Throughout this wide-spread land the belief is general that England, reckless of consequences, has no other object in the war, than the forcing on the Celestials the purchase of opium, and the extension of her scepter over new territories. Daily papers and monthly periodicals have alike exhausted the language of vituperation in abusing her and no voice, with the single exception above referred to, (that of Mr. Adams,) has been raised in her defence. The lecture of Mr. Edmonds, while professing to give an impartial history of the causes and origins of the war, is nothing but an ingenious piece of special pleading, and is rife with evidences of the most deep-rooted and bitter prejudices, such as are rarely to be met with, even in this land, where every stripling in controversy, like school boys shooting their arrows at the sun – first dips his maiden shaft in gall and then aims it at old England.”
~”England and China: Origin and History of the War,” The New World: A Weekly Family Journal of Popular Literature, Science, Art and News (New York), 19 February 1842, p. 118
Dael A. Norwood 