Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 3.djvu/30

oughly dislocated, a result which the Chinese commissioner had been most anxious to avoid; but also the opium traffic had commenced more briskly than ever, the destruction of such an enormous quantity having created an exceptional demand. Indeed, so greatly was this evil accentuated that it drew from Captain Elliot the description: "The coasts are delivered over to a state of things which seems likely to pass from the worst character of a forced trade to plain buccaneering."

Lin now had recourse to other measures. He ordered that all persons dealing with foreigners in Canton should be licensed; he removed the whole of the unlicensed trading population which had gathered near the Factories; he erected barriers in the streets, and he built a stockade around the Factories themselves. These were natural steps. If the foreigners would not pledge themselves to abstain from importing opium under penalties which to the Chinese seemed right and proper, if even those that had promised to abandon the introduction of the poison were now again eagerly engaged importing it, and if even the British superintendent himself resented any heroic measures to crush the traffic, there remained nothing for Lin except to isolate the foreign Factories and to organise strict supervision over the Chinese dealing there. Yet for adopting these almost inevitable precautions, he incurred very hostile criticism, and was accused of seeking to convert the Factories at Canton into a second