One of the highest legal authorities in England, Lord Lyndhurst, declared Sir John Bowring's action, and that of the British authorities who aided him, to be unjustifiable on any principle either of law or reason; and Mr. Cobden, himself an old friend of Sir John Bowring, moved in the House of Commons that "the papers which have been laid upon the table fail to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the 'Arrow.'"
Nearly all the best men in the House of Commons—Gladstone, Roundell Palmer, Sydney Herbert, Milner Gibson, Sir Frederick Thesiger, as well as many of the chief Tories—supported Mr. Cobden; and the vote of censure was carried against Lord Palmerston's government by 263 to 247. But Lord Palmerston, then the hero of the Evangelical Church party,—"Palmerston, the true Protestant," "Palmerston, the only Christian Prime Minister,"—knew exactly the strength of British Christianity when it interfered with the sale of British beer, or Indian opium, or Manchester cotton, and appealed to the shop-keeper instincts of the British people. He dissolved Parliament; and Cobden, Bright, Milner Gibson, W.J. Fox, Layard, and many others were left without seats. Manchester rejected John Bright because he had spoken in the interests of peace and honor, and condemned one of the most cowardly, brutal, and unprovoked wars of the century.
We see the same cause at work in Ireland. One British bishop, Dr. Thirlwall, of St. David's, had the manliness to favor Mr. Gladstone's bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church; but most of them acted in this matter in direct opposition to the teachings of Him whom they profess to worship as their God. Mr. John Bright warned the Lords that, by throwing themselves athwart the national course, they might meet with "accidents not pleasant to think of"; and there is no doubt that the warning had its effect. And even now I do not think that the people of Ireland will ever get from the House of Lords that measure of right which even the House of Commons has unwillingly and grudgingly, accorded to them, unless the Irishmen of America come to their aid in a more effective manner than they have ever yet done.
Newfoundland, unlike Ireland, has few friends in the United States, and therefore is wholly at England's mercy. What it suffered in the past I have already told. Let us see how England has treated it in the last few years.
It was from Lord Palmerston, of all men, that the Newfoundlander might hope for redress.
He had said in the Don Pacifico case, "As the Roman in the days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say, 'Civis Romanus sum,' so also a British subject, in whatever land he be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England shall protect him against injustice and wrong."
Surely, the 200,000 Newfoundlanders had more right to expect that Lord Palmerston would maintain this principle in their defence than the extortionate Portuguese Jew or the Chinese pirates who were taken from the Lorcha "Arrow."
And Lord Palmerston had the best opportunity of helping the Newfoundlander; for he was the intimate friend of Louis Napoleon and Persigny. By his approbation of Louis Napoleon's coup d'état he became the creator of the Anglo-French Alliance; and, since this alliance was a matter of life and death to the Second Empire, he might have used the opportunity, after the Crimean War, of exercising such pressure upon Louis Napoleon as to secure justice to Newfoundland.
But he neglected it, and thereby, he lost the opportunity of strengthening the position of England and Canada towards the United States at the time of the "Trent" and "Alabama" affairs.
We may be glad of this; but, from a British point of view, it was not merely an injustice to Newfoundland, but also a political blunder.