Chapter 17

The Court of Requests inside the Palace of Westminster.

Behind a long row of tables inside, Gladstone sat at the chairman’s seat with a stern expression, organizing his documents. Opposite him sat Viscount Palmerston with his arms crossed, somehow exuding an eerie vibe as if the devil had taken a seat in a courtroom.

“We will now begin the first meeting of the Select Committee on Laudanum and Chinese Trade Relations.”

At Gladstone’s declaration, the commotion in the meeting room subsided.

“As our first witness, we have welcomed Her Majesty’s Royal Physician, Sir James Clark.”

The committee members’ gazes poured onto Sir James Clark as he walked toward the witness stand. One would have thought he might feel the crushing pressure, but he took his seat with a calm and dignified demeanor and finished taking his oath.

“Sir Clark, thank you on behalf of the committee for appearing as a witness.”

Finishing his brief greeting, Gladstone went straight to the point—true to a man who had learned early in the world of politics that the longer the introduction, the weaker the main point.

“You have published a statement on behalf of the Royal Pharmaceutical Research Society warning of the dangers of laudanum. Would you share your medical opinion on the specific effects laudanum has on the human body?”

“Of course, Mr. Chairman.”

Sir Clark began his testimony in a calm voice.

“The main ingredient of laudanum is opium. When ingested, anxiety vanishes at first, followed by a brief sense of euphoria. Some describe it as a heavenly peace.”

At his explanation, a few committee members nodded. Because it was a medicine easily obtained in London pharmacies, there were not a few among them who had encountered laudanum for pain relief or to treat insomnia.

“However, that effect does not last. When the medicine wears off, anxiety and suffering worse than before take hold. To escape that agony, the patient seeks laudanum once more, and must take a larger dose to experience the same effect as before. This phenomenon is what we in the Royal Pharmaceutical Research Society have named ‘addiction’.”

Addiction.

It was an unfamiliar concept to the people of this era, but the moment a name was given to what previously had none, another form of human suffering was finally dragged out into the light of the world.

“As the addiction deepens, the patient’s body and mind are slowly destroyed. The skin loses its vitality and turns sallow, and the eyes sink in hollowly. They suffer from severe constipation, and their muscles waste away until only skin and bones remain. In the end, even walking properly becomes a struggle.”

As his words continued, the meeting room gradually grew silent. Everyone wore a distressed expression, as if watching a human being wither away right before their eyes. Words inherently possessed such power. It was the power to place the unseen before one’s eyes and to summon the absent into the present.

“The mental devastation is even more horrific. The patient loses all drive and becomes obsessed solely with getting laudanum into their hands. Morality and shame vanish, and they resort to lies and theft without hesitation. They abandon their families, sell everything they own, and finally mortgage even their souls to the devil. That is all.”

Swept up by his heartfelt appeal, the meeting room fell into a solemn atmosphere. Even those who had approached the laudanum trade purely through economic logic wore hardened expressions. This was enough. Anyone could see that laudanum was undeniably a poison leading humanity to ruin.

Right at that moment, Viscount Palmerston, who had kept silent until now, smoothly raised a hand.

“I have a question for the witness.”

Gladstone hesitated for a moment, but committee rules prevented him from stopping it.

“…Permission granted.”

“I am deeply impressed by Sir Clark’s profound medical knowledge. I understand full well what a terrible scourge laudanum inflicts upon us Britons.”

It sounded like a thoroughly commonplace greeting, but he soon added something no one expected.

“Yet, Sir. That scourge… could it perhaps be limited strictly to us ‘white people’?”

“…Pardon?”

Not just Sir Clark, but question marks popped up in the minds of everyone present in the meeting room.

Limited strictly to white people?

Just what on earth was Viscount Palmerston talking about? A few committee members turned their heads toward him, but Viscount Palmerston maintained an unconcerned appearance, continuing with a light and relaxed voice—as if he were merely discussing the weather—words that shocked everyone.

“As you know, the people of Qing China are of a different race than us—that is, they are yellow-skinned. There must be many aspects of their constitution and physiology that differ from ours. Might there be a possibility that laudanum acts differently upon them?”

“…”

“For instance… I couldn’t help but wonder if, though it is a poison to us, it might serve them as a sort of tonic or a revitalizing medicinal herb.”

The moment his words ended, Gladstone doubted his ears.

He had never dreamed he would hear such insane nonsense—arguing that a poison was a tonic—coming from the lips of Britain’s Foreign Secretary.

“How can you say such a thing!”

Absurdity getting the better of him, Gladstone snapped out in a sharp voice.
Though it made zero sense logically, a sudden realization hit him.

That man… was never trying to defend laudanum in the first place!

The Devil’s Advocate.

Instead of directly defending the laudanum trade, he had played a far more cunning hand.
Tapping into the soil of racial prejudice deeply rooted throughout European society as a whole, he performed an alchemy of language that transformed a matter of conscience into a matter of science, and a matter of science into a matter of race.

An enemy whose arguments you can refute is easy to handle. But an enemy who alters the very premise of the argument itself is difficult to handle. He was not changing the rules of the debate; he was changing the very stadium in which the debate took place.

“No, to say the medicinal effects vary by race…”

“It almost sounds like a reasonable point. Don’t people say Orientals have different constitutions?”

“Still, isn’t it going a bit too far to suggest poison could become medicine?”

“Since nothing has been scientifically proven, don’t we really know whether it’s truly a poison or not?”

True to Viscount Palmerston’s intent, the committee fractured in an instant.

An agenda that had begun as a matter of public health and conscience was being dragged down into the mire of racism within minutes.

How immensely powerful prejudice was.

Residing in the realm of intuition rather than logic, it could never be struck down by the arrows of logic.

Prejudice took root far deeper than the depths of reason, and anyone who touched those roots could find a ladder leading down into the abyss of unreason, built under the guise of reason.

And Viscount Palmerston was the man who had found precisely that ladder.

Damn it!

Meanwhile, from a short distance away, Viscount Palmerston was observing this chaos with a relaxed expression.

Like a knight watching the chess pieces he had placed pierce through the enemy’s defensive line.

There was neither the joy of victory nor the heat of anger in his expression.

There was only quiet observation. And that very stillness was the true face hidden beneath the veteran politician’s mask.

“Therefore, shouldn’t we view this matter through various perspectives, rather than simply deciding whether it is moral or not?”

“What do you mean by that, Your Excellency?”

At Gladstone’s inquiry, Viscount Palmerston shrugged his shoulders and continued.

“Since the harmfulness of laudanum according to race has not yet been clearly established, wouldn’t it be premature to assume outright that it is harmful to the people of Qing China and halt the laudanum trade?”

As soon as he finished speaking, Sir Clark’s face flushed crimson.

Before a physician who had devoted his entire life to studying human life, a man acting as Foreign Secretary was spouting such bizarre sophistry with a deadpan expression. His hands trembled with fury, but he managed to rein in his reason and stood up from his seat.

“May I answer Your Excellency, Mr. Chairman?”

“Of course, Sir Clark.”

With a gaze mixed with professional pride, compassion for humanity, and contempt for the absurdity before him, Sir Clark glared straight at Viscount Palmerston and slowly rose.

“Your Excellency, it is certainly true that reactions to certain drugs may vary slightly depending on race.”

He began by partially conceding Viscount Palmerston’s point.

A man who denies everything can persuade no one. Only after first acknowledging a shred of the opponent’s words that could be accepted could a denial carry any weight.

“However, the fact that a poison is a poison does not change!”

Sir Clark’s voice split the meeting room.

“Let us take arsenic as an example! The miracle does not happen where a Briton dies upon eating it, but a man of Qing China gains vigor! Poison is poison to anyone!”

At his outburst, Viscount Palmerston’s brow twitched faintly.

“Do you know why I can assert this with such confidence? It is because the symptoms appearing in patients suffering from laudanum addiction in London hospitals are astonishingly identical to the symptoms of opium addicts described in the letter sent by Commissioner Lin Zexu from Guangzhou in Qing China!”

Sir Clark caught his breath and continued.

“Sallow skin, hollow eyes, and a body wasted to skin and bones. And even the sight of them craving only opium with their souls destroyed! This is clear evidence that the harms of drugs do not discriminate by race. Therefore, the claim that laudanum’s effects will differ depending on race is nothing more than sophistry that can never stand medically or ethically!”

At his logical and resolute rebuttal, the atmosphere of the meeting room tilted back toward Sir Clark.

Viscount Palmerston closed his mouth for a moment as if at a loss for words, but an inscrutable smile still lingered at the corners of his lips. Watching that sight, Gladstone ground his teeth.

Winning or losing never mattered from the beginning. That man threw out the bait, and once we bit it, what comes next is…!

The Court of Requests did not contain only committee members.

Reporters from various newspaper offices, including The Morning Chronicle, were seated, taking down the proceedings moment by moment. Their pen tips moved diligently, and upon each person’s paper, their own interpretation was being inscribed.

Was this truly Viscount Palmerston’s aim all along!

The moment he added the controversial topic of race to a matter of morals and ethics to create a muddy swamp, journalists were bound never to let slip such provocative article material.

Morals and ethics were abstruse and difficult, but whether laudanum induced hallucinations for the yellow race or served as a tonic was bound to arouse curiosity. Simple questions devour difficult questions.

This was the primary law of the mass media age.

Viscount Palmerston had lost today’s debate. But he would win in tomorrow’s newspaper.

“Your Majesty, I’ve brought today’s freshly published newspapers.”

“Thank you, Baroness Lehzen.”

Setting down a cup of tea, I unfolded the newspapers presented on a silver tray.

[The Morning Chronicle, March 3, 1838]

“What article is printed… what is this?”

[Wisdom for the Nation’s Future: Viscount Palmerston Presents Realistic Insight Beyond Sentimentalism]

The Select Committee on the laudanum trade held yesterday clearly demonstrated how sentimental moral theory clashes with the nation’s practical interests.

Although the distinguished medical scholar Sir Clark delivered a passionate testimony regarding the harms of laudanum, his arguments were limited to cases within Britain and could be said to be too narrow in perspective to handle the complex trade issues of the nation as a whole.

Under these circumstances, Viscount Palmerston displayed the cool-headed reason and deep insight required of a politician guiding the major affairs of state.

Pointing out clear physiological differences between races, he argued that one must guard against the rash presumption that a particular drug will act identically across all races.

This could be said to be a call for scientific humility and prudence regarding an unknown realm, rather than racial prejudice. Before being swept away by emotions and halting a trade upon which the nation’s massive interests hang, his argument that one must first investigate through clear evidence whether laudanum inflicts the exact same harms upon the people of Qing China is exceedingly rational.

The immediate backlash shown by a few committee members merely revealed how superficially they understand the complexity of this issue. A problem directly tied to the stable supply of tea gracing every British family’s dining table and the massive tax revenues forming a significant portion of the state treasury cannot be resolved simply by crying out for morality. Is not Viscount Palmerston’s perspective confronting this very reality?

Yesterday’s hearing was a prime example of how sentimental humanitarianism can threaten the nation’s prosperity. Viscount Palmerston’s unshakable realist stance proved what true leadership is required to steer the giant ship that is Britain. Is not a thorough verification of facts and a cold consideration of national interest—rather than rash moral judgment—the virtue we need most right now? (Omitted below)

…What kind of nonsense is this right now?

Reading the newspaper the whole time, absurdity made me let out a hollow laugh.

Viscount Palmerston.

I already knew full well through Victoria’s diary that he was no ordinary man.

That he was cunning, slick, and the kind of figure who would shake hands with the devil if it served the national interest.

Still, not like this. This has crossed the line by a long shot.

Sir Clark had explained the dangers of laudanum in such detail based on medical findings, and the response to that was to claim drug effects might vary by race?

Whoa… I honestly couldn’t have imagined this. Is that even human?

A part of me wanted to rush straight to the Westminster Palace and kick open the doors of the Court of Requests, but the moment I, the reigning monarch, appeared in the House of Commons and directly intervened in legislative activities, Britain’s political system—preserved for hundreds of years—would shake from its very foundations.

That doesn’t mean I intend to just sit still, though.

Just because the other side launched a mudslinging fight, should we engage in a mudslinging fight as well? No, there was no need to fall right into their framed narrative.
We could simply proceed with our own orthodox approach.

Just as I was agonizing over this, Baroness Lehzen knocked on the door.

“Your Majesty, Sir Clark has arrived.”

“Please show him in.”

A moment later, Sir Clark stepped into the parlor, his face deeply shadowed by the exhaustion and anguish he must have suffered at yesterday’s committee.

“I greet Your Majesty.”

“Welcome, Sir Clark. Please take a seat.”

With that, Sir Clark tossed out a routine question as usual.

“Are you sleeping well?”

“Perhaps because I am British, absolutely not. I would have slept soundly if I were an Oriental.”

“And you haven’t been skipping meals?”

“Just in case it turns out to be poison if consumed by a Briton, I am skipping every single meal.”

At my joke, Sir Clark’s face broke into a wide bloom, and sunlight touched his face, which had been frozen by fatigue, if only for a moment.

Humor was sometimes the most delicate remedy.

“Sleeping well and eating well is what matters, Your Majesty. For a human being, anyway.”

“For a human being.”

At that moment, I unconsciously muttered those words back.

For a human being.

Sir Clark had unconsciously used that word.

Not race, not nationality, not class—just the singular category of human.

Yet this careless single phrase was shaking the web of the frame Viscount Palmerston had woven from the inside out.

At the same time, Sir Clark himself was revealing that he was still half-trapped within that net.

The very fact that he reacted to my joke about Britons and Orientals was a sign that the frame had already reached his subconscious.

This won’t do.

The frame had to be changed. Not a framework of race versus race, but of person versus person. Not abstract people of Qing China whom we had never seen and knew little about, but the face of a single person we knew well.

However, if one tried to shift the frame too hastily, they might plunge even deeper into the quagmire the others had laid out.

Is there no good method?

Just as I was worrying, my gaze drifted naturally out the window.

Nannies were bringing children into the daycare center built at Buckingham not long ago. The laughter of little children walking hand-in-hand drifted faintly through the window. It was an ordinary scene, but within that ordinariness lay something.

The children’s mothers, Ann and Mary.

When I had established the daycare center at Kensington Palace, they were women who had struggled to break free from laudanum addiction and were now finding their footing. The thought arose of people who knew better than anyone else in the world what an abysmal hell they had crossed until now, and how precious the light found after crossing that hell was.

“Do you happen to remember Ann and Mary’s children at Kensington Palace?”

“Pardon?”

Why had I forgotten this?

The people who knew the harms of laudanum better than anyone and could testify to what a life free from laudanum looked like were right by my side. They were neither abstract statistics nor unfamiliar people of the East. They were faces we knew. Names we knew. The mothers of smiling children we knew.

It’s not race; it’s faces.

If Viscount Palmerston brought forth the abstract category of the yellow race, I decided to counter with our neighbors. Abstraction cannot be beaten by abstraction, but when it is someone everyone commonly sees, the story changes. The breath of real people hiding behind statistics. Even more so if it was the face of a single human being with a name.

No great speech carries the weight of a single living witness. A hundred statistical tables cannot accomplish what the tears of one person can.

There was only one way to escape the prison called a frame. Not by opening that prison’s door, but by first showing the world outside the prison.

And in that world, there were smiling children and their mothers.