More Than 20,000 Chests, Of An Estimated Value Of $10,000,000, Were Placed At His Disposal, And In Due Course Handed Over By Him To Commissioner Lin For Destruction.

This task was performed at Chuenpee, when the opium was placed in trenches, then mixed with salt and lime, and finally poured off into the sea.

After this very considerable triumph, Lin wrote a letter to Queen Victoria - whose reign has witnessed the most critical periods of the China question and its satisfactory settlement - calling upon her Majesty to interdict the trade in opium forever. The letter was as offensive in its tone as it was weak in argument, and no answer was vouchsafed to it. Before any reply could be given, the situation, moreover, had developed into one of open hostilities.

But great as were the concessions made by Captain Elliot, in consequence of the threatening attitude of Commissioner Lin, the Chinese were not satisfied, and made fresh and more exacting demands of those who had been weak enough to make any concession at all. They reasserted their old pretension that Europeans in China must be subject to her laws, and as the sale of opium was a penal offense they claimed the right to punish those Englishmen who had been connected with the traffic. They accordingly drew up a list of sixteen of the principal merchants, some of whom had never had anything to do with opium, and they announced their intention to arrest them and to punish them with death.

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