Everyone, that is, except Lord Melbourne, Britain’s prime minister. Melbourne, who was expected to find £2 million to compensate the drug dealers, did not win. It should have been madness for a mere naval captain to put a prime minister on the spot like this, but Elliot knew he could rely on the business community to lobby Parliament to recover the money. And so it was that personal, political, and financial interests thickened around Melbourne until he had no choice but to pay up and then send an expedition to make the Chinese government reimburse Britain for the confiscated opium (Figure
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