, on whom they could lay their hands.
Certain Americans and Europeans took them up at first because they
introduced a parody of some Christian doctrines into their
manifestoes. But these gentlemen are now, I think, heartily ashamed of
the sympathy which they gave them.

_July 26th._--I heard yesterday a good piece of news. The Emperor has
named my friends, the Imperial Commissioners, to come down here to
settle the tariff, &c. This, I think, proves that the Emperor has made
up his mind to accept the Treaty and carry it out. I hope also that it
will enable me to settle the Canton affair.

A few days later, finding that some weeks must elapse before the Imperial
Commissioners could arrive, he sailed for Nagasaki, in order to turn the
interval to account by endeavouring to negotiate a treaty with the Japanese
Government in accordance with the instructions which he had received when
leaving England.

[1] Those who remember the somewhat angry discussion which, arose
afterwards about this delay, its causes and its consequences, may be
struck with the fact that the subject is scarcely alluded to in any of
the extracts here given. The omission is intentional: Lord Elgin's
friends having no desire to rate up an extinct controversy which he
would have been the last to wish to see revived, and respecting which,
they have nothing to add to--as they have nothing to withdraw from--
what he himself stated in the House of Lords on February 21, 1860.

[2] Another article of the Treaty, though of less importance in
itself, has been brought by recent events into so much prominence that
it may be desirable to give in full the views of its author respecting
it. In his despatch of July 12, having mentioned, as one of the
principal commercial advantages obtained by British subjects, the
settlement of the vexed question of the transit duties, he proceeds:--

This subject presented considerable difficulty. As duties of octroi
are levied universally in China, on native as well as foreign
products, and as canals and roads are kept up at the expense of the
Government, it seemed to be unreasonable to require that articles,
whether of foreign or native production, by the simple process of
passing into the hands of foreigners, should become entitled to the
use of roads and canals toll-free, and should, moreover, be