ommercial ports of China, nor; in
fact, at present with China in general; and, again, we are at war with
Yeh, the poisoning Governor of Canton, but (which is strangest of all)
not with Yeh's master--the Tartar Emperor--locked up in a far-distant
Peking.

Another strange feature in this war is--the footing upon which our
alliances stand. For allies, it seems, we are to have; nominal, as
regards the costs of war, but real and virtual as regards its profits.
The French, the Americans,[3] and I believe the Belgians, have pushed
forward (absolutely in post-haste advance of ourselves) their several
diplomatic representatives, who are instructed duly to lodge their
claims for equal shares of the benefits reaped by our British fighting,
but with no power to contribute a single file towards the bloodshed of
this war, nor a single guinea towards its money costs. Napoleon I., in a
craze of childish spite towards this country, pleased himself with
denying the modern heraldic bearings of Great Britain, and resuscitating
the obsolete shield of our Plantagenets; he insisted that our true
armorial ensigns were the leopards. But really the Third Napoleon is
putting life and significance into his uncle's hint, and using us, as in
Hindostan they use the cheeta or hunting-leopard, for rousing and
running down his oriental game. It is true, that in certain desperate
circumstances, when no opening remains for pacific negotiation, these
French and American agents are empowered to send home for military
succours. A worshipful prospect, when we throw back our eyes upon our
own share in these warlike preparations, with all the advantages of an
unparalleled marine. Six months have slipped away since Lord Clarendon,
our Foreign Secretary, received, in Downing Street, Sir J. Bowring's
and Admiral Seymour's reports of Yeh's atrocities. Six calendar months,
not less, but more, by some days, have run past us since then; and
though some considerable part of our large reinforcements must have
reached their ground in April, and even the commander-in-chief (Sir John
Ashburnham) by the middle of May, yet, I believe, that many of the
gun-boats, on which mainly will rest the pursuit of Yeh's junks, if any
remain unabsconded northwards, have actually not yet left our own
shores. The war should naturally have run its course in one campaign.
Assuredly it will, if confined within the limits of Yeh's command, even
supposing that command to comprehend the two Quan