在中国，鸦片战争的记忆是一个民族衰落和屈辱的故事. Over three years, the Chinese government was defeated in a series of intermittent, 但 bloody engagements and finally forced to open ports and cede land, including Hong Kong, to Great Britain, 所有这一切——正如中国人和许多西方同情者所看到的——都是为了保护非法行为, 但 enormously profitable opium trade making China a nation of drug addicts. British merchants, and in their wake American ship captains and traders, saw their role as supplying the large demand for opium in China, and moved their operations from Canton to Hong Kong. 结束鸦片战争的条约批准了对香港的占领，这是随后与入侵的外国势力签订的许多“不平等条约”中的第一个. 香港成为一个繁荣的贸易中心，被认为是西方不受约束的商业典范, 但, for more than 150 years, in China a symbol of foreign exploitation.

The Massachusetts Historical Society enters the fray

In the fall of 1841, 74-year-old John Quincy Adams, a former U.S. president then a representative from Massachusetts in Congress, 同意代表马萨诸塞州历史学会在波士顿做一次公开演讲. Since 1802, Adams had been, when his diplomatic and political career allowed it, an active member of the MHS. 他的演讲是一系列美国历史讲座的第一次，这些讲座旨在为历史学会筹集资金, 亚当斯选择了当时正在进行中的英中冲突——鸦片战争作为他的主题.

同年早些时候，亚当斯在美国联邦最高法院做了著名的辩护 友谊 captives—Africans who had been illegally kidnapped and sold as slaves in Cuba. On 22 November 1841, his audience at the Masonic Temple in Boston, “crowded to overflowing,” probably expected to hear another attack on slavery by “Old Man Eloquent,” 但 they were in for a surprise. 亚当斯开始为英国政府处理对华关系的行为进行有力辩护, denying that the illegal opium trade was the cause of the 战争. 他认为，中国政府“不承认这样的(国际)法”，它是“世袭的”, 父权专制”通过要求“Ko-tow”——“野蛮”国家的代表完全服从中国的霸权——使正常的外交关系变得不可能，从而引发了冲突.

In recording the events of 22 November in his diary, 约翰·昆西·亚当斯(John Quincy Adams)表示，他的演讲“没有表现出不赞成”，这让他松了一口气,“尽管它与这个国家强烈的民意潮流背道而驰，并将被政治对手毫不留情地处理。.——约翰·G. Palfrey, the editor of the Boston-based North American 审查, originally had suggested that John Quincy Adams write an article for the 审查 about the conflict between China and Great Britain, 但当亚当斯把他og体育平台英国拥有“正义事业”的论点的手稿转交给他时，他显然吃了一惊.“帕尔弗里, 谁质疑中国政府的“反社会和自私”政策是否为英国的军事行动提供了理由, prevaricated, knowing that Adams was about to return to Washington.

John Quincy Adams’s address never appeared in the North American 审查1841年12月4日，在未经他允许的情况下，《og体育平台》(the Quarto 概念, George Roberts’s Boston literary newspaper. Even that excerpt of the talk took up three entire pages of the 概念, concluding with what Adams described as the “monitory lesson, written upon a beam of phosphoric light—of preparation for 战争 and preservation of 和平.”

China Trade materials at the Massachusetts Historical Society

不久之后，收购了之前由弥尔顿美中贸易博物馆收藏的重要手稿, Massachusetts, Katherine H. 格里芬整理了一份马萨诸塞州历史学会相关馆藏的概述， “美中贸易手稿，马萨诸塞州历史学会”， Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, v. 100 (Boston, 1988), 128-139.

通过搜索可以找到历史学会中国贸易馆藏的最新信息 collection guides (手稿和照片收集说明和清单)和历史协会的在线目录, 阿比盖尔，为… phrase “China trade.”