If you make a treaty first with the United States and settle the matter of the opium trade, England cannot change this, though she should desire to do so. ↗
It will be quite satisfactory if you open them gradually, as the circumstances may require; but the President assures you that this will not be the case if you make a treaty with England first. ↗
Obviously one of the things that poets from Northern Ireland and beyond - had to try to make sense of was what was happening on a day-to-day political level. ↗