The Earl of Derby’s resolution, and that of Mr. Cobden, both of 

them passing condemnation upon the Chinese hostilities, were 
moved according to notices given, the one on the 24th of 
February, in the House of Lords,* the other on the 27th of 
February, in the House of Commons.” The debates in the Lords 
ended on the same day when the debates in the Commons began. 
The former gave the Palmerston Cabinet a shock by leaving it in 
the comparatively weak majority of 36 votes. The latter may result 
in its defeat. But whatever interest may attach to the discussion in 
the Commons, the debates in the House of Lords have exhausted 
the argumentative part of the controversy—the masterly speeches 
of Lords Derby and Lyndhurst forestalling the eloquence of 
Mr. Cobden, Sir E. Bulwer, Lord John Russell, and tutte quanti‘ 

The only law authority on the part of the Government, the Lord 
Chancellor,’ remarked that 

“unless England had a good case with regard to the Arrow, °° all proceedings from 
the last to first were wrong.” 

Derby and Lyndhurst proved beyond doubt that England had 
no case at all with regard to that lorcha. The line of argument 
followed by them coincides so much with that taken up in the 
columns of The Tribune on the first publication of the English 

aE. Derby’s speech in the House of Lords on February 24, 1857, The Times, 
No. 22613, February 25, 1857.— Ed. 
b R. Cobden’s speech in the House of Commons on February 26, 1857, The 
Times, No. 22615, February 27, 1857.— Ed. 

dispatches that I am able to condense it here into a very small 
compass. 

What is the charge against the Chinese Government upon which 
the Canton massacres*” are pretended to rest? The infringement 
of Art.9 of the supplemental treaty of 1843. That article 
prescribes that any Chinese offenders, being in the Colony of 
Hong-Kong, or on board a British man-of-war, or on board a 
British merchant ship, are not to be seized by the Chinese 
authorities themselves, but should be demanded from the British 
Consul, and by him be handed over to the native authorities. 
Chinese pirates were seized in the river of Canton on board the 
lorcha Arrow, by Chinese officers, without the intervention of the 
British Consul. The question arises, therefore, was the Arrow a 
British vessel? It was, as Lord Derby shows, 

“a vessel Chinese built, Chinese captured, Chinese sold, Chinese bought and 
manned, and Chinese owned.” @ 

By what means, then, was this Chinese vessel converted into a 
British merchantman? By purchasing at Hong-Kong a British 
register or sailing license. The legality of this register relies upon 
an ordinance of the local legislation of Hong-Kong, passed in 
March, 1855. That ordinance not only infringed the treaty existing 
between England and China,** but annulled the law of England 
herself. It was, therefore, void and null. Some semblance of 
English legality it could but receive from the Merchant Shipping 
Act, which, however, was passed only two months after the issue 
of the ordinance. And even with the legal provisions of that act it 
had never. been brought into consonance. The ordinance, there- 
fore, under which the lorcha Arrow received its register, was so 
much waste paper. But even according to this worthless paper the 
Arrow had forfeited its protection by the infringement of the 
provisions prescribed, and the expiration of its hcense. This point 
is conceded by Sir J. Bowring himself.” But then, it is said, 
whether or not the Arrow was an English vessel, it had, at all 
events, hoisted the English flag, and that flag was insulted. Firstly,° 

No. 22613, February 25, 1857.— Ed. 

if the flag was flying, it was not legally flying. But was it flying at 
all? On this point there exists discrepancy between the English and 
Chinese declarations. The latter have, however, been corroborated 
by depositions, forwarded by the Consuls, of the master and crew 
of the Portuguese lorcha No. 83. With reference to these 
depositions, The Friend of China of Nov. 13 states that 

“it is now notorious at Canton that the British flag had not been flying on 
board the lorcha for six days previous to its seizure.” * 

Thus falls to the ground the punctilio of honor, together with 
the legal case. 

Lord Derby had in this speech the good taste altogether to 
forbear from his habitual waggishness, and thus to give his 
argument a strictly judicial character. No efforts, however, on his 
part were wanted to impregnate his speech with a deep current of 
irony. The Earl of Derby, the chief of the hereditary aristocracy of 
England, pleading against the late Doctor, now Sir John Bowring, 
the pet disciple of Bentham; pleading for humanity against the 
professional humanitarian; defending the real interests of nations 
against the systematic utilitarian insisting upon a punctilio of 
diplomatic etiquette; appealing to the “vox populi vox dei”? 
against the greatest-benefit-of-the-greatest-number man"; the 
descendant of the conquerors preaching peace where a member of 
the Peace Society?” preached red-hot shell; a Derby branding the 
acts of the British navy as “miserable proceedings” and “inglori- 
ous operations,” where a Bowring congratulates it upon cowardly 
outrages which met with no resistance, upon “its brilliant 
achievements, unparalleled bravery, and splendid union of mili- 
tary skill.and. valor’ — such contrasts were the more keenly satirical 
the less the Earl of Derby seemed to be aware of them. He had 
the advantage of that great historical irony which does not flow 
from the wit of individuals, but from the humor of situations. The 
whole parliamentary history of England has, perhaps, never 
exhibited such an intellectual victory of the aristocrat over the 
parvenu. 

Lord Derby declared at the outset that he 

“should have to rely upon statements and documents exclusively furnished by 
the very parties whose conduct he was about to impugn, : 

mua), 24, 1857, The Times, No. 22613, February 25, 1857.— Ed. 

_and that he was conterft 

“to rest his case upon these documents.” 

Now it has been justly remarked that those documents, as laid 
before the public by the Government, would have allowed the 
latter to shift the whole responsibility upon its subordinates. So 
much is this the case that the attacks made by the parliamentary 
adversaries of the Government were exclusively directed. to 
Bowring & Co., and could have been indorsed by the home 
Government itself, without at all impairing its own position. I 
quote from his Lordship*: 

“I do not wish to say anything disrespectful of Dr. Bowring. He may be a man 
of great attainments; but it appears to me that on the subject of his admission into 
Canton he is possessed with a perfect monomania [Hear, hear, and laughter]. I 
believe he dreams of his entrance into Canton. I believe he thinks of it the first 
thing in the morning, the last thing at night, and in the middle of the night, if he 
happens to be awake [Laughter]. I do not believe that he would consider any 
sacrifice too great, any interruption of commerce to be deplored, any bloodshed to 
be regretted, when put in the scale with the immense advantage to be derived from 
the fact that Sir J. Bowring had obtained an official reception in the Yamun? of 
Canton [Laughter].” 

Next came Lord Lyndhurst‘. 

“Sir J. Bowring, who is a distinguished humanitarian as well as plenipotentiary 
{laughter}, himself admits the register is void, and that the lorcha was not entitled 
to hoist the English flag. Now, mark what he says: “The vessel had no protection, 
but the Chinese do not know this. For God’s sake do not whisper it to them.’ He 
persevered, too, for he said in effect: We know the Chinese have not been guilty of 
any violation of treaty, but we will not tell them so; we will insist upon reparation 
and a return of the men they have seized in a particular form. If the men were not 
returned in the form, what was to be the remedy? Why, to seize a junk—a war 
junk. If that was not sufficient, seize more, until we compelled them to submit, 
although we knew they had the right on their side and we had no justice on ours 
{Hear]. Was there ever conduct more abominable, more flagrant, in which—I will 
not say more fraudulent, but what is equal to fraud in our country—more false 
pretense has been put forward by a public man in the service of the British 
Government [Hear]? It is extraordinary that Sir J. Bowring should think he had 
the right of declaring war. I can understand a man in such a position having 
necessarily a power of carrying on defensive operations, but to carry on offensive 
operations upon such a ground—upon such a pretense—is one of the most 
extraordinary proceedings to be found in the history of the world. It is quite clear 
from the papers laid on the table, that from the first moment at which Sir 
J. Bowring was appointed to the station he now fills, his ambition was to procure 

No. 22613, February 25, 1857.— Ed. 

© J. Lyndhurst’s speech in the House of ‘Lords on February 24, 1857, The 
Times, No. 22613, February 25, 1857.— Fd. 

what his predecessors had completely failed to effect—namely, the entry within the 
walls of Canton. Bent only upon carrying this object of gaining admission within 
the walls of Canton into execution, he has, for no necessary purpose whatever, 
plunged the country into a war; and what is the result? Property, to the large 
amount of $1,500,000, belonging to British subjects, is now impounded in the City 
of Canton, and in addition to that our factories are burned to the ground, and all 
this is only owing to the mischievous policy of one of the most mischievous of men. 

But man, proud man, 

Drest in a little brief authority, 

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, 
His glassy essence, like an angry ape, 

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
As make the angels weep?.” 

And, lastly, Lord Grey?: 

“If your Lordships will refer to the papers you will find that when Sir 
J. Bowring applied for an interview with Commissioner Yeh, the Commissioner was 
ready to meet him, but he appointed for that purpose the house of the merchant 
Houqua, without the City. Sir J. Bowring’s dignity would not allow him to go 
anywhere but to the official residence of the Commissioner. I expect, if no other 
result, at least the good result from the adoption of the resolution—the instant 
recall of Sir J. Bowring.” 

Sir J. Bowring met with similar treatment at the hands of the 
Commons, and Mr. Cobden even opened his speech with a solemn 
repudiation of his “friend of twenty years’ standing.” ‘ 

The literal quotations from the speeches of Lords Derby, 
Lyndhurst and Grey prove that, to parry the attack, Lord 
Palmerston’s Administration had only to drop Sir. J. Bowring 
instead of identifying itself with that “distinguished 
humanitarian.” That it owed this facility of escape neither to the 
indulgence nor the tactics of his adversaries, but exclusively to the 
papers laid before Parliament, will become evident from the 
slightest glance at the papers themselves as well as the debates 
founded upon them. 

Can there remain any doubt as to Sir J. Bowring’s 
‘“monomania” with respect to his entrance into Canton? Is it not 
proved that that individual, as The London Times says, 

“has taken a course entirely out of his own head, without either advice from his 
superiors at home or any reference to their politics?” 4 

b G. Grey’s speech in the House of Lords on February 24, 1857, The Times, 
No. 22613, February 25, 1857.— Ed. 

No. 22615, February 27, 1857.— Ed. 

Why, then, should Lord Palmerston, at a moment when his 
Government is tottering, when his way is beset with difficulties of 
all sorts—financial difficulties, Persian war difficulties, secret- 
treaty difficulties, electoral reform difficulties,?”' coalition difficul- 
ties when he is conscious that the eyes of the House are 

“upon him more earnestly but less admiringly than ever before,” _ 

why should he single out just that moment to exhibit, for the 
first time in his political life, an unflinching fidelity to another 
man and to a subaltern, too—at the hazard of not only impairing 
still more his own position, but of completely breaking it up? Why 
‘should he push his new-fangled enthusiasm to such a point as to 
offer himself as the expiatory sacrifice for the sins of a 
Dr. Bowring? Of course no man in his senses thinks the noble 
Viscount capable of any such romantic aberrations. The line of 
policy he has followed up in this Chinese difficulty affords 
conclusive evidence of the defective character of the papers he has 
laid before Parliament. Apart from published papers there must 
exist secret papers and secret instructions which would go far to 
show that if Dr. Bowring was possessed of the “monomania” of 
entering into Canton, there stood behind him the cool-headed 
chief of Whitehall* working upon his monomania and driving it, 
for purposes of his own, from the state of latent warmth into that 
of consuming fire.