On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    Frenchman to extend his frontier . What the uncle did by day , the . genius" of the nephew leads him to do safely by night , with smiling face , half-shut coaxing eyes , and waving , deprecating hand . Now , if England had - bought only some fishing village opposite Corsica , what a stir there would be in the Europesm hive ! The ' grand- stand at Epsom just after the winner ' s number is run up would be nothing to it . We should have been called " the robbers of the world , " the " trading cheats of both hemispheres , " . and other fine names too numerous to mention . Ten thousand thousand hands would have gripped their . swords and powder barrels the very night that news was proclaimed—would have been carefully counted in many a

    Government arsenal ' cross the ^ yater . The Continent , drunk with French enthusiasm , we could scarcely expect to care much for the glaciers and cascades , the vine patches and mountain forts of Savoy . . But surely England , so sensitive to every fresh sail that is unrolled in a French dockyard , ought more anxiously to watch this new stride of French ambition . About us English there is but one story abroad—we are ambitions merchants , who , wanting to conquer a rich country , send out . missionaries ' and . factors —humble , pious , these agents of ours—so the slander goes ; - —next ask room for a warehouse : it is granted ; we fortify it ; we turn what was to be an open

    hand into the clenched fist of menace ; the people get alarmed and attack us , feeling themselves threatened ; we retaliate ; war ensues ; we take the country , . and- so England extends her righteous empire . It was so in India , it is so in China . " Les voleurs ' . "is the ready chorus of voices , feet , and hands in diligence , train , steamer , or hotel . Yet France has her periodical volcanic bursts of conquest , and without getting the ill name we have so unjustly got . Fortune . is very capricious" in labelling

    men -with . , ill names . Let the prodigal son join the lemperanee movement and save , sovereigns in a stocking , he is still shrugged at if he gives , once upon a time a quiet ' party- If the prudent son launch out suddenly into champagne suppers and chickenhazard , he is only called generousami hospitable . The world so likes to have lier sons labelled black and white , that she may be saved the trouble of studying their dispositions . So Europe will persist in calling the robberies of France annexations , and the righteous progress-of England rank , felony .

    In this , as in all other commencements of foreign trouble , we have , as usual , to bitterly lament the apathy of our island , race to Continental affairs . Before the Times' cry opens—and with it all mouths—you might as well speak tp a dead man as to our intelligent public . Years ago men foretold the dangerous advances of Russia , and the certainty of our collision with that iceberg in the East . Now , t he brave Circassian nation , through our heartless dull blindness , has perished , with it went one of the lasfc great bulwarks between Russia and India ; now , unnoticed by even a picquet of the Press , without a warning gun , France pi'oposes to annex Savoy , and establish herself in a Mediterranean seaport .

    An okl politician ( frord Aberdeen ) , in the ! 77 w /

    To have Savoy is , in fact , to have one foot on * Switzerland , another on Piedmont , with both arms ready to hurl lire on . the Italian plains . There is a rumour that the surrender of Savoy is the secret scM-vico money to bo paid Franco for the surrender ot Lonibui'dy , and that it is now ofiercd in payment by Sardinia , to obtain some still unfulfillod conditions from thoEinperor of France . Be it so : lias Franco had no sufficient payment , in humbling and maiming Austria ; in bleeding her from a thousand veins P—shall that stand for nothing in the acobunt ? And what use is the Italian strong box to Piedmont if Franco is to keep the key , and allow no hand to come to it but its own 1

    . We want to rouse no ungenerous suspicions of the Emporor , but he is Jtulliblc 5 and countries are more tempting than sugarplums . Wo do not say he will tread out Swiss liberty , ov fill Nice harbour with war " ships ; but his successor , with more greed than soaao , may ; so why not put such clangorous temptations out of his venoh ' ? But we shall , see . The annexation is not yet formally proposod , and material gunranteos may bo given against the consequences , whioh certainly at present seem to be imminent ,

    Untitled Article

    as quietly as ministerial comfort requires . But tinder any circumstances there is hope for the Cabinet ; Mr . Cobdex is at Cannes , John Bright will scarcely play the Mandarin , and the great British public is decidedly of opinion that China is a " bore . " We are somew .,-at of the same way of thinking ; but journalists are not allowed to grow weary of any subject of national importance , and as neither the Foreign-office , nor Admiral Hope , nor Mr . Bruce , have entirely stopped the exportation of tea , we must take a ' cup of that fragrant article , and get through the " ISlue Book , " which' in this instance is

    CHINA . A PAPER , of the moderate dimensions of fifty-four pages , hasjust been laid before Parliament ,, containing the " Correspondence with Mr . Bruce , Her Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in China , " and we see little in it to justify the idea that the Government of the Celestial Empire will carry out the Treaty of Tien-tsin if they can possibly help it-It is Aery pleasant for Ministers to hold out the hope of an amicable settlement . of our quarrels , without important operations and serious fighting ; . , if the probable difficulties were confessed , neither Parliament nor people might feel able to take the affair

    white , as easily as we can . The " Correspondence "begins on the 1 st of March , 1 S 59—it should have been 1 st of April , as more appropriate / or the sapient Malmesbuky , who indited the first epistle , and the astute Bruce to whom it was addressed . The late Foreign Secretary -writes in such a cumbersome , soporific style , that if Mr . Buuce had not had the pugnacity and pertinacity ot his great ancestor . Robert , from Avhom all modern Bruces are of course descended , he must have gone to sleep the moment he received it ; and had he done so , we might have had no Chinese War at all . Solemnly and heavily did Lord

    Mal-mesbury instruct the envoy that he was to represent himself as a penal infliction to be administered to the refractory Emperor . "Emperor good ; _ very little . Bruce : Emperor naughty ; -Bruce to be laid On thick , " Thus runs Lord Malmesbury , who has the honour of having achieved something new in diplomacy- ^ -tlie invention . of an ambassador Bogey , or . Bogey ambassadorj a contrivance which might have immortalized his name but for one little accident—the failure of the scheme . His lordship ' s " Old Bogey " . proved nothing better than an " Old Fogey , " and the Chinese Emperor would not be frightened at him at all .

    We cannot expect that many M . P . ' s , or other human fractions of the body politic , will read the ' wonderful document in which Mr . Bruce was instructed to become a bugbear and a penal infliction ; but so charmed was the Tory Foreign Secretary with his novel idea , that he . repeated it again and again in his wordy epistle . It , occurs in the beginning , in the middle , and at the end ; and Mr . Bruce was commanded to promise to make himself scarce if things went on smoothly , but " instantly to exercise " the right of permanent residence at Pekin "if any difficulties were thrown , in the way of communications between Her . Majesty ' s minister and the central Government at Pekin , or any disposition shown . to evade or defeat the objects of the treaty . "

    Chinese opposition ; and , the need of a sufficient naval power were contingencies-contemplated by Lord Malmesbury , but no instructions wore given concerning the employment of force , as his lordship seemed quite confident that Mr . Buucj-e would succeed if he threatened the Emperor with visits at his Court . He was to tell his . Pekin Majesty that , if there was ho controversy or attempts to evade the treaty , " the necessity for . such , visits to the capital will be rare 5 and ' when they aroinmle , they will be rather complivientar // t / t . gii , for the transactioji of business . ' " The last hit is admirable—the British peer threatening the Chinese , Emperor with " business , "—declaring that lie . would , give him something to do , if he did not behave himself , is a choice specimen of official humour and wit .

    Mr . Bruce having been duly instructed in tho " Bogey" business , proved that he Avas just the man for . the purpose , and he forthwith concerted witli Sir Charles Van Stuauuenzee , K . C . B ., and Hoar-Admiral Hope , C . B ., a " powerful demonstration" and an " imposing- force , " to consist of sundry vessels ami a whole " battalion of marines and a company of engineers , " which were to overawe the batteries known to be erected at Tiou-tsin , and striko terror into the hearts of ( 50 , 000 troops already under Sung-wanq-yay , and 80 * 000 more in readiness to joiu'hiin if required ,

    Anticipating resistumco , Admiral Hope applied to the general for a few more marines , and Mr . Bruce having told Commissioner Kweiliang that his resolution to proceed to Pekin was " inflexible , " and having made a requisition to Admiral Hope for support , tho latter plunged into tho intensely stupid action in the Peiho , and encountered a serious defeat . When ( he mischief was done , Mr . Bhuob wrote to Admiral Hope a uompli *

    Untitled Article

    108 Thd Leader andSalurday Analyst . [ Feb . 4 , I 860 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 4, 1860, page 108, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2332/page/8/