The presence of the Jesuits in China in the mid 19th century would have decisively ruined Britain's evil dope trafficking in the country, for the Jesuits would not have forsaken their vocation that demanded of them the highest moral standards and required them to resist activity that was essentially anti-Christian, even when their personal safety was threatened.

The Jesuits, or "Society of Jesus" (as opposed to, at the time, Britain's predominantly Masonic, missionaries-cum-secret service agents) arrived in China during the 16th century and from then on were active in most fields of education, gaining remarkable influence in the heart of the Chinese Empire.  They blended with great success the best of Western culture with the best of Chinese culture.  Everything from languages to astronomy and physics to morality were exchanged for the mutual advancement of both cultures.

Father Matteo Ricci was one of the most respected of the Jesuits in China from his arrival in 1583 until his death on 11 May 1610.  As well as an Italian priest he was also a cartographer and clockmaker.  His profound knowledge of Chinese philosophy won him permission to live in Peking in 1601.  From then until his death he made important converts and published a number of works, which aroused much interest.  He translated the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer into Chinese, and then published his great work, an explanation of Christian Doctrine entitled, "True Meaning of the Lord in Heaven."  In it he fiercely attacked the "sins of Sodom", which some Chinese practised.  "This kind of filthiness," he wrote, "is not even discussed by wise men in the West for fear of it defiling their own mouths."  Matteo Ricci was buried with great honour.

Over centuries the Jesuits did great work and provided intellectual help and cooperation to all classes of people, not only in China but all around the world.  One example was gaining royal protection in 1611 from Spain's King Philip III against the rigours of slavery for about 250,000 Indians in Guarani, Paraguay.  The Jesuit order had built 30 towns in Guarani in the preceding 23 years.

In 1612, the writings of Jesuit Francisco Suarez threatened a major split between the Church and the State in Spain.  Prompted by the conquest of America and the subjugation of the natives, Suarez championed Indian rights and challenged the divine right of kings.  The 64-year old theologian and philosopher argued the time-honoured theme of earlier saints, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, that all legislative as well as paternal power is derived from God, and that every law should be His law.  Kings, he insisted, do not have the same power, and he refuted the patriarchal theory of government.  All states, Suarez argued, are a result of a social contract to which the people must give their consent.  Indians should be treated no differently.

Believing that all men are born equal, with an absolutely sufficient grace, he nonetheless argued that a certain elect were granted a special grace to whose influence they would willingly and infallibly yield.  This allowed for popes but not kings.  "Every Jesuit father takes a vow to undertake any mission upon which the Pope may send him, even at the risk of life, and to accept no ecclesiastical dignity.  The relatively few instances in which Jesuits have been made cardinals, or even bishops, have been done only by the direct command of the Pope, who dispensed them from that vow.  It was the Jesuits above all who spearheaded the Catholic fight to regain the religious ground from the Reformation.

In China in 1635, a collection of scientific works entitled Chongzhen Lishu, jointly edited by Jesuit missionaries and Chinese scholars, was published.  In 1645, the German Jesuit, Johann Schall, became a director of the Institute of Mathematics and Astronomy in Peking.

In 1697, Emperor Kangxi issued an edict of toleration of Christianity and even allowed a Jesuit house in Peking, the Forbidden City.  The Jesuits remained in China after showing some flexibility and putting up a reasoned argument with the Vatican over a number of years that Confucian philosophy did not conflict with Christian doctrine.

In 1709, Kangxi requested the Jesuits to draw a map of his empire, but was long dead by the time they got round to producing one.  Needless to say, it was a work of great accuracy, and far superior to anything constructed in Europe.  They called it the "Qianlong Atlas" after the emperor of the day.  Under the patronage of the Manchu emperors, first Kangxi and then Qianlong, the Jesuits were well respected and prospered scientifically.

On 14 June 1730, China and Russia signed an important friendship and trading treaty that was intermediated by the Jesuits.  Previous communications between the two countries had been nonexistent.

When contrasting the objectives of the Jesuits with the aspirations of the British elite during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries we can perhaps understand how, by depriving people of quality education, the British managed to control most of the world.  The 16th century was the period of England's preparation for empire.  Henry VIII built up a navy and prepared the way for the naval conquests of Elizabeth's reign.  England took the Protestant side in the religious controversies.  Religious zeal was one of the main animating motives of Elizabeth's buccaneering adventures in the ceaseless forays against Spain.  The 17th century was the meeting ground of two policies, motivated sometimes by religion and sometimes by empire-building.  While the contests of the 16th century were dominated by the religious issue, the policies of the 18th century were concerned with the colonial empire.  The 18th century was also the period when Masonic lodges were consecrated in the four corners of the earth.

The Treaty of Paris of 10 February 1763, hammered out after two years of negotiations between Britain, France and Spain, was timely for Britain and rulers in general to put a halt to this high level of education the Jesuits were spreading around the world.  The treaty made provisions and adjustments in various colonies, securing a great deal of land for Britain's burgeoning empire, including French territories in India, Canada and the West Indies, while considerably diminishing France's colonial ambitions in the New World.  This British superiority also marked a period when a coalition of powers brought pressure to bear on the papacy to suppress the advances in education the Jesuits were making around the world.

In Mexico City on 25 June 1767, a year to the day after a papal order expelled the Jesuits from New Spain (or Mexico), several hundred Jesuits were still awaiting ships to take them back to Europe.  They had established a moral and intellectual leadership popular with both the Creole elite and the Indians.  Their expulsion led to many Indian uprisings.  The viceroy tried to get them out as quietly as possible because, every time they were seen, the Indians flocked to their carriages to kiss their hands.  Many Indians were shot and their heads stuck on spikes, while others were whipped for days on end.  The Jesuits themselves were victims of their own great success and had to be removed before imperialist energies were spent trying to set up a slave empire in and around Mexico, which the Jesuits would have vigorously opposed.

A Mexican Jesuit priest, Clavijero, who was exiled to Italy in 1767, produced in Italy in 1780 a major history of his country, the Historia Antigua de Mexico.  Unlike previous historians, his was not simply a chronicle but a wide-ranging study of many aspects of Mexican culture.  He was equally keen to refute the beliefs of the Enlightenment, that philosophical movement of the 18th century concerned with the critical examination of previously accepted doctrines and institutions from the point of view of "rationalism", against which he said: "The book's aim is to serve my country and to restore to its true splendour the truth now obscured by the unbelievable rabble of modern writers."

On 21 July 1773, under pressure from the Bourbon kings of France and Spain, Louis XV and Carlos III, Pope Clement XIV issued a bull, Dominus ac Remptor Nostor, abolishing the "Society of Jesus".  Pope Clement XIV was a one-time great admirer of the Jesuits and he had actually dedicated a book to their founder, Ignatius Loyola.  The Vatican could not allow itself to be directly pressurised or influenced by the British monarch or the British Government, as there was a deep-rooted anti-Catholic feeling in England, so Britain's subservient cohorts in France and Spain had to do the dirty work.  The British king at the time, George III, needless to say, was an anti-Catholic bigot.  He was also, along with Lord North, the Tory Prime Minister from 1770-82, responsible for hastening the War of American Independence through the continuance of the obnoxious tea duty and other objectionable measures.

Nevertheless, like everywhere else, the Jesuits had to be removed from China to keep education restricted to the world's elite, in accordance with the wishes of the British oligarchy.

The British satanic philosophy of divide-and-rule was supported by Rudyard Kipling, another Freemason, when, after making a tour of China, Japan and America in 1889, he wrote The Ballad of East and West, which proclaimed: "Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet..."  But the degree of excellence in the interlacing of cultures by the Jesuits and the Chinese would have spread throughout Europe and Asia, giving the masses a greater education, while almost surely creating a new Golden Renaissance.  Most wars would have been prevented, especially the Opium Wars with China LINK, and the British Empire's shameless game-plan of "divide-and-rule" would have come to grief.  Instead, we were all individually and jointly deprived of the resources that were available to develop us intellectually, economically and politically, and the vast majority of the world's population had to suffer, and still suffers, as a result.

In Russia, however, where Pope Clement XIV's bull, Dominus ac Remptor Nostor, abolishing the Jesuits, could not be published, a few Jesuits still hung together.  By 1801, their continuance was sanctioned by Pius VI.  Pius's successor, Pius VII, restored the society throughout the world in 1814.

By 1855, Lord Palmerston had become Prime Minister of the UK for the first time.  His administration lasted until 1858, but he was Premier again from 1859-65.  These two premierships covered, inter alia, the second Opium War with China LINK and the American Civil War. LINK  All in all, he was a very important figure for a considerable period of time in forging and executing British foreign policy in the 19th century.

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