contagion has spread, and its flowing poison has daily increased. In China, of those who are thus involved, a great many are wealthy persons, but there are also among the foolish masses some who cannot resist a whiff, and so injure their lives; in all such cases the penalty is self-inflicted, and there is really no room for pity. But ever since the great Ch'ing dynasty united the empire, its aim has been to regulate manners and customs with the view of rectifying the heart of man; how then can our House allow those who live within the girdle of the Seas to poison themselves at their own sweet will? Therefore, all who trade in or smoke opium in the Inner Land will be most severely punished, and the introduction and circulation of the drug will be for ever prohibited.
It appears that this particular form of poison is illegally prepared by scoundrels in the tributary tribes of your honourable country and in the devil-regions under your jurisdiction; but of course it is neither prepared nor sold by your sovereign orders. Further, that it is not all nations but only some which prepare this article; and that you do not allow your own people to smoke, under severe penalties for disobedience, evidently knowing what a curse it is and therefore strictly prohibiting the practice. But better still than forbidding people to smoke, would it not be to forbid the sale and also the preparation of opium? Surely this would be the method of purifying at the fountain-head. Not to smoke yourselves, but yet to dare to prepare and sell to and beguile the foolish masses of the Inner Land―this is to protect one's own life while leading others to death, to gather profit for oneself while bringing injury upon others. Such behaviour is repugnant to the feelings of human beings, and is not tolerated by the ways of God.
In view of the dominion exercised by our divine House over Chinese and barbarian alike, nothing would be easier than to put the guilty to death; but in respectful sympathy with the sacred intelligence and great leniency of our Emperor it is only fitting that orders should be issued beforehand. Hitherto, it has not been customary to send written communications to the princes of your honourable nation; and now, if suddenly there came this stringent
