The balance of trade against China was the principal cause of the export of silver, and the balance of trade was only against China through the increasing import of opium. Without acquiescing in the least with the strong allegations of the anti-opium party, there is no reason to doubt that the excessive use of opium, especially in a crowded city like Canton, was attended with sufficient mischief to justify its official denunciation. The Pekin government may be so far credited with the honest intention to reduce the mischief and to prevent a bad habit from becoming more and more of a national vice, when they determined for far other reasons to place it in the front of their tirade against foreign trade generally. They soon found that it would be more convenient and more plausible to substitute the moral opposition to the opium traffic for the political disinclination to foreign intercourse in any form. They scarcely expected that in this project they would receive the assistance and co- operation of many of the Europeans themselves, who shared with them the opinion that opium was detestable, and its use or sale a mark of depravity. In January, 1839, Taoukwang ordered Lin Tsihseu, viceroy of the double province of Houkwang and an official of high reputation, to proceed to Canton as Special Commissioner to report on the situation, and to propound the best remedy for the opium evil. At this moment the anti-opium party was supreme in the imperial council, and three Manchu princes were disgraced and banished from Pekin for indulging in the practice. The peremptory instructions given to Commissioner Lin, as he is historically known, were "to cut off the fountain of evil, and, if necessary for the attainment of his object, to sink his ships and break his caldrons, for the indignation of the great emperor has been fairly aroused at these wicked practices--of buying and selling and using opium--and that the hourly thought of his heart is to do away with them forever." Before Lin reached Canton there had been frequent friction between Captain Elliot and the local mandarins, and more than one interruption of the trade. Less than six months after his installation at Canton his official relations were broken off, and he wrote home to his government a dispatch complaining of the difficulty of conducting any sort of amicable relations with the local mandarins, and indorsing the growing demand for the right of dealing direct with the Pekin government. Captain Elliot, acting under instructions from home, issued a public notice warning all English subjects to discontinue the illicit opium trade, and stating that "her Majesty's Government would not in any way interfere if the Chinese Government should think fit to seize and confiscate the same."