The Opium War

The victory of the free traders over the East India Company, so far from resolving the contradictions of the China trade, had accentuated them. The more the trade increased, the more obvious became the inadequacy of the Cohong to cope with it. The more desirable China appeared as a potential market for British manufactures, the more restrictive and intolerable seemed the Canton Commercial System. The greater the recourse to illicit trading from the receiving-ships at Lintin and along the coast, the greater the danger of the Chinese Government stopping the trade. Lastly, the more extensive the opium trade became, and with it the outflow of treasure, the nearer came the day when the Chinese authorities would have to take action. Wherefore, in the years after 1834 there flowed a constant stream of propaganda in pamphlets, newspapers and letters, drawing attention to the ‘precarious and defenceless position’ of the British merchants in China, and calling for the British Government's ‘prompt interference and vigorous superintendence in reconstructing the system of our commercial relations with China’ to place the trade ‘upon a safe, advantageous, honourable and permanent footing’.

Already in 1830 the private merchants at Canton had envisaged the use of, at least the show of, force to attain their demands. On the occasion of a visit to China of a naval squadron from India in 1831, Jardine had written to Weeding: ‘I am at a loss from what authority the Admiral can receive instructions that would warrant the commencement of a system of warfare against China, unless he could provoke the war junks to fire upon him, which is unlikely.