than as a very important article of materia medica; no ore will say that it is otherwise than highly desirable that the use of this “insane” drug as a means of intoxication should be prohibited. But, we repeat, though collision with the Chinese has chanced to arise upon the question of the importation of opium, the moral consideration as to the sale and use of that drug are really quite beside the question: had the article of trade been Yorkshire cloth or Birmingham hardware, the same collision might have taken place.

Opium was imported into China as early as the 17th century, and it was not until the close of the 18th century that Kea-king prohibited it. We applaud him for doing this. It was high time to put some check on the use of it; for though it was professedly imported only as a medici nal drug, it was imported to the extent of 1000 chests per annum as early as 1767, and the importation had been perpetually increased in amount up to 1796. Up to this time, be it remembered, the traffic was strictly legal; it paid a duty of five mace per catty, and was for the most part delivered to and bonded by the government.

It is clear that from 1796 the trade in this drug was mere smuggling, equally clear, that whether John Tomkins or "The Company" was the trader, that trader was a smuggler. We will go farther. When the East India Company, having the monopoly of the eastern trade, compelled the ryots of Pekin to grow opium instead of rice, and compelled the ryots of divers other parts of the Anglo-Indian territory to do the same, the act was one which the English press ought loudly to have denounced, and which the English senate ought to have put a stop to, on pain of the loss of the Company's charter. All this is clear as noonday; but there is another consideration. The government of China is essentially paternal: from the emperor to the lowest office of his state link connects link, as from the father of a family to his youngest child or his nearest servant. The trade in opium was forbidden from time to time by edicts: true; but the very officers who were charged with the duty of enforcing these edicts were themselves the virtual importers of opium! Had the Chinese authorities of Canton and along the coast not connived at the trade for enormous bribes, or, as was more frequently the case, been themselves actual traders in the article, the trade would have been at an end years ago, and when only a comparatively small portion of British capital was involved in it.

It appears to us that the public prohibition of a drug of which the consumption was hourly increasing, and the aid given to its importation by the very persons appointed to carry that prohibition into effect, are merely "part and parcel" of the settled Chinese policy of fleecing barbarians to the utmost possible extent, on the one hand, and of always having a convenient pretext for such a stoppage in trade as circumstances might make convenient in the way of temporarily making the fleece longer and finer It would be an instructive lesson for politicians to con-the difference of profit to China, between the one hundred chests imported in 1776 at a fixed duty of five mace the catty, and that upon the forty thousand chests smuggled in 1840-at whatever profit the unscrupulous authorities could

extort!

It was not until 1839 that anything in the shape of a real determination to put down the trade was exhibited by the Chinese; for the occasional stoppages of trade and blustering manifestos, as already said, we look at as mere measures for fleecing Lin appeared at Canton, in that year, a "high commissioner"-an officer possessing almost dictatorial powers, and one who had not been more than thrice previously appointed during the present dynasty. In an edict he said, "I, the commissioner, am sworn to remove utterly this root of misery; nor will I let the foreign vessels have any offshoot left for the evil to bud forth again." The Brit

ish commissioner and between two and three hundred British subjects were then thrown into a state of close confinement; the guards placed over them heaped every insult upon them, and threatened them with being deprived of provisions and water. Captain Elliot, the British superintendant, under such circumstances, saw no means of evading the demands of the Chinese; and upwards of twenty thousand chests of opium, valued at twenty millions of dollars, were delivered to commissioner Lin for de

struction.

In 1840 war was declared by England against the Chinese. The leading events, however, which followed, being related in the history of that country, it would be superfluous to repeat them here. We will merely add what has transpired since that was written. All differences being finally adjusted, and his celestial majesty being on terms of the strictest amity with her Britannic majesty, a ratification of the treaty between the two countries was announced on the 27th of July, 1843. From that day the Hong merchants' monopoly and Consoo charges were to cease; and the conditions upon which trade was in future to be carried on, appeared in a notice issued by Sir Henry Pottinger, the British plenipotentiary in China; who published an export and import tariff, and also a proclamation in which he trusts that the commercial treaty will be found, in practice, mutually advantageous, beneficial and just, as regards the interests, honour, and the future augmented prosperity of the governments of the two mighty contracting empires and their subjects; and he "most solemnly and urgently calls upon all subjects of the British crown, not only to strictly conform and act up to the said provisions of the commercial treaty, but to spurn, decry, and make known to the world any base, unprincipled and traitorous overtures that may be made to them, towards entering into any collusion or scheme for the purpose of evading, or acting in contravention of, the said provisions of the commercial treaty."

In the proclamation issued by the imperial commission, after referring to the tariff, &c., it says, "Henceforth, then, the weapons of war shall ever be laid aside, and joy and profit shall be the perpetual lot of all; neither slight nor few will be the advantages reaped by the merchants alike of China and of foreign countries. From this time forward all must free themselves from prejudice and suspicions, pursuing each his proper avocation, and careful always to retain no inimical feelings from the recollection of the hostilities that have before taken place; for such feelings and recollections can have no other effect than to hinder the growth of a good understanding between the two people." It also contains a perfect amnesty, and the remission of punishment for all who have served the English soldiers with supplies, &c., in days past, and concludes by stating that, "From henceforward amity and good will shall ever continue, and those from afar, and those who are near, shall perpetually rejoice together "

THE HISTORY OF JAPAN.

JAPAN is a general name given, by Europeans, to a great number of islands, lying between the eastern coast of Asia and the western coast of America, and which together compose a large empire, extending from the 30th to the 41st degree of latitude, and from the 130th to the 147th degree

of east longitude. The inhabitants call this empire Niphon, which is the name of the largest island belonging to it. It was discovered by the Portuguese about the year 1452. The religion of the Japanese is paganism, divided into several sects, who live together in harmony. Every sect has its own temples and priests. The spiritual emperor, or dairi-sama, is the chief of their religion. They acknowledge and honour a Supreme Being; and the temples are open to every individual, whatever his creed or country. Christianity had once made a considerable progress in Japan, under the auspices of the Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits, among whom was the famous St. Francis Xavier; but it ended tragically, owing to an ill-conducted conspiracy of the fathers against the state. This proceeding produced a persecution of forty years' duration, and terminated by a most horrible massacre, scarcely to be paralleled in history. After this, not only the Portuguese, but Christians of every nation, were totally expelled the country, and the most effectual means taken for preventing their

return.

In 1611, the Dutch had the liberty of a free commerce granted them by the imperial letters patent, and established a factory at Firando. They were then at war with Spain, and Portugal was at that time under the Spanish government. The former, by taking an homeward-bound Portuguese ship, found a traitorous letter to the king by a captain Moro, chief of the Portuguese in Japan. The Dutch immediately forwarded this letter to their protector, the prince of Firando. This letter laid open the whole plot which the Japanese Christians, in conjunction with the Portuguese, had laid against the emperor's life and throne. In consequence of this discovery, in the year 1637, an imperial order was sent to the governor of Nagasaki, to admit no more Portuguese into the empire.

Notwithstanding this proclamation, the Portuguese found means to carry on their trade two years longer, hoping to obtain leave to stay in the island of Desima, and there continue to trade; but they found themselves disappointed; for the emperor, on the assurance given him by the Dutch East India Company, that they would supply him in future with all the articles heretofore supplied by the Portuguese, declared them, and the Castilians, enemies of the empire; and they were totally expelled the country in 1640. Their extirpation, and with them the Christian religion, was so complete, that not a vestage can now be discerned of its having ever existed there.

The government of the Japan empire is an hereditary, absolute monarchy. The imperial dignity had been enjoyed, for a considerable time before the year 1500, by a regular succession of princes, under the title of dairos. Soon after that epoch, a civil war broke out, which lasted many years. During the destruction it occasioned, a common soldier, named Tayckoy, found means to raise himself to the imperial dignity, and the dairo was obliged to submit to terms. This revolution took place in 1517. Tayckoy reigned several years, during which he made excellent laws, which still subsist. At his death he left the crown to his son, Tayckossama, then a minor; but the treacherous prince under whose guardianship he was left, deprived him of his life before he became of age. By this murder the crown passed to the family of Jejassama, in which it still continues.

The Japanese must be placed rather among the polished nations than otherwise. Their mode of government, their skill in agriculture, in manufactures, arts, and sciences-their politeness, good-nature, prudence, frankness, and courage-entitle them to this distinction. They seem to possess nothing of the vanity of Asiatics and Africans; but are careful only to provide themselves, from the productions of their own country, with those necessaries and comforts of life, so desirable to enlightened human beings The language of the Japanese has some afinity to the