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creasing number of victims with a corresponding development of the demand for the drug, the circumstances under which the smuggling trade was conducted at Lintin assumed a more and more intolerable character. Shootings of Chinese from smuggling boats became frequent occurrences. The natives on their side retaliated by exacting bloody vengeance for these murders. A British subject set fire to a mandarin's house and actually boasted of the fact in the public press. Armed boats from the opium ships made an organised attack on a village. Renewed efforts, avowedly founded on the licence enjoyed at Canton, were organised to extend the trade in other directions by intimidation. In short, the situation gradually and steadily tended towards a disastrous issue.

A forcible account of the state of affairs prevailing in Canton at that epoch was placed on record by one of the British residents at the Factories: "Life and business were a conundrum as insoluble as the Sphinx: everything worked smoothly by acting in direct opposition to what we were told to do. … We were threatened and re-threatened with the 'direst penalties' if we sold foreign mud (opium) to the people; truly forbearance could no longer be exercised. Yet we continued to sell the drug as usual. Our receiving ships at Lintin must no longer loiter at that anchorage, but forthwith either come into port or return to their respec-