Oddly enough, I do believe that the only person who truly appreciates Charlie’s courage and honesty is the High Commissioner. But perhaps it is not surprising that this should be so – for I suspect Commissioner Lin is in a position not dissimilar to Charlie’s. His measures have not been universally popular, even among the Chinese, and I am told that he has made legions of enemies for himself. There are a great many people in this province who have grown rich on opium and I am sure they must revile the Commissioner just as so many of the fanquis revile Charlie. This perhaps is the bond between them: in a world where corruption and greed are the rule, they are both incorruptible – and it is not surprising that this should be hateful in the eyes of their peers.
Whatever the reason, there can be no doubt that there is indeed a bond between Commissioner Lin and Charlie. The Commissioner has even issued a public commendation to Charlie and it was for a while posted all around Fanqui-town (you can imagine the effect of this on Mr Dent and his ilk!).
When the destruction of the surrendered opium started, a few days ago, Charlie was one of the few foreigners who was present at the event. He described the scene to me in the most vivid detail and I was so taken with it that I have resolved to make a painting of it – I have already made a few sketches and Charlie tells me they are perfectly accurate!
The scene is set in a small village, not far from the Bogue. It is a flat, marshy place, intercut with creeks and surrounded by rice paddies. A field has been marked out, and trenches have been dug; the crates are stacked nearby as they arrive. The Commissioner is determined to prevent pilferage so the perimeter is guarded day and night and everyone who works there is searched, before they enter and when they leave.
Day by day the stocks of opium accumulate: the crates rise by the hundred until they reach a total of twenty thousand three hundred and eighty-one. Their combined value is almost beyond human imagining: Zadig Bey says that to buy it you would need hundreds of tons of silver! (Can you conceive of that, Puggly dear – a hillock of silver? And all this opium was intended for sale in a single season: does it not make the mind boggle?)
But there it is, this great haul of opium, and the day comes for Commissioner Lin to set in motion the process of its destruction. And on the eve of the ceremony, what does the Commissioner elect to do? Why, he sits down to write a poem – it is a prayer addressed to the God of the Sea asking that all the animals of the water be protected from the poison that will soon be pouring in.
When the time is right he goes to sit in the shade of a raised pavilion. From there he gives the signal for the work to start. The chests are opened, balls of opium are broken up and mixed with salt and lime and then thrown into the water-filled trenches; when the opium melts the sluices are opened and the opium is allowed to drain into the river. It is hard work: five hundred men, working long hours, can destroy only about three hundred chests a day.
Such was the scene that met Charlie’s eyes when he went to the place. The Commissioner was seated in his pavilion and presently Charlie was taken there to meet him. This was the first time Charlie had been face-to-face with him and he was startled to find that the Commissioner was not at all the man his enemies had portrayed him to be: his manner was lively to the point of being vivacious, Charlie said, and he looked young for his age; he was short and rather stout, with a smooth full face, a thin black beard and sharp, black eyes. After exchanging a few pleasantries, the Commissioner asked Charlie who, amongst the Co-Hong merchants, he considered the most honest. When Charlie was unable to produce an immediate answer he burst into peals of laughter!
Is it not a most wonderful tableau, my dearest Puggly? I am of a mind to call it: ‘Commissioner Lin and the River of Opium’.
Charlie was in transports of delight to see the drug being transformed, as he said, into heaps of ashes instead of kindling the fires of lust and frenzy in the brothels of a hundred cities. But his joy is tinged with a terrible sadness for he knows that the Commissioner’s victory will not be long-lived: already several English and American battleships are on their way to China, and there can be little doubt of what the outcome will be if it comes to war. Charlie is so worried that he has written a long letter, addressed to Captain Elliot. It is, in my eyes, a most marvellous piece of writing, and being the inveterate copyist that I am, I could not refrain from noting down a few passages (I will slip them in with this letter when I send it off).
Charlie is often terribly downcast when he thinks of what lies ahead for he thinks that a great cataclysm is coming. Whether that is true or not I do not know – and nor, honestly, do I care. I am persuaded that this is a moment that should be savoured and celebrated. For it is a rare thing in this world, is it not, Puggly dear, when a couple of good men prevail against the forces arrayed against them?