‘ “I, High Commissioner Lin, find that the foreigners have, in their commercial intercourse with this country, long enjoyed gratifying advantages. Yet they have brought opium – that pervading poison – to this land, thus profiting themselves to the injury of others. As High Commissioner I issued an edict promising not to delve into the past but only requiring that the opium already here should be entirely delivered up and that further shipments should be effectually stopped from coming. Three days were prescribed within which to give a reply but none was received. As High Commissioner I had ascertained that the opium brought by Dent was comparatively in large quantity and summoned him to be examined. He too procrastinated for three days and the order was not obeyed. In consequence a temporary embargo was placed on the trade and the issuing of permits to go to Macau was stayed. In reading the letter of the English Superintendent I see no recognition of these circumstances, but only a demand for permits. I would ask: While my commands remain unanswered and my summonses unattended, how can permits be granted? Elliott has come into the territory of the Celestial Court as the English Superintendent. But his country, while itself interdicting the use of opium, has yet permitted the seduction and enticement of the Chinese people. The store-ships have long been anchored in the waters of Kwangtung yet Elliott has been unable to expel them. I would ask then what it is that Elliott superintends?’ ”

As the reading proceeded, Bahram had the odd impression that he was listening not to the translator, but to some other voice that had taken command of the young man’s mouth and lips, a voice that was at once completely reasonable and utterly implacable. Bahram was astounded by this: how could the voice of this remote and distant figure, Lin Tse-hsü, have seized control of this youthful Englishman? Was it possible that some men possessed so great a force of character that they could stamp themselves upon their words such that no matter where they were read, or when, or in what language, their own distinctive tones would always be heard?

Who was this man, this Lin Tse-hsü? What gave him this peculiar power, this authority, this unalloyed certainty?

‘ “I have now merely to lay on Elliott the responsibility of speedily and securely arranging these matters: the delivery of the opium and the giving of bonds in obedience to my orders. If he can take the opium that is on board the store-ships and at once deliver it up, it will be my duty to give him encouragement. If he has aught to say, and it be not inconsistent with reason, let him make a clear statement of it. But if he speaks not according to reason and imagines, amid the darkness of night, to abscond with his men, it will show the conviction within him that he can have no face to encounter his fellow men. Will he be able to escape the meshes of the vast and wide net of heaven?” ’