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Rh the humiliating concessions above mentioned, consenting to address the Cantonese Authorities as a humble petitioner and to receive communications, which really were orders, from the subordinates of the Governor of Canton city. He sacrificed his personal and official dignity, because he saw no other way of preventing a massacre.

However, the Cantonese Authorities were too well aware of the advantages connected with the continuance of the foreign trade at Canton, to resort deliberately to any extreme measures. They had no wish to stop trade altogether, or even to suppress the fair opium traffic at Canton, but they were determined to stop the forced traffic between Lintin and Whampoa, because it evaded the exactions of the higher officials. The new year (1839) opened with gloomy forebodings, for on the day when trade was re-opened (January 1, 1839), a rumour spread in Canton that the party at Peking, opposed to the legalisation of the opium trade, had gained a decided ascendency in the Imperial councils. And, indeed, while Elliot was penning a dispatch to Lord Palmerston (January 2, 1839), imploring the Foreign Office for some support under his embarrassing circumstances, stating also that there was no time to be lost in providing for the defined and reasonable control of Her Majesty's subjects in China, the former Viceroy of Hukwang, Lam Tsak-sü, better known as Commissioner Lin, was already on his way, armed with extraordinary powers as Special Imperial Commissioner and High Admiral. Lin had previously distinguished himself as an uncompromising anti-opium agitator and now, whilst travelling along the wearisome route from Peking to Canton, he concocted an elaborate scheme to entrap all the opium dealers and to extirpate the whole opium traffic by one fell blow, besides bringing the Cantonese Authorities once for all to book for their connivance at, and share in, the opium trade. The news of his approach caused, indeed, all the local officials, from the Viceroy down to the Hong Merchants, to quake in their shoes. Accordingly the opium traffic was actually stopped