That the opium traffic is the source of much misunderstanding, suspicion, and dislike on the part of the Chinese towards foreigners, and especially towards the English.
That the opium trade, by the ill name it has given to foreign commerce, and by the heavy drain of silver it occasions, amounting, at present, to about thirteen million pounds sterling annually, has greatly retarded trade in foreign manufactures, and general commerce must continue to suffer while the traffic lasts.
That the connection of the British Government with the trade in this pernicious drug excites a prejudice against us as Christian missionaries, and seriously hinders our work. It strikes the people as a glaring inconsistency, that while the British nation offers them the beneficent teaching of the Gospel, it should at the same time bring to their shores, in enormous quantities, a drug which degrades and ruins them.
That the traffic in opium is wholly indefensible on moral grounds, and that the direct connection of a Christian Government with such a trade is deeply to be deplored.
That any doubt as to whether China is able to put a stop to opium production, and the practice of opium smoking in and throughout her dominions should not prevent your Honourable House from performing what is plainly a moral duty.
Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that your Honourable House will early consider this question with the utmost care, take measures to remove from the British Treaty with China the clause legalizing the opium trade, and restrict the growth of the poppy in India within the narrowest possible limits.
Your Honourable House will thus leave China free to deal with the gigantic evil which is eating out her strength, and creates hindrance to legitimate commerce and the spread of the Christian religion in this country.
We also implore your Honourable House so to legislate as to prevent opium from becoming as great a scourge to the native races of India and Burmah as it is to the Chinese; for our knowledge of the evil done to the Chinese leads us to feel the most justifiable alarm at the thought that other races should be brought to suffer like them from the curse of opium.
We believe that, in so doing, your Honourable House will receive the blessing of those that are ready to perish, the praise of all good men, and the approval of Almighty God.
And your petitioners will ever pray.