they
arrived. Many of them were purchased, for the northern ports, by
speculators, who, to a man, did well with them. Prices not only kept up,
in spite of the heavy import duties, but actually continued to advance
till the end of the year, when they were twenty per cent. higher than
when all the cry was, "What is to become of these goods?" This spirited
demand for goods at Canton and Hong Kong, continued up to March last,
when I sailed from China. Whether the supply sent out this season, has
exceeded the demand, or not, I have no means of ascertaining, while
writing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; but I have no fear as to
the result of any shipments that may have been made.

That the thanks of the mercantile world in general, and of its members
in Great Britain in particular, are due to Sir Henry Pottinger for the
very satisfactory conclusion to which he has brought the recent
disturbances with China, and to Sir Hugh Gough and Sir William Parker
for the gallant manner in which the warlike portion of the work was
conducted, every unprejudiced man must allow. Though Sir Henry had not
left China when I sailed, I presume that he will be in England before me
_via_ Egypt; and nothing would give me greater pleasure on my arrival,
than to find that he had been rewarded by his Sovereign by being made
"Earl Nankin." His career has been a brilliant one; and that he may live
many years to enjoy the fruits of his exertions, must be the wish of all
that are likely to benefit by them.[26]

[Footnote 26: No such honour has been paid to Sir Henry, though
his reception by his Sovereign, the Government, and the public,
has been such as must amply have gratified him and all his
friends.]

Whether or not we are shortly to have another Chinese war, is a problem
I do not pretend to be able to solve: there are various opinions on the
subject; but my own is, that every thing depends on the foreigners
themselves. If the Consuls and others sent by Government to the five
trading ports are firm and resolute men, who will never suffer the
slightest infringement of the Treaty by the Chinese, without an
energetic remonstrance,--if the captains of ships of war stationed at
the five ports are strict in maintaining order among the masters and
crews of the shipping of their nation,--if mercantile men take care, on
the one hand, to give no cause of complaint by smuggling or otherwise,
to the Chinese Authorities, and, on the other h