Without further pursuing a subject which, though deeply interesting, has been already so much a matter of discussion, we may at once come to the conclusion, that the passion of the Chinese for the pernicious intoxication of opium, was the first link in the chain which was destined to connect them at some future day with all the other families of mankind. The abolition of the privileges of the East India Company first opened the door for the _general_ trade of all foreign nations upon an extended scale; but the trade in opium, which the Chinese were determined to carry on, in spite of all opposition of their own government, and with a full knowledge of the pernicious consequences which resulted from it, was the _instrument_ by means of which the haughty tone and the inapproachable reserve of their government were to be at length overcome. We now come to the period of the famous Commissioner Lin's appointment to Canton. This was indeed the climax of all the perplexities. Lin himself was the Robespierre, the terrorist, the reckless despot, who represented a certain party in the empire, who conscientiously believed that they could _terrify_ not only their own countrymen, but even foreign nations, into patient submission to their will. This singular man seems to have been composed of good and bad qualities in equal proportions, but always of a violent kind. In any other country than China, he would have been either distinguished as a demagogue or branded as a tyrant, precisely as circumstances chanced to lead him into a particular channel. He was reckless of consequences, so long as he could carry out his will without control. He was violent, yet not selfish; changeable, yet always clinging to his original views; severe, and even cruel and inexorable, in the measures by which he sought to gain his ends; yet, in reality, he is believed to have meant well for his country, and to have had the interests and the wishes of the emperor, his master, always at heart. He certainly believed that he could control both the people under his own government, and the foreigners who came into contact with them, _by force_; and his very errors seem to have arisen from excess of zeal in the cause which he adopted. His talent was unquestionable. Lin became intoxicated with his own success (for the time, at all events) in whatever he undertook; and expected all his orders to be executed with the same energy and facility with which he gave them utterance. It is said, moreover, that he procured a copy of a remarkable work called a "Digest of Foreign Customs, Practices, Manners," &c., in which bad deeds rather than good ones, and even the names of individual merchants, were brought forward; and that he studied this book with constant pleasure.