of the country until
1840 so clearly shows. It is also easy to understand that Lord Elgin
should have regarded the scheme in contemplation as likely to create a
feeling of doubt and suspicion as to the motives of the imperial
government in the minds of the people of the United States. He
recalled naturally his important visit to that country, where he had
given eloquent expression, as the representative of the British Crown,
to his sanguine hopes for the continuous amity of peoples allied to
each other by so many ties of kindred and interest, and had also
succeeded after infinite labour in negotiating a treaty so well
calculated to create a common sympathy between Canada and the
republic, and stimulate that friendly intercourse which would dispel
many national prejudices and antagonisms which had unhappily arisen
between these communities in the past. The people of the United States
might well, he felt, see some inconsistency between such friendly
sentiments and the sending of large military reinforcements to Canada.

In the spring of 1857 Lord Elgin accepted from Lord Palmerston a
delicate mission to China at a very critical time when the affair of
the lorcha "Arrow" had led to a serious rupture between that country
and Great Britain. According to the British statement of the case, in
October, 1856, the Chinese authorities at Canton seized the lorcha
although it was registered as a British vessel, tore down the British
flag from its masthead, and carried away the crew as prisoners. On the
other hand the Chinese claimed that they had arrested the crew, who
were subjects of the emperor, as pirates, that the British ownership
had lapsed some time previously, and that there was no flag flying on
the vessel at the time of its seizure. The British representatives in
China gave no credence to these explanations but demanded not only a
prompt apology but also the fulfilment of "long evaded treaty
obligations." When these peremptory demands were not at once complied
with, the British proceeded in a very summary manner to blow up
Chinese forts, and commit other acts of war, although the Chinese only
offered a passive resistance to these efforts to bring them to terms
of abject submission. Lord Palmerston's government was condemned in
the House of Commons for the violent measures which had been taken in
China, but he refused to submit to a vote made up, as he satirically
described it, "of a fortuitous concourse of atoms," and ap