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endeavour to check the import of opium, should, through the mouth of her plenipotentiary, inform them that if their officials were incorrupt and obeyed orders, no opium could enter the country; and that a civilised government should plead confirmed indulgence in a vice as a valid excuse for ministering to it,—that such a medley of contradictions, inconsistencies, and false morality should have been seriously advanced by Sir Henry Pottinger at an international conference, may well have filled the Chinese with amazement.

However, this "private conversation" did not leave any impress on the treaty. The provisions of that document were that Canton, Amoy, Fuchou, Ningpo, and Shanghai should be opened to British trade conducted according to a fixed traffic; that Hongkong should be ceded to England; that China should pay twenty-one million dollars, namely, six millions for the destroyed opium, three millions for debts due to British merchants, and twelve millions for the cost of the campaign; that prisoners should be released and amnesty granted to Chinese who had aided the British, and that official correspondence should be on terms of equality. The opium question, it will be observed, was entirely ignored.

The conclusion of this treaty marked an epoch in the history not of China alone but of the world. At the moment, however, its far-reaching consequences were not appreciated.