Lecture I.

Objects of the Lectures.--Lectures based upon principle and not upon grounds of expediency.--Lecturer's knowledge of the Opium question derived from actual acquaintance with the facts, acquired during nearly fifteen years' residence in Hong Kong.--Opium smoking as practised by the Chinese perfectly innocuous, beneficial rather than injurious.--Opinion of Dr. Ayres.--Charges made by the Anti-Opium Society and its supporters false and unfounded.--Alleged knowledge of the members and supporters of the Anti-Opium Society founded on hearsay evidence of the worst and most untrustworthy character.--Lecturer not acting in the interests of the British merchants in China, nor of any other party or person.--Has no personal interest in the Opium question, and is actuated only by a desire to dispel the false and mischievous delusions spread abroad in England by the Anti-Opium Society.--British and other foreign residents in China hold opposite views to those disseminated by the Anti-Opium people.--British merchants as a body have no interest in the trade.--China a great Empire as large as Europe, with a much greater population.--Country and people of China described.--Impossible to demoralize and debase such a people.--Opium smoking a general custom throughout the eighteen provinces of China.-- Reasons for the prolonged existence of the Anti-Opium Society.--False charges of the Anti-Opium Society respecting the Indo-China Opium trade more fully formulated.--Petition to the House of Commons of the Protestant Missionaries at Peking.--Refusal to sign it of the Rev. F. Galpin.--If half those charges were true the British residents in China would be the first to raise their voices against the Opium trade.--Official Yellow Book published by Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of Chinese Customs, negatives the allegations of the members of the Anti-Opium Society and the Protestant Missionaries.--Roman Catholic Missionaries make no complaint against the Indo-China Opium trade.--Allegations of the Anti-Opium Society that British trade with China has suffered from the alleged forcing of Opium upon China untrue.--Friendly relations between the British merchants in China and the Chinese people.--Englishmen more esteemed by the Chinese than any other nation.--Hong Kong described.-- Government of China described.--Hong Kong the head-quarters of the Indo-China Opium trade, Chinese residing there have better means of procuring the drug than elsewhere--no sufferers from Opium smoking found there.--Exposure by Dr. Ayres, the Colonial Surgeon of Hong Kong, of the fallacy that Opium smoking, although indulged in for years, cannot be dropped without injury to the system.--Fallacy of comparing the Chinese with the savages of Central Africa by the Secretary of the Anti-Opium Society exposed.--Archdeacon Gray, a resident for twenty years at Canton, silent, in his recent work on China and her people, as to the alleged iniquity of the Indo-China Opium trade.--Character of the Chinese as described by various authors.--Chinese a frugal and abstemious people.-- Opium smoking less injurious than beer or tobacco.--Charges of the Anti-Opium Society based upon fallacies; those fallacies detailed.-- Alleged objections of the Chinese to receive the Gospel on account of the Indo-China Opium trade the merest subterfuge, and utterly absurd and untenable.--The opinion of the late John Crawfurd, Esq., F.R.S., formerly Governor of the Straits Settlements.--His Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent countries.

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