soldiers. When the desolation was completed, a monument was raised on the spot, on which was inscribed in Chinese characters: "Such are the rewards of perfidy and cruelty.'

The conduct of Lord Elgin was sharply attacked in England, and as vigorously defended. He himself acknowledged that the capture of the Englishmen was not an act of deliberate treachery on the part of the Chinese. "On the whole," he wrote, "I come to the conclusion that in the proceedings of the Chinese plenipotentiaries and commander-in-chief in this instance, there was that mixture of stupidity, want of straightforwardness, suspicion, and bluster which characterizes so generally the conduct of affairs in this country; but I cannot believe that after the experience which Sang-ko-lin-sin" (the Chinese general-in-chief) "has already had of our superiority in the field, either he or his civil colleagues could have intended to bring on a conflict, in which, as the event has proved, he was sure to be worsted." The lesson which Lord Elgin had inflicted upon the Chinese empire was destined to protect in the future, in the extreme East, those messengers of peace whom all nations have agreed to hold sacred. Violence had presided over all the acts of this war, but in the one which crowned it, that violence brought with it its justification.

The submission of China was complete; the port of Tien-tsin was open to European commerce. Ratifications were exchanged, diplomatic relations formally re-established between China and the European Powers, and the emperor was obliged to pay a heavy war indemnity and also a large sum as compensation to the families of the murdered prisoners. Henceforth China was to have no hidden recesses, inaccessible to the inquisitive traveller; the gates of the Middle Kingdom were to stand open, and ere long a tide of Chinese emigration was to set towards America and even Europe. With the walls of the Summer Palace crumbled the barriers between Orient and Occident.

It was not alone towards the extreme East that, in 1860, military and diplomatic solicitude was directed. In regions less remote than were the vast domains of the Chinese emperor,- upon the slopes of Lebanon, the hostility of races was awakened between the Maronites and the Druses. A Maronite monk was found murdered, the Druses were suspected of the crime, and some of them were assassinated in turn. Anger was kindled on both sides. On the 28th of May, the Maronite villages in the neighborhood of Beyroot were attacked by the Druses, and also a large town, built near the base of Mount Hermon. The Turkish authorities in the town ordered the Maronites to lay down their arms, promising to protect them; the Maronites obeyed, but were abandoned to their enemies, who made an indiscriminate massacre. The Mussulman fury spread from point to point, and in July, Damascus was invaded by a fanatical multitude, who destroyed the consulates of the European Powers and massacred more than two thousand Christians, in spite of the efforts of Abd-el-Kader, himself a resident of Damascus ever since his liberty had been restored by the Emperor Napoleon. The Turkish governor made no serious attempt to put a stop to the massacre. For a long time the Porte had felt a certain distrust of the Maronites, whom it regarded as disposed to shake off the Turkish yoke. The intervention of the great Powers in their favor (1840-41) had contributed to develop this idea. The population of Damascus in some way felt themselves authorized to murder the Christians and pillage their houses.

In 1860, all the great Powers were interested in the re-establishment of order in the Lebanon, for all had suffered outrage in the person of their representatives. France and England were intrusted with the duty of obtaining the reparation which the case demanded. France promised the necessary troops, and England sent out Lord Dufferin as commissioner to deal with the Turkish government. The Porte had become alarmed, and

had shown great resolution in searching out and punishing the offending Druses. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fuad Pasha, was sent to the Lebanon, where he exercised without mercy the unlimited powers intrusted to him. The governor of Damascus and the commander of the Turkish troops were put to death, and about sixty persons with them, who were held to be more or less responsible for what had taken place. On every side were seen the results of their criminal indolence. "At Deir-el-Kamr," wrote Lord Dufferin, "almost every house was burnt, and the street crowded with dead bodies, some of them stripped and mutilated in every possible way. My road led through some of the streets, my horse could not even pass, for the bodies were literally piled up. Most of those I examined had many wounds, and in each case the right hand was either entirely or nearly cut off; the poor wretch, in default of weapons, having instinctively raised his arm to parry the blow aimed at him. I saw little children of not more than four years old stretched on the ground, and old men with gray beards."

The intervention of the great Powers in the affairs of the Lebanon was efficacious in re-establishing peace in Syria. The conference decided that a Christian governor of the Lebanon should be appointed, in subjection to the sultan, it is true, but appointed neither upon the sultan's nomination nor at his desire. In 1861, the French troops evacuated Syria, after their prolonged occupation had begun seriously to disquiet the English nation. The 26th of June, Lord Palmerston wrote to Sir Henry Bulwer, the British ambassador at Constantinople: "I am heartily glad we have got the French out of Syria, and a hard job it was to do so. The arrangement made for the future government of the Lebanon will, I dare say, work sufficiently well to prevent the French from having any pretext for returning thither."

The sultan, Abdul-Medjid, had just died; great hopes were

conceived in respect to his successor. "If the accounts we have heard of the new sultan are true," Lord Palmerston wrote, "we may hope that he will restore Turkey to her proper position among the Powers of Europe."

Yet once more England had come to the aid of her "sick man," while openly acknowledging his feebleness. Turkey had scarcely been permitted to have any voice in the settlement of the Lebanon affair. The new conditions had been imposed upon her by a conference of the great Powers. She yet existed, however, and her independence was recognized in theory, at least, if it was not in practice. Lord Wodehouse announced in Parliament the opinion of government that a new era was dawning upon Turkey. Her weakness and her vitality were destined for many a year yet to astonish Europe, and more than once to disturb its tranquillity.

CHAPTER XII.

WESTERN TROUBLES. THE WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.

UROPE had watched with curiosity the war between Eng

EUR

land and China; she had been interested in the burning of the Summer Palace; she had been excited for a moment by the report of the massacre at Damascus, and had applauded, first, the generous interference of Abd-el-Kader in favor of the Christians, and afterwards the more efficacious intervention of the great Powers in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire, but she had never felt and she could not feel that interest in the shocks agitating the ancient East which was inspired in her by the war which tore asunder a new country, rapidly grown to be one of the first in the world, and now threatened with being divided into two nations by the result of civil discords unexampled in their duration and bitterness. The whole world looked on in horror at the battles which ravaged America, and the diversity of opinions and impressions in Europe in respect to the two parties thus engaged across the Atlantic in a deathstruggle, gave rise to the most complex passions. Nowhere were these sentiments more complicated than in England; nowhere did hidden motives act more manifestly in the form of eloquent arguments and public declamations.

For months the dull rumblings of the coming earthquake had been audible to even the least attentive ears. John Brown, the enthusiastic apostle of abolition, had attempted for the last time an expedition for the purpose of liberating a few slaves; he had been seized at Harper's Ferry, on the confines of Virginia and