Early in 1839, Lin took up the post of Viceroy of Kuangtung, and immediately initiated an attack which, to say the least of it, deserved a better fate.
Within a few days a peremptory order was made for the delivery of all opium in the possession of foreign merchants at Canton.

This demand was resisted, but for a short time only.

All the foreign merchants, together with Captain Elliot, who had gone up to Canton specially to meet the crisis, found themselves prisoners in their own houses, deprived of servants and even of food.

Then Captain Elliot undertook, on behalf of his Government, to indemnify British subjects for their losses; whereupon no fewer than twenty thousand two hundred and ninety-one chests of opium were surrendered to Commissioner Lin, and the incident was regarded by the Chinese as closed.

On receipt of the Emperor's instructions, the whole of this opium, for which the owners received orders on the Treasury at the rate of L120 per chest, was mixed with lime and salt water, and was entirely destroyed.
Lin's subsequent demands were so arbitrary that at length the English mercantile community retired altogether from Canton, and after a futile attempt to settle at Macao, where their presence, owing to Chinese influence with the Portuguese occupiers, was made unwelcome, they finally found a refuge at Hongkong, then occupied only by a few fishermen's huts.