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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: arose, were handed over to him, he mixed it with quicklime in
huge vats that it might be utterly destroyed rather than be an
injury to his people. They may have exhibited an ignorance of
international law, they may have manifested an unwise contempt
for the foreigner, but it remains a fact of history that they
were ready to suffer great financial loss rather than get revenue
from the ruin of their subjects, and that England went to war for
the purpose of securing indemnity for the opium destroyed.
The common name for opium among the Chinese is yang yen--foreign
tobacco, and my wife says: "When calling at the Chinese homes, I
have frequently been offered the opium-pipe, and when I refused
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