The question before us is therefore reduced to very narrow
limits. It is merely this: Ought my noble friend, in May 1838,
to have sent out a despatch commanding and empowering Captain
Elliot to put down the opium trade? I do not think that it would
have been right or wise to send out such a despatch. Consider,
Sir, with what powers it would have been necessary to arm the
Superintendent. He must have been authorised to arrest, to
confine, to send across the sea any British subject whom he might
believe to have been concerned in introducing opium into China.
I do not deny that, under the Act of Parliament, the Government
might have invested him with this dictatorship. But I do say
that the Government ought not lightly to invest any man with such
a dictatorship, and, that if, in consequence of directions sent
out by the Government, numerous subjects of Her Majesty had been
taken into custody and shipped off to Bengal or to England
without being permitted to wind up their affairs, this House
would in all probability have called the Ministers to a strict
account. Nor do I believe that by sending such directions the
Government would have averted the rupture which has taken place.
I will go further. I believe that, if such directions had been
sent, we should now have been, as we are, at war with China; and
that we should have been at war in circumstances singularly
dishonourable and disastrous.

For, Sir, suppose that the Superintendent had been authorised and
commanded by the Government to put forth an order prohibiting
British subjects from trading in opium; suppose that he had put
forth such an order; how was he to enforce it? The right
honourable Baronet has had too much experience of public affairs