"Let us suppose that foreigners came from another country, and brought opium into England, and seduced the people of your country to smoke it, would not you, the sovereign of the said country, look upon such a procedure with anger, and in your just indignation endeavor to get rid of it?" This is an excerpt from the famous 1839 letter, penned by Lin Zexu, addressed to Queen Victoria. Supposedly, this letter was never received by the monarch; no halt in the export of the goods