Letter to Queen Victoria

The Letter to Queen Victoria, also known as the Letter of advice to Queen Victoria or Moral advice to Queen Victoria, was a formal letter written in 1839 by Lin Zexu, the Imperial Commissioner of the Qing Dynasty, to the British monarch, specifically Queen Victoria. Lin wrote the letter on behalf of the Qing Dynasty as a diplomatic appeal to urge the British Empire to stop illegally importing opium into the Qing Dynasty through British merchants. It is considered one of the most famous open letters in history, and one of the most influential letters prior to the eventual outbreak of the First Opium War.