ng begun, Great Britain felt bound to see it through, with
the result that China was compelled to open four ports, to cede Hong
Kong, and to pay an indemnity of six hundred thousand pounds. So true is
it that statesmen have no concern with pater nosters, the Sermon on the
Mount, or the _vade mecum_ of the moralist. We shall soon see that this
transaction began to make Mr. Gladstone uneasy, as was indeed to be
expected in anybody who held that a state should have a conscience.[141]
On April 8, 1840, his journal says: 'Read on China. House.... Spoke
heavily; strongly against the trade and the war, having previously asked
whether my speaking out on them would do harm, and having been
authorised.' An unguarded expression brought him into a debating scrape,
but his speech abounded in the pure milk of what was to be the
Gladstonian word:--

I do not know how it can be urged as a crime against the Chinese
that they refused provisions to those who refused obedience to
their laws whilst residing within their territory. I am not
competent to judge how long this war may last, nor how protracted
may be its operations, but this I can say, that a war more unjust
in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this
country with disgrace, I do not know and I have not read of. Mr.
Macaulay spoke last night in eloquent terms of the British flag
waving in glory at Canton, and of the animating effect produced
upon the minds of our sailors by the knowledge that in no country
under heaven was it permitted to be insulted. But how comes it to
pass that the sight of that flag always raises the spirits of
Englishmen? It is because it has always been associated with the
cause of justice, with opposition to oppression, with respect for
national rights, with honourable commercial enterprise, but now
under the auspices of the noble lord [Palmerston] that flag is
hoisted to protect an infamous contraband traffic, and if it were
never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted on the coast of
China, we should recoil from its sight with horror, and should
never again feel our hearts thrill, as they now thrill, with
emotion when it floats magnificently and in pride upon the
breeze.... Although the Chinese were undoubtedly guilty of much
absurd phraseology, of no little ostentatious pride, and of some
excess, justice in my