Letter+to+Queen+Victoria

To Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, Queen of the Britain Empire,

I, Chan Chi-Wing, commissioner of His Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court, beseech you, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, to glance at this communication.

With magnificence has Our Great Emperor been able to extend the reach of kindness and pacification of China to that of foreign nations. Should there be anything our benevolent His Excellency the Emperor could share with the world; kindness, profit, or the extermination of harm and evil: he would share or commit to. He believes that if it is the will of the heavens and the earth then it is his duty and obligation as Our Excellency the Emperor to do so.

The past rulers of your honorable and powerful country, queens and kings, have been noted for their polite and sympathetic remarks of Our Excellency the Emperor’s gracious and generous hospitality of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria’s people. In the heart of Our Excellency the Emperor and the Celestial Court, they are with delight to hear that Your Majesty, Queen Victoria, and her predecessors have taken to consideration the grand principles and were pleased with the Celestial Grace. It was for this the kindness and politeness of Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court has redoubled to the world.

But with every calm comes the storm to come. For two hundred years has Your Majesty, Queen Victoria and her great empire enjoyed continuously the profit of trade with China; but after this extended period of commerce has trouble began to stir to the attention of Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court. There have been cases in which merchants from Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s great empire who have been bringing in contraband, opium, through what our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court believe is smuggling to try and seduce the Chinese people and spread the poison across the nation and its province. Merchants who seek to profit themselves and disregard the dangers they put upon others is not tolerated by the laws of the heavens and thus is not tolerated by the laws of His Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court. In regards to the situation of the opium trade and use within China, Our Excellency the Emperor is in a tower of infuriated rage.

It has been made law that all those who reside in China who sells or smokes the deadly poison that is opium shall receive the death penalty. We have investigated and traced the source of the crime to that of the barbarian merchants of Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s powerful empire who have, through the years, sold opium. The justification by law in their deaths should be the deep wounds they have brought upon the Chinese people and the great profits they have made through the commerce of the contraband in China.

However, our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court are not deaf to those who try to repent for their crimes from Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s kingdom. We have taken into our consideration the attempts of those merchants, not barbarians, who have come forward and tried to repent for their crimes by destroying 20,183 chests of the illegal opium under Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s consular officer, superintendent of trade, Elliot. Gratefully, Our Excellency the Emperor is not a cruel-hearted ruler and believes in those who surrender on their will has time yet to come for them. As for the time being, he has magnanimously exonerated them from their crimes and penalties. But the favor of Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court can only be given so many times before it is long overused to the point of ineffectiveness. For those who are repeated offenders of the opium prohibition, it is hard to constantly pardon them for their crimes; if they are allowed to go on their merry way every time, what will make them stop and how will that reflect upon Our Excellency the Emperor’s and Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s authorities? Having the laws set in place for the opium prohibition, we hope that Your Majesty, Queen Victoria of the honorable British Empire, who takes delight in our culture and has Her Royal Favor for Our Excellency the Emperor’s nation, will instruct the disobedient barbarian merchants to observe the laws with care.

Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s exemplary empire’s heart is sixty, seventy thousand li from China; it is the equivalent to 20,000 to 24,000 miles. Despite the distance, there are merchant ships from Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s wealthy empire who make the perilous trip in hopes for profits through trade; and the wealth of China does not disappoint. However, Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court ask Your Majesty, Queen Victoria, by what right given to those barbarian merchants do they have in return to use a poisonous and contraband drug on the Chinese people? Whether or not the barbarian merchants intend to do the Chinese people harm or not, they have no regard for it and are making an unjust and corrupted profit of it. Where is Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s conscience in a situation like this? Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court have heard of the research done by Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s specialists; that the harm done by smoking opium is clear and is strictly forbidden in Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s magnificent country. If opium is outlawed in Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s home country, the more less should it be allowed to spread and cause harm elsewhere, especially from Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s home country who has outlawed it.

Out of all the articles exported by China, none is harmful or less than beneficial to the world, consumed, used, or resold; all are beneficial to the point we can ask Your Majesty, Queen Victoria if we speak lies or truth. Tea, rhubarb, Chinese silk, candy, ginger, chinaware, satin, cinnamon, and so forth are examples of exports that the world hold innumerable outside of China. We understand that Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s great empire uses tea and rhubarb as if it was indispensible. Chinese silk as well is used to create elegant and astonishing articles of clothing. What should happen if China took away those vital articles of export without sympathy of the world? How would the world and the barbarian merchants function and benefit with wealth? However, China and the will of Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court are not that cruel-hearted or malevolent. Only to share the benefits that China has to offer the world and not any other reason, China has not closed its frontiers and stopped commerce with the world. In regards to the opium trade, Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s prosperous country can do without the commerce of the illegal and dangerous substance for the exports of China will tend all funds.

What if Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s sacred England was in the situation of Our Excellency the Emperor’s China? Suppose that barbarian merchants smuggled opium into England in hopes to seduce the English people to buy and smoke the contraband. It would only be safe to assume that Your Majesty, Queen Victoria would only be enraged. It is of human nature to not give upon others what you do not want upon yourself. As for the current condition of the opium trade, all ships arriving in China from Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s home country has been given orders and regulations given to them to not carry the contraband. This is proof that the administrative rule of Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s honorable rule has been clear and has been ignored by the barbarian merchants who continue to ignore so or that the regulations and laws were not fully patched through.

Further investigation has brought Our Excellency and his Celestial Court to find that Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s vast empire has forbidden growth of opium in areas close to England like London, the heart of the empire, Scotland, Ireland, and such countries. However, in nations at the breaches of Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s vast empire like India, Bengal, Madras, Bombay, Patna, Benares, and Malwa has the banned drug been grown as far as the eye can see with open ponds to accommodate for its production. For time passed and time to come has the poison accumulated to the point where the odor is noticed by the heavens and spirits and Your Majesty, Queen Victoria can make the decree to have those fields of opium destroyed and remade into plots for the five grains of millet, barley, wheat and so forth. If anyone should dare cross Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s graceful rule again by planting or manufacturing the plant should be severely punished. This would reflect well on Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s great and benevolent government and its policy for it would be for the better of the world as it rids the world of one more evil. The heavens would support you and the spirits would promise Your Majesty, Queen Victoria much benefits in the coming of time.

As for Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court, laws and regulations have been made for the Chinese people. All who sells and smokes opium will be sentenced to death. If the contraband is never acquired, then how will it be resold or smoked? The fact is that the barbarian merchants are tricking the Chinese people into a death trap and it is in no way just to let those who are the source of the dying be able to live while those who are innocent and only tricked to die. He who takes one’s life must atone for it with his; as dictated by Hammurabi’s law of an eye for an eye: but what would one death solve? As a result with the new regulations, the barbarians who are found smuggling the forbidden articles into or out of China are also sentenced to death by strangulation or decapitation. In order to get rid of one harmful thing for all of mankind, this must be done. Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court knows of the attempts by Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s stable government to put in place the laws and regulations of the opium ban. It has not met deaf ears as for the time being set by Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s administered laws, Our Excellency the Emperor will pardon and exonerate all the barbarian merchants who hold the contraband if they willingly and wholly surrender the opium and confess to their crimes. After this period, however, there will be no more favors done and the death penalties shall be enacted. To this extent can kindness and justice be perfected to its height as one entity. Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court does not want to execute no one, especially not that of Your Majesty, Queen Victoria’s royal country so He beseeches Your Majesty, Queen Victoria to read this letter and deal with the problem accordingly with Him. Please do not blow over this communication of what is needed to be done. All hail Our Excellency the Emperor and his Celestial Court and all reverence to Your Majesty, Queen Victoria.

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