Page:American Diplomacy in the Orient - Foster (1903).djvu/97

 and to establish intercourse with the world in accordance with modern methods. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, a close student of Chinese affairs and a resident of the country for half a century, says that nothing could be more erroneous than to charge England with waging the war for the sole purpose of compelling the Chinese to keep an open market for the product of her Indian poppy-fields; but he adds, referring to the treatment of Lord Napier in 1834 and to other similar events, "interest had to combine with indignation before she could be aroused to action." Dr. Nevius, an American missionary long a resident of China, wrote: "Justifiable or not, it [the Opium War] was made use of in God's providence to inaugurate a new era in our relations with this vast empire."

John Quincy Adams, in the address referred to before the Massachusetts Historical Society in November, 1841, took the ground that Great Britain was entirely justified in the war. The prevailing sentiment in the United States will be seen by the following extracts from Mr. Adams's diary: "Nov. 20, 1841. They [the Parliamentary papers] all confirm me in the view taken in my lecture … which is so adverse to the prevailing prejudices of the time and place that I expect to bring down a storm upon my head worse than that with which I am already afflicted." He records the refusal "in a very delicate manner" of the North American Review to publish the lecture, and adds, December 3, 1841, "The excitement of public opinion and feeling by the delivery of this lecture far exceeds