[3] His reply to the Merchants' address contained the following passage: 'Allow me to express the satisfaction which it gives me to find that you specify the benefits that are likely to accrue to the inhabitants of these countries themselves, as among the most important of the results to be expected from our recent treaties with China and Japan. On this head we have no doubt incurred very weighty responsibilities. Uninvited, and by methods not always of the gentlest, we have broken down the barriers behind which these ancient nations sought to conceal from the world without the mysteries, perhaps also, in the case of China at least, the raps and rottenness of their waning civilisations. Neither our own consciences nor the judgment of mankind will acquit us if, when we are asked to what use we have turned our opportunities, we can only say that we have filled our pockets from among the ruins which we have found or made.'
[4] Despatch of Jan. 22, 1859.
[5] As Minister at the Court of Pekin.
[6] In a parting letter he pointed out to the Admiral how desirable it was that the ambassador who went to Pekin to exchange the ratifications of the Treaty should be supported by an imposing force, and suggested that with this view a sufficient fleet of gunboats should be concentrated at once at Shanghae.
CHAPTER XII.
SECOND MISSION TO CHINA. OUTWARD.
LORD ELGIN IN ENGLAND—ORIGIN OF SECOND MISSION TO CHINA—GLOOMY PROSPECTS —EGYPT—THE PYRAMIDS—THE SPHINX—PASSENGERS HOMEWARD BOUND—CEYLON— SHIPWRECK—PENANG—SINGAPORE—SHANGHAE—MEETING WITH MR. BRUCE—TALIEN— WHAN—SIR HOPE GRANT—PLANS FOR LANDING.
[Sidenote: Lord Elgin in England.]
When Lord Elgin returned, in 1854, from the Government of Canada, there were comparatively few persons in England who knew or cared anything about the great work which he had done in the colony. But his brilliant successes in the East attracted public interest, and gave currency to his reputation; and when he returned from China in the spring of 1859 he was received with every honour. Two great parliamentary chiefs, Lord Derby and Lord Grey, from opposite sides of the House of Lords, contended for the credit of having first introduced him into public life. Lord Palmerston, who was at the time engaged in forming a new Administration, again offered him a place in it, and he accepted the office of Postmaster-General. The students of Glasgow paid him the compliment of electing him as their Lord Rector; and the merchants of London showed their sense of what he had done for their commerce, first by the enthusiastic reception which they gave him at a dinner at the Mansion House, and afterwards by conferring upon him the freedom of their city.
Lord Elgin was not one of those men, if any such there be, who are indifferent to the appreciation of their fellows. He could, indeed, in a mock-cynical humour, write of what a man must do 'if he thinks it worth while to stand well with others:'[1] but in himself there was nothing of the cynic, and to stand well with others was to his genial nature a source of genuine and undisguised gratification. It was well said of him afterwards in reference to the honours paid to him at this period, that while he did not require the stimulus of praise, or even sympathy, to keep him to his work, but would have worked on for life, whether appreciated or overlooked, still 'he whose sympathies were always ready and warm enjoyed himself being understood and valued; and that welcome in the City was very cheering to him after his long experience of English indifference about Canada and what he had done there.'