the foreigners. Another Memorial, presented to the Throne in spring 1836, further argued that the legalisation of the opium trade would bring it under the rules of barter; that thereby the baneful effects of the trade, consisting in an annual loss of over ten million taels inflicted on the currency of the realm, would be entirely obviated; but that for this purpose the Hong Merchants must be made personally responsible for the conduct of the whole opium trade and for the entire abolition of the traffic carried on at Lintin; and that the success of the scheme depended upon levying such a small duty (seven dollars a chest) as to cut off all inducement to smugglers to risk their lives. When the Emperor remitted this Memorial (June 12, 1836) for further report, it was generally assumed at Canton that it was now only a question of framing the regulations for the detailed organisation of the legalisation scheme. Elliot gave utterance to an opinion generally entertained at the time in the best informed official circles of Peking and Canton, when he wrote to the Foreign Office (October 10, 1836), that he expected soon receiving the final orders from Peking for the legalisation of the opium trade. When, a few weeks later (October 28, 1836), the Viceroy issued orders for the expulsion from Canton of twelve foreign opium merchants, eight of whom were British subjects, it was still thought that this measure, though rigidly insisted on (November 23 and December 13, 1836), was only meant as a blow directed against the Lintin trade. This surmise was confirmed when an Imperial Edict (dated January 26, 1837) appeared, which declared the baneful effects, arising from a prevalence of opium throughout the Empire, to consist in a daily decrease of fine silver, and consequently placed a strict interdict on the exportation of sycee silver, without prohibiting the trade in opium. On February 2, 1837, Elliot wrote to Lord Palmerston, that he was still of opinion that the legal admission of opium may be looked for. That the Lintin trade was the principal, if not exclusive, cause of objection, was further demonstrated by another Imperial Edict with reached Canton in August, 1837. This Edict stated
