ocr: with contempt, cracked down on the flourish- ing drug traffic in 1839, burning a fortune in confiscated opium -or, a5 it was: sometimes called, foreign mud. Britain responded with warships and troops, forcing China to open its ports. China gave up a 35-square-mile "barren island," as Lord Palmerston, Brit- FRAGILE FREEDOMS ain's foreign secretary, disdainfully called Exercising their Hong Kong. British merchants had gained an rights of free assem- important base for Far East trade, bly and free speech, Defeated in another war over: trade: in 1860, marchers file through China handed over Stonec ...
