Page:The Chinese Empire. A General & Missionary Survey.djvu/46

14 led to the formation of the Chinese Evangelisation Society, which sent out Mr. Hudson Taylor, while his visit to Herrnhut resulted in the Moravian Mission to Tibet commenced in 1853, although Mongolia had been the goal intended. His industry was enormous, and, though not always reliable, his publications, according to Wells-Williams, numbered no fewer than eighty-five in the Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, German, English, Siamese, Cochin-Chinese, and Latin languages.

In 1834 the East India Company's charter ceased and the trade in the Far East was thrown open to all. Open competition immediately led to an increase in the amount of opium carried to China, to the not unnatural consternation of the Chinese Government. At the same time the change in arrangements was not understood. Having previously only had to negotiate with merchants, they refused to treat with Lord Napier, the newly-appointed Superintendent, as an official of equal rank with the Viceroy of Canton. Determined, on the one hand, to stop the trade, and equally, though foolishly, determined, on the other hand, not to deal with the "foreign barbarian" on the basis of equality, an impasse soon arose which needed only time to develop into war. Trade was stopped, smuggling increased, and finally Commissioner Lin was specially appointed by the Chinese Government to crush the opium trade.

Lin's determined attitude, his blockade of the factories and the burning of 20,283 chests of opium valued at twenty millions of dollars, cannot be criticised by any one who admires patriotism and zeal for national purity. In the matter of the opium, China was in the right and England in the wrong, but in many other matters China's attitude cannot be excused nor England's annoyance altogether condemned. England was not unjustly out of patience with Chinese diplomacy, though she was unjustly determined to force her trade, and more especially her opium traffic.

The war that followed was brought to a close by the cession of Hongkong to the British in 1841, and by the