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lives and properties of future smugglers at the disposal of the Chinese authorities. To the former demand Captain Elliot acceded. He issued a circular calling upon the British merchants to "surrender for the service of Her Majesty's Government" all the opium in their possession, and he officially accepted "the most full and unreserved" responsibility on account of the property thus handed over. But neither he nor his nationals showed any disposition to entertain the proposal with regard to bonds.

The British superintendent's circular elicited a prompt reply. Before evening on the day of its issue vouchers for 20,283 chests of opium were handed to him. It has been suggested that the owners of the drug were glad to become creditors of the British Government for the price of an article to which the usual market was temporarily closed. They themselves claimed, however, that they acted under duress, and there can be no doubt that Captain Elliot's procedure was dictated by a conviction that the lives of his nationals were endangered.

A fresh complication now occurred. Captain Elliot expected that his promise to deliver the opium would be immediately followed by the withdrawal of the guards from the Factories and the restoration of normal conditions. But the opium being stored in twenty-two schooners which lay at a distance of forty miles down stream from Canton, Commissioner Lin refused