China for the time as a backwoodsman sometimes does with a tree in the American forests-' girdled' it with the axe, so as to mark it for felling at a more convenient opportunity. She had now got the cooperation of France. France had a complaint of long standing against China on account of the murder of some missionaries, for which redress had been asked in vain. The Emperor of the French was very glad to have an opportunity of joining his arms with those of England in any foreign enterprise. It advertised the empire cheaply; it showed to Frenchmen how active the Emperor was, and how closely he had at heart the honour and the interests of France. An expedition to China in association with England could not be much of a risk, and would look well in the newspapers; whereas if England were to be allowed

to

go alone she would seem to be making too much of a position for herself in the East. There was, therefore, an allied attack made upon Canton, and of course the city was easily captured. Commissioner Yeh himself was taken prisoner, not until he had been sought for and hunted out in most ignominious fashion. He was found at last hidden away in some obscure part of a house. He was known by his enormous fatness. One of our officers caught hold of him; Yeh tried still to get away. A British seaman seized Yeh by his pigtail, twisted the tail several times round his hand, and the unfortunate Chinese dignitary was thus a helpless and ludicrous prisoner. He was not hurt in any serious way; but otherwise he was treated with about as much consideration as

1858.

TREATY WITH CHINA.

161

schoolboys show towards a captured cat. The whole story of his capture may be read in the journals of the day, in some of which it is treated as though it were an exploit worthy of heroes, and as if a Chinese with a pigtail were obviously a person on whom any of the courtesies of war would be thrown away. When it was convenient to let loose Yeh's pigtail, he was put on board an English man-of-war, and afterwards sent to Calcutta, where he died early in the following year. Unless report greatly belied him he had been exceptionally cruel, even for a Chinese official. It was said that he had ordered the beheading of about one hundred thousand rebels. There may be exaggeration in this number, but, as Voltaire says in another case, even if we reduce the total to half, cela serait encore admirable.'

The English and French Envoys, Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, succeeded in making a treaty with China. By the conditions of the treaty, England and France were to have ministers at the Chinese Court, on certain special occasions at least, and China was to be represented in London and Paris; there was to be toleration of Christianity in China, and a certain freedom of access to Chinese rivers for English and French mercantile vessels, and to the interior of China for English and French subjects. China was to pay the expenses of the war. It was further agreed that the term 'barbarian' was no longer to be applied to Europeans in China. There was great congratulation in England over this treaty, and the prospect it afforded of a lasting peace with China.

The peace thus procured lasted in fact exactly a year.

Lord Palmerston then was out of office. Having nothing in particular to do, he presently went over to Compiègne on a visit to the Emperor of the French. For the second time his friendship for Louis Napoleon had cost him his place.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

'ON THE TRUE FAITH OF A CHRISTIAN.'

WHEN Mr. Disraeli became once more leader of the House of Commons, he must have felt that he had almost as difficult a path to tread as that of him described in 'Henry the Fourth,' who has to 'o'erwalk a current roaring loud on the unsteadfast footing of a spear.' The ministry of Lord Derby, whereof Mr. Disraeli was undoubtedly the sense-carrier, was not supported by a parliamentary majority, nor could it pretend to great intellectual and administrative ability. It had in its ranks two or three men of something like statesman capacity, and a number of respectable persons possessing abilities about equal to those of any intelligent business man or county magistrate. Mr. Disraeli of course became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Stanley undertook the Colonies; Mr. Walpole made a painstaking and conscientious Home Secretary, as long as he continued to hold the office. Lord Malmesbury muddled on with Foreign Affairs somehow; Lord Ellenborough's brilliant eccentric light perplexed for a brief space the Indian Department. General Peel was Secretary for War, and Mr. Henley President of the Board of Trade. Lord Naas, afterwards Lord Mayo, became

2

Chief Secretary for Ireland, and was then supposed to be nothing more than a kindly, sweet-tempered man, of whom his most admiring friends would never have ventured to foreshadow such a destiny as that he should succeed to the place of a Canning and an Elgin, and govern the new India to which so many anxious eyes were turned. Sir John Pakington was made First Lord of the Admiralty, because a place of some kind had to be found for him, and he was as likely to do well at the head of the navy as anywhere else. A ridiculous story, probably altogether untrue, used to be told of President Lincoln in some of the difficult days of the American Civil War. He wanted a commander-in-chief, and he happened to be in conversation with a friend on the subject of the war. Suddenly addressing the friend, he asked him if he had ever commanded an army. 'No, Mr. President,' was the reply. 'Do you think you could command an army?' 'I presume so, Mr. President; I know nothing to the contrary.' He was appointed Commander-in-Chief at once. One might without great stretch of imagination conceive of a conversation of the same kind taking place between Sir John Pakington and Lord Derby. Sir John Pakington had no reason to know that he might not prove equal to the administration of the navy, and he became First Lord of the Admiralty accordingly. No Conservative Government could be supposed to get on without Lord John Manners, and luckily there was the Department of Public Works for him.

Lord Stanley was regarded as a statesman of great