In the Brief Eternal Silence (38 page)

Steven caught all of their attention by
saying with awe in his voice, “Coo! I think you look like t'king of
the world, m'lord,” which caused St. James' smile to fade into
faintness.

With sudden brusqueness, he directed Tyler to
ready his carriage for the evening while he went below stairs to
dine. “You do not wish me to return to the Duchess's home?” Tyler
asked.

“No. For Miss Murdock will be at Almacks
tonight at any rate.” The duke picked up his two pistols, handed
them to Tyler. “And I need someone I can trust to handle
these.”

Tyler took them without comment, but
Effington, who had watched this exchange, said, “I hardly think you
will need those at Almacks, milord. T'is not one of your gaming
hells, you know,” and he sniffed.

But his lordship paid him not the slightest
heed, only turned to Steven and asked, “And you understand what you
are to be about tonight?”

“Aye, m'lord.”

“And you'll have a care?”

“Aye,” Steven answered, his face sober.

“Very well, then.” He turned to go below,
leaving the others to disperse as they would behind him.

Upon reaching the ground floor of his home,
St. James met with Applegate, informed him that he would like his
dinner served in his study. “Yes, milord,” Applegate acknowledged.
“And may I say you look very fine tonight, milord.”

“Bah!” St. James answered and he went down
the wide hallway to his study, closed the door behind him and went
to his desk. There he flipped through the envelopes that he had
pawed through earlier. Most of them appeared to be the
run-of-the-mill invitations and correspondence. One of these he
scrutinized a little more sharply, as the handwriting on it seemed
to bespeak of someone mostly uneducated and hence was unusual, and
he lay it aside. Then as he reached the bottom of the pile, he
found a larger envelope with no postage that indicated it had been
brought by messenger. He lifted it and tapped it into the palm of
his other hand. Then he set it with the other envelope that had
struck his interest at the fore of his desk.

He went to the sideboard, poured himself a
comfortable brandy in a large glass, and then seated himself at his
desk, turned the wick up on his reading lamp, took a sip of his
drink, and proceeded to open the large envelope first.

There was a brief cover letter, unsigned, but
he had anticipated that. It simply read: Materials as discussed.
More to follow. Would be very interested in any thoughts you have.
I will have a man call on you in a few days.

St. James took a deep drink, flipped the
cover letter over and began reading hand writing that was as
familiar to him as a long forgotten song:

From the hand of Duke of St. James, William
Desmond Larrimer

At the request of Her Royal Highness, Queen
Victoria

On Behalf of the Crown.

Subject: China's seizure of East India
Company Opium
Date: November 29, 1839

And the date was like a slap to St. James'
face, for it was a month to the day before his parents had been
killed.

Your Royal Highness,

I trust that you are in good health.

I have no final conclusions on the present
situation here in China. I will remain here until the week before
Christmas to continue my investigation, but thus far this is what I
have discovered:

As you already are aware, our East India
Company has been trading opium from India with China, mostly
through the Canton sea ports, for manufactured goods and tea, which
we then ship to England and trade with other countries. In 1836,
the Chinese government banned this trade, designated Opium as an
illegal commodity and have been trying to stem any flow of this
product into their country.

This has been a mostly futile effort as I am
afraid our traders have quite blatantly disregarded their laws,
have bribed the Cantonese officials, and illegal smuggling has been
nearly as profitable to them as legal trading had been in previous
years, if not more profitable as they are no longer paying tariffs
on any of the product they are importing, and no longer paying
taxes on any of the products they are exporting.

In March of this year a new Imperial
Commissioner of Canton was appointed, Lin Tse-hsuuml. He has made
it his mission to expose and remove the corrupt officials that have
made this illegal smuggling so proliferate. He has taken action
against Chinese merchants dealing in opium and destroyed all stores
of it on land.

This has led up to the seizure of our English
merchant vessels earlier this month, that necessitated my being
here at your request.

I understand of course that there are many
other matters on the table to be considered beside this one
product, but I am very much afraid after being here for a
fortnight, that whether we go to war or not will hinge most
decidedly on the opium problem.

It is the one point of contention that the
Chinese will not be swayed on, and unfortunately, as the East India
Company relies immensely upon the sale of this product to China,
they are quite immovable upon voluntarily withdrawing from the
trading of opium with China.

I well understand their position. They have
an obligation to their investors (of which I am one, which I only
mention, because in light of my tentative conclusions, which are
below, you may find it interesting to know this), and without this
lucrative trade, they will go from being a very rich company to a
very poor one. Possibly a ruined one.

I fear the estimates of loss already
sustained that have been given you have been misleadingly
conservative. I deem it well into millions of £'s.

Treaty talks are going poorly and I
understand, even here, that there are rumors that the Crown will
not tolerate this action taken by the Chinese Imperial government
for long unless some encouraging progress is made that these
matters will be settled reasonably quickly. I fear from my meetings
with the diplomats here that this seems unlikely. I trust you have
reached the same conclusion from their reports to you.

At this point, I can well imagine the
pressure being brought to bear on you and the Prime Minister from
those who have much at stake, as I myself have much at stake. I
well understand also, that although the opium is the focal point,
that China's action to refuse any trade at all with our sovereign
until there is a treaty in place is putting other commodities at
stake also. I am sure it is being pointed out to you quite strongly
that if we go to war, we may be able to improve our trading
position on these other necessary commodities as well.

But the fact is, and I offer this to you
respectfully, that our previous trading agreements with China were
not onerous to our sovereign regarding other commodities, so
contrary to what may be being presented to you by others, please
keep in mind that their main concern is the loss they are taking on
the opium, despite this other argument.

So what you must ask yourself now, I humbly
recommend, is whether you are willing to, in fact, go to war for
this single commodity, which is very valuable to be sure, and
necessary from a medical standpoint, but which has a grievous
paradox to it also, which I have seen firsthand here in China in a
way that had never been brought home to me in England, even on the
meanest streets of London.

I shall try very hard to explain my
observations in the simplest, most straight-forward manner, but as
they are, frankly, perplexing to me, I do not know how well I will
achieve my endeavor of relaying my thoughts to you.

Opium seems to be a scourge on this land. I
had noticed first upon my—

“Your dinner, milord, as you had
requested.”

St. James glanced up from reading, his eyes
taking a moment to focus. “Very well, Applegate. Thank you.” He
indicated that Apple-gate should place it on a corner of his
desk.

“I knocked, milord, but I fear you did not
hear me.”

“That is quite all right, Applegate.”

“Anything else, milord?”

St. James shook his head. “No. Thank you.
Wait. Refill my glass and then nothing else.”

Applegate took the empty glass, went to the
sideboard and refilled it. “Do not forget that you are scheduled to
leave in less than an hour, milord.”

St. James nodded as he rubbed a finger over
his upper lip, his eyes preoccupied. “Remind me again at the
appointed time, Apple-gate.” And then as Applegate left the room,
closing the door behind him, he ignored his plate and returned to
his reading.

. . .I had noticed first upon my arrival a
strange lackadaisicalness of the people. From small children to old
men. I observed people sleeping on sidewalks at mid day, appearing
unwashed and underfed. When they are awake, they move about as
though they are in a trance and are unable to comprehend anything
to any degree. Of course, I can not understand their language, but
I have noticed a distinct lack of purpose or continuity to their
speech when they are speaking. At first, God forgive me, I supposed
it to be some sort of cultural lacking on their part.

As I moved further inland and away from the
seaport towns, I noticed that more of the people appeared to be
industrious and intelligent, although there was still a marked
percentage of them that spent their days in this otherworldly
state. Upon returning to the seaboard, I spent a great deal of time
on the docks and spoke at length with some of our British sailors,
a rough group to be sure, but very informative. They told me that
it is the 'Opium Dens' that are causing the results of what I had
observed, and that they are common throughout the country of China
as far as they could discern, but most noticeably around the
seaports as that is where the Opium is most prolific.

I expressed my astonishment that people
should be taking a drug intended for medicinal purposes when they
have no need of it, thinking, I suppose, about such dreaded
draughts as cod-liver oil and the such. I was enlightened that
Opium has long been used as a means of pleasure in China, and as I
could see for myself, the results are damnedable.

I shall try to sum up briefly what I have
learned: As some people (And I am sure you have had your
acquaintances with such, as have I) can not merely drink but one or
two drinks but are seemingly compelled to drink to a degree of
intoxication in which they cannot even function, so are these that
use this Opium. Only, I am given to understand, it has a potency in
which anyone smoking it (for they use pipes to smoke it), even
once, is compelled to spend his time doing nothing but procuring
more and more. Many die, though whether it is from some toxic side
effect with the continued use or merely from the starvation and
neglect of their bodies I have been unable to determine.

Of course, many may point out to you, and
perhaps you are thinking the same yourself, it could be some sort
of character deficiency innate to the Chinese, but I was promptly
disabused of this notion when I observed a great deal of our own
British sailors enslaved by this drug also. Most damnedable of all,
I had opportunity to observe some of our own sailors of the Royal
Navy being felled by this same Opium. It is not beyond my
imagination to realize that although this drug has been illegal for
some time in our country (and you will of course note the paradox
there: we do not wish it to be in our country, but we are perfectly
happy to profit from it being traded to another country) that of a
certainty, there is still an illegal trade of it to England, and
that our country is dreadfully susceptible to this same dreaded
scourge.

In short, this may be a commodity that,
although very useful and promising when used correctly, may be
better left in short supply. I would suggest that we for once look
to the human factor in this debate, and although we will lose much
in the way of profits, I feel that if all opium trade were
immediately and voluntarily discontinued, that not only would the
other points of disagreement preventing us from reaching treaty
with China be rapidly overcome, but that we would also be insuring
that we do not leave ourselves open to a similar crisis on our own
shores.

By thus avoiding war, we would save the
unnecessary loss of life that war always entails, and we would also
likely protect good English people from a grave and seemingly
insidious menace to their health and I am afraid even their
morals.

The example I have seen here in China is
frightening, and in truth, I can not fault their position. If the
British Empire were to develop a similar fate, the loss of
productivity alone in our country, if one does not care to study on
the other negative factors, could be enough to rob us of our place
as a leading nation in the new world of industry. I am afraid it
would make our gin problem seem quite incidental in comparison.

As I had mentioned before, I have as much at
stake as anyone in term of profits if we should lose this trade. I
mention this so that if I have not adequately conveyed my feeling
of horror over the possible consequences of going to war with China
over a commodity that is currently savaging their population, and
that by winning it, we may very well jeopardize more in our future
than we are to gain in the present, that you may perhaps gain some
understanding when I say that I would take my losses with no regret
if you should decide to bypass pursuing this to the degree of going
to war.

Let it be noted also, that I will not change
my investments. For although if I had known what exactly I were
investing in, I would not have bought into these holdings (as I
feel probably a great many other investors would feel the same), I
will not have it said that I anticipated any decision on your part
and protected myself unfairly.

I do realize the position my recommendation
would put you in, and that it is a vastly unpopular notion to allow
one of our major companies to fail for what most will deem a
failure on our foreign policy. I can only humbly suggest that you
consider my observations in the decisions that you and your counsel
come to.