Q Commissioner Lin and the English Opium Trade COLLAPSE In the 1830's the British East India Company, that had been trying for more than a century to find a product available in the West to exchange for the goods the West desired from Chinese manufactures (porcelain, tea, etc.), they found that product in opium. The East India Co. had a lot of opium available from its colonial territories in India, and no place to sell it, as it was a restricted substance in the West. China, itself, produced opium, but in doses under government control used for medical purposes. When the East India Co. introduced the drug to the Chinese market, it had been specifically designed to be addictive on first use, so that a nation of addicts would exchange whatever they had in order to get the drug -- while Chinese officials were bribed to assist the process. The situation has been described by one historian as the equivalent of a Central American drug cartel sailing warships into New York harbor, and demanding that the U. S. become addicted to cocaine. Once the profitability of the enterprise was demonstrated, the British Government became involved in the preservation of the Company's trade advantage. Attempting to end the trade, the Chinese Government charged Commission Lin Tse-hsu with the task. attached here is a copy of a letter sent by Commissioner Lin to Queen Victoria -- which was never delivered to her. In the usual 500 words or less, discuss your response to the Commissioner's letter remembering that the West considered itself to be a moral model for the world at large, and that Victoria herself was the icon of that image.