Mr Wetmore glanced across the room: ‘Are you ready, Mr Fearon?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Come then; let us hear it.’

Mr Fearon laid a sheaf of papers on the podium and began to read.

‘ “Proclamation to Foreigners from the Imperial Commissioner, His Excellency Lin Zexu.

It is common knowledge that the foreigners who come to Canton to trade have reaped immense profits. This is evidenced by the facts. Your ships which in former years amounted annually to no more than several tens now number vastly more. Let us ask if in the wide earth under heaven there is any other commercial port that yields rewards as rich as this? Our tea and rhubarb are articles without which you foreigners from afar cannot preserve your lives …”’

‘Ah!’ Mr Slade grinned in satisfaction. ‘Did I not predict the rhubarb?’

‘ “Are you foreigners grateful for the favours shown you by the Emperor? You must then respect our laws and in seeking profit for yourselves you must not do harm to others. How does it happen then that you bring opium to our central land, chousing people out of their substance and involving their very lives in destruction? I find that with this thing you have seduced and deluded the people of China for tens of years past; and countless are the unjust hoards that you have thus accumulated. Such conduct rouses indignation in every human heart and it is utterly inexcusable in the eyes of heaven …”’

Mr Burnham, who was seated beside Bahram, was so incensed now that he began to mutter under his breath: ‘And what of you, you damned hypocrite of a mandarin? Have you and your rascally colleagues played no part in these matters?’

‘ “… at one time the prohibitions against opium were comparatively lax, but now the wrath of the great Emperor has been fully aroused and he will not stay his hand until the evil is completely and entirely done away with. You foreigners who have come to our land to reside, ought, in reason, to submit to our statutes as do the natives of China themselves. ” ’

Here incredulous murmurs could be heard in the hall:

‘… submit to Long-tail law …?’

‘… be collared with the cangue, as in the dark ages …?’

‘… be strangled, like Ho Lao-kin …?’

That name again! Bahram flinched and his gaze strayed towards the Co-Hong merchants and their retinues. One of the linkisters seemed to drop his eyes, as if to avoid being caught staring. Bahram’s heartbeat quickened in panic and his fingers tightened involuntarily on his cane. He sensed that the linkister was looking at him again and forced himself to be still. By the time he regained his composure Mr Fearon’s recital was much advanced.

‘ “… I, the Imperial envoy, am from Fujian, on the borders of the sea, and I thoroughly understand all the arts and ingenious devices of you foreigners. I find that you now have many scores of ships anchored at Lintin and other places, in which are several tens of thousands of chests of opium. Your intention is to dispose of them clandestinely. But where will you sell it? This time opium is indeed prohibited and cannot circulate; every man knows that it is a deadly poison; why then should you heap it up in your foreign cargo ships and keep them anchored, thereby wasting much money and exposing them to the chance of storms, of fire and other accidents?” ’