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wrote officially to London that "the immense and, it must be said, the most unfortunate, increase of the supply [of opium] during the last four years, the rapid growth of the east-coast trade in the drug, and the continued drain of silver have no doubt greatly alarmed the Chinese Government." In fact, the termination of the East India Company's monopoly and the full opening of the China trade to private enterprise resulted in a great development of opium import, and also brought about another result, namely, that instead of discharging their cargo into receiving ships at Lintin to be carried thence up the river by Chinese craft, the foreign traders began to transport it to Canton in armed boats of their own. This altered state of affairs forced itself upon the attention of the Chinese authorities. The abuse became too notorious to be connived at locally or ignored by the Central Government. Peking had to reconsider the whole matter, not as a comparatively simple and almost abstract problem, but as a question involving issues of immediate gravity, nationally and internationally.

Meanwhile, after Lord Napier's failure to establish direct relations with the Canton authorities, the British Superintendent adopted the policy of silence and aloofness. He retired from Canton and lived in solemn seclusion, carefully abstaining from all contact with local officialdom—a direct imitation, unconscious perhaps, of