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"enable British subjects to violate the laws of the country in which they trade," and the British superintendent had proclaimed his readiness to "use his efforts to fulfil the pleasure of the great Emperor." Lin had no reason to suppose that Lord Palmerston's declaration was an idle platitude, or to expect that Captain Elliot would resent the "Great Emperor's" measures for suppressing smuggling. Doubtless Captain Elliot, a highly conscientious man, believed that he had full justification for his resentment. But when, after ordering his nationals to leave Canton, where they might have continued to carry on their business in prosperous security on the simple condition of refraining from illicit traffic, and after refusing Lin's invitation to return, he wrote to the Governor-General of India characterising Lin's action as "a course of violence and spoliation which had broken up the foundations of this great trade, so far as Canton is concerned, perhaps for ever," he seems to have forgotten altogether that up to the eleventh hour the "violence and spoliation" had been entirely on the side of the men who, by force of arms and by corrupt methods, carried on an illicit traffic in an article which poisoned the Chinese people and robbed them of their wealth.

From the point of view of political sagacity, however, the British superintendent acted shrewdly. His device involved Lin's complete discomfiture. For not only was the regular trade now thor-