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was evident that the Bill could not pass; that the talk which was in preparation must smother it. The moment the Bill got into committee there would be amendments on every line of it, and every member could speak as often as he pleased. The session was passing; the financial measures could not be postponed or put aside; the opponents of the Reform Bill, open and secret, had the Government at their mercy. On Monday, June 11th, Lord John Russell announced that the Government had made up their minds to withdraw the Bill. There was no alternative. Lord Palmerston had rendered to the Bill exactly that sort of service which Kemble rendered to the play of "Vortigern and Rowena." Kemble laid a peculiar emphasis on the words, "And when this solemn mockery is o'er," and glanced at the pit in such a manner as to express only too clearly the contempt he had for the part which he was coerced to play; and the pit turned the piece into ridicule, and would have no more of it. If Kemble had approved of the play, they might have put up with it for his sake; but when he gave them leave, they simply made sport of it. Lord Palmerston conveyed to his pit his private idea on the subject of the Reform Bill which he had officially to recommend; and the pit took the hint, and there was an end of the Bill.

Lord Palmerston became more unpopular than ever with the advanced Liberals. He had yielded so far to public alarm as to propose a vote of two millions, the first instalment of a sum of nine millions, to be laid out in fortifying our coast against the Emperor of the French. He was accused of gross inconsistency. The statesman who went out of his way to give premature recognition to Louis Napoleon after the coup d'état; the statesman of the Conspiracy Bill, was now clamoring for the means to resist a treacherous invasion from his favorite ally. Yet Lord Palmerston was not inconsistent. He had now brought himself seriously to believe that Louis Napoleon meditated evil to England, and with Palmerston, right or wrong, England was the one supreme consideration. To us he seems to have been wrong when he patronized Louis Napoleon, and wrong when he wasted money in measures of superfluous protection against Louis Napoleon, but we do not think the latter Palmerston was inconsistent with the former.

Thenceforward it was understood that Lord Palmerston would have no more of Reform. This was accepted as a political condition by most of Lord Palmerston's colleagues. Even Lord John Russell accepted the condition, and bowed to his leader's determination, as George III.'s ministers came to bend to his scruples with regard to Catholic Emancipation. There was to be no Reform Bill while Lord Palmerston lived.

CHAPTER XLII.

TROUBLES IN THE EAST.

THE Queen's Speech at the opening of Parliament on January 24th, 1860, mentioned, among other things, the renewal of disturbances in China. The English and French plenipotentiaries, it stated, had proceeded to the mouth of the Peiho river in order to repair to Pekin, and exchange in that city the ratifications of the Treaty of Tien-tsin. They found their further progress opposed, and a conflict took place between the Chinese forts at the mouth of the river and the naval force by which the plenipotentiaries were escorted. The allied forces were compelled to retire; and the Royal Speech mentioned that an expedition had been despatched to obtain redress.

The treaty of Tien-tsin was that which, as was told in a former chapter, had been arranged by Lord Elgin and Baron Gros. The treaty contained a clause providing for the exchange of the ratifications at Pekin within a year from the date of the signature, which took place in June, 1858. Lord Elgin returned to England, and his brother, Mr. Frederick Bruce, was appointed in March, 1859, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to China. Mr. Bruce was directed to proceed by way of the Peiho to Tientsin and thence to Pekin to exchange the ratifications of the treaty. In the instructions furnished to him, Lord Malmesbury, who was then Foreign Secretary, earnestly pressed upon the Envoy the necessity of insisting on having the ratifications exchanged at Pekin. Lord Malmesbury pointed out that the Chinese authorities, having the strongest ob

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jection to the presence of an Envoy in Pekin, would probably try to interpose all manner of delays and difficulties; and impressed upon Mr. Bruce that he was not to be put off from going to the capital. Mr. Bruce was distinctly directed to go to the mouth of the Peiho with "a sufficient naval force," and was told that unless some unforeseen circumstances" should interpose to make another arrangement necessary, it would be desirable that he should go to Tientsin in a British man-of-war. Instructions were sent out from England at the same time to Admiral Hope, the Naval Commander-in-Chief in China, to provide a sufficient force to accompany Mr. Bruce to the mouth of the Peiho.

The Peiho river flows from the highlands on the west into the Gulf of Pecheli, at the north-east corner of the Chinese dominions. The capital of the Empire is about one hundred miles inland from the mouth of the Peiho. It does not stand on that river, which flows past it at some distance westward, but it is connected with the river by means of a canal. The town of Tien-tsin stands on the Peiho near its junction with one of the many rivers that flow into it, and about forty miles from the mouth. The entrance to the Peiho was defended by the Taku forts. On June 20, 1859, Mr. Bruce and the French Envoy reached the mouth of the Peiho with Admiral Hope's fleet, some nineteen vessels in all, to escort them. Admiral Hope had sent a message, two or three days before, to Taku, to announce that the English and French Envoys were coming, and his boat had found the forts defended and the river staked by an armed crowd, who stated that they were militiamen, and said that they had no instructions as regarded the passage of the Envoys, but offered to send any message to Tien-tsin and to bring back any answer which the authorities there might think fit to send. Admiral Hope again sent to them, and requested them to remove the obstructions in the river, and clear a passage for the Envoys. They do not appear to have actually refused the request, but they said that they had sent a messenger to Tien-tsin to announce the approach of the fleet. When, however, the Envoys reached the mouth of the river they found the defences further increased. Some negotiations and intercommunications took place, and a Chinese official from Tien-tsin came to Mr. Bruce and en

deavored to obtain some delay or compromise. Mr. Bruce .became convinced that the condition of things predicted by Lord Malmesbury was coming about, and that the Chinese authorities were only trying to defeat his purpose. He also imagined, or discovered, that there was a want of proper respect for an English Envoy shown in the terms of the letter and the rank of the official by whom it was conveyed. After a consultation with the French Envoy, Mr. Bruce called on Admiral Hope to clear a passage for the vessels. On June 25th the Admiral brought his gunboats close to the barriers, and began to attempt their removal. The forts opened fire. The Chinese artillerymen showed unexpected skill and precision. Four of the gunboats were almost immediately disabled. All the attacking vessels got aground. Admiral Hope attempted to storm the forts. The attempt was a complete failure. About 1000 Englishmen and 100 French went into action, of whom nearly 450 were killed or wounded. Admiral Hope himself was wounded; so was the commander of the French vessel which had contributed a contingent to the storming-party. An American naval captain rendered great service to the English and French in their distress. With "magnanimous indiscretion" he disregarded the strict principles of international law; declared that "blood was thicker than water," and that he could not look on and see Englishmen destroyed by Chinese without trying to lend them a helping hand. The attempt to force a passage of the river was given up, and the mission to Pekin was over for the present.

It will be easily imagined that the news created a deep sensation in England. It soon became known that although the Chinese Government did not exactly accept the responsibility of what had occurred on the Peiho, yet they bluntly and rudely refused to make any apology for the attack on our ships or to punish the officials who had ordered it. People in general made up their minds at once that the matter could not be allowed to rest there, and that the mission to Pekin must be enforced. At the same time a strong feeling prevailed that the Envoy, Mr. Bruce, had been imprudent and precipitate in his conduct. Lord Elgin had himself stated that we could have no right to navigate the Peiho until after the ratification of the treaty; and however dis

courteous or even double-dealing the conduct of the Chinese authorities might have been, it was surely a questionable policy to insist on forcing our way to the capital by one particular route to which for any reason they objected. For this, however, it seems more just to blame Lord Malmesbury than Mr. Bruce. Lord Malmesbury had of course no idea of what was likely to happen; but his instructions to the English Envoy read as if they were prepared with a view to that very contingency. Mr. Bruce might well have thought that they left him no alternative but to force his way. Before the whole question came to be discussed in Parliament the Conservatives had gone out and the Liberals had come in. Lord Palmerston's Government were only responsible in a technical sort of way for what had happened; and, to do them justice, they only defended the proceeding in a very cold and perfunctory manner. But they could hardly condemn their predecessors, whose action they had to continue, and whose responsibilities they had to assume, and there did not seem much use in attacking the conduct of men who were out of office, and were no longer amenable to Parliamentary censure. On the other hand, it seems only fair to say that the outcry raised in England about the treacherous conduct of the Chinese at the mouth of the Peiho was unfounded and even absurd. The Chinese Government showed itself, as usual, crafty, double-dealing, and childishly arrogant for a while; but the Chinese at the Peiho cannot be accused of perfidy. They had mounted the forts and barricaded the river openly and even ostentatiously. The English Admiral knew for days and days that the forts were armed, and that the passage of the river was obstructed. A man who when he sees you approaching his halldoor closes and bars it against you, and holds a rifle pointed at your head while he parleys with you from an upper window, may be a very inhospitable and discourteous person; but if, when you attempt to dash in his door, he fires at you with his rifle, you can hardly call him treacherous, or say that you had no expectation of what was going to happen. Some of the English officers who were actually engaged in the attempt of Admiral Hope frankly repudiated the idea of any treachery on the part of the Chinese, or any surprise on their own side. They knew perfectly well, they said, that

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