeks the foreign detainees fought off boredom and monotony as they sweltered in the heat of Canton's subtropical climate, uncertain about their future. The opium was gathered and delivered as promised. By May 18, Elliot delivered a total of 21,306 chests - approximately 1,560 tons - of opium to Commissioner Lin at Chuanbi. Although it appeared that Lin had scored a total legal and moral triumph over the foreigners, in truth it was a hollow victory. Charles Elliot's courageous action had created an entirely new situation, because once Elliot assumed ownership of the opium it ceased to be the private property of traders and became the public property of the British government. Commissioner Lin and China were now ensnared in the position of being financially liable directly to the British Crown.

After giving some though to the problem of how to destroy the huge stock of opium, Lin consulted with engineers and chemists in Canton and decided it best to dissolve it in water and send it out to sea. On Humen beach, near a creek that emptied into Canton Bay beneath the watchful gun batteries of Fort Chuanbi, Chinese laborers dug three trenches, each measuring 150 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 7 feet deep, each lined with flagstones and roughhewn timbers. The area around the well-guarded trenches was protected by a tall bamboo fence. Just to the east of the enclosure was a large wooden pavilion about twenty feet square and slightly elevated above the sand and open to the west with a commanding view of the trenches. The floors were covered with carpets and the walls were decorated with paintings and calligraphy. Flying yellow streamers and fluttering narrow flags surrounded the pavilion. Seated between two tables in a broad chair in the center of the pavilion, High Commissioner Lin Zexu, accompanied by his staff and lesser mandarins dressed in light summer silks, silk boots and straw hats crowned with the appropriate rank insignia, inspected the final destruction of the "foreign mud."

On June 1, 1839, Lin Zexu composed a ritual message to the Spirit of the South China Sea, advising the spirit that he "should shortly be dissolving opium and draining it off to the great ocean," and suggested that all sea creatures should retreat to deeper water "to avoid being contaminated." It took from June 3 to June 25 to destroy the entire drug supply. Each day, the ditches were filled with with about two feet of water from the nearby creek. Nearly five hundred Chinese laborers cut the black opium balls into halves and dumped them into the trenches to soak along with huge quantities of salt and stirred the mixture until it completely dissolved. Next, laborers dumped crates of salt and lime into the trenches causing a chemical reaction that liquefied the opium and released billowing clouds of nauseating gas. When the opium finally decomposed, the trenches were flushed through sluice gates into the nearby creek that carried the last of the opium to the sea. Extreme care was taken to avoid any leakage of opium and armed guards posted at various points along the trench lines ensured no theft of the opium. Entry into the enclosed area was by ticket and everyone was carefully searched before being allowed to leave. Anyone caught with even a small amount of the drug was instantly decapitated as a warning to others.

The destruction of the 1838-39 opium crop was a brief victory. Lin Zexu knew that so long as the British grew opium in India, they would try to sell it in China. He had to persuade England to halt the opium trade at its source. Lin wrote a letter to the young twenty-year-old Queen Victoria to have her intercede and halt poppy cultivation and the manufacture of opium. Aware of the prohibition against opium use in Britain, Lin pressed his point;

"Why do you let it be passed on to the harm of other countries? Suppose there were people from another country who carried opium for sale to England and seduced your people into buying and smoking it; certainly your honorable ruler would deeply hate it and be bitterly aroused .. . . "

Perhaps. Unfortunately, Commissioner Lin did not know the British decided as early as 1832 they were determined not to abandon a revenue source as valuable as the East India Company's opium monopoly in India.

The tone of Lin Zexu's letter to Queen Victoria was predicated on China's age-old assumption that the British monarch was sovereign of a tributary state. Lin firmly believed that China had condescended to allow Britain to enjoy the benefits of trade with the Celestial Kingdom;  now, England should also show gratitude and compliance by respecting its wishes to halt the opium trade. In January 1840, Captain Warner carried Commissioner Lin's letter to London aboard the Thomas Coutts. The Foreign Office refused to recognize Captain Warner however, and the letter was never read. Had it been published and widely read in England, intelligent men of good conscience might well have acknowledged the validity of Lin Zexu's humanitarian arguments and been persuaded to see that in the long run, Britain's reputation would be badly tarnished if it persisted in the opium traffic.

Despite opium's disreputable nature, practical considerations preempted any change in England's position. Until some way could be found to raise revenue to match the loss incurred from stopping the opium trade, Britain was neither in the mood to change nor willing to allow themselves to be forced into abandoning opium under the tactics used by Lin Zexu. At the heart of the matter, the British would rather have fought for a bad reason than cave in to intimidations from people for whom they had little more than bemused contempt. By supporting Commissioner Lin's tactics, China missed an opportunity for a compromise settlement that could have led Britain away from the opium trade and given China more control over smuggling. Instead, the Qing Government vainly sought to intimidate, frighten and make thinly veiled threats against England, then the proudest, most stubborn and most powerful nation in the world.