ilisations.
Neither our own consciences nor the judgment of mankind will acquit us
if, when we are asked to what use we have turned our opportunities, we
can only say that we have filled our pockets from among the ruins
which we have found or made.'

[4] Despatch of Jan. 22, 1859.

[5] As Minister at the Court of Pekin.

[6] In a parting letter he pointed out to the Admiral how desirable it was
that the ambassador who went to Pekin to exchange the ratifications of
the Treaty should be supported by an imposing force, and suggested
that with this view a sufficient fleet of gunboats should be
concentrated at once at Shanghae.

CHAPTER XII.

SECOND MISSION TO CHINA. OUTWARD.

LORD ELGIN IN ENGLAND--ORIGIN OF SECOND MISSION TO CHINA--GLOOMY PROSPECTS
--EGYPT--THE PYRAMIDS--THE SPHINX--PASSENGERS HOMEWARD BOUND--CEYLON--
SHIPWRECK--PENANG--SINGAPORE--SHANGHAE--MEETING WITH MR. BRUCE--TALIEN--
WHAN--SIR HOPE GRANT--PLANS FOR LANDING.

[Sidenote: Lord Elgin in England.]

When Lord Elgin returned, in 1854, from the Government of Canada, there
were comparatively few persons in England who knew or cared anything about
the great work which he had done in the colony. But his brilliant successes
in the East attracted public interest, and gave currency to his reputation;
and when he returned from China in the spring of 1859 he was received with
every honour. Two great parliamentary chiefs, Lord Derby and Lord Grey,
from opposite sides of the House of Lords, contended for the credit of
having first introduced him into public life. Lord Palmerston, who was at
the time engaged in forming a new Administration, again offered him a place
in it, and he accepted the office of Postmaster-General. The students of
Glasgow paid him the compliment of electing him as their Lord Rector; and
the merchants of London showed their sense of what he had done for their
commerce, first by the enthusiastic reception which they gave him at a
dinner at the Mansion House, and afterwards by conferring upon him the
freedom of their city.

Lord Elgin was not one of those men, if any such there be, who are
indifferent to the appreciation of their fellows. He could, indeed, in a
mock-cynical humour, write of what a man must do 'if he thinks it worth
while to stand well with others:'[1] but in himself there was nothing of
the cynic, and to stand well with others was to his genial nature a source
of genuine and undisg