plication; and I have further to
signify to you that her majesty's government peremptorily forbid you to
undertake any further offensive operations against the Chinese without
their previous sanction. Her majesty's government are satisfied that,
although the late operations in the Canton River were attended with
immediate success, the risk of a second attempt of the same kind would
far overbalance any advantage to be derived from such a step. If the
conduct of the Chinese authorities should, unfortunately, render another
appeal to arms inevitable, it will be necessary that it should be made
after due preparation, and with the employment of such an amount of
force as may afford just grounds for expecting that the objects which
may be proposed by such a measure will be effectually accomplished
without unnecessary loss."

Lord Grey was right, that a similar expedition, if made with the same
force, would probably fail. General D'Aguilar knew that rather better
than Lord Grey, and did not need a pompous despatch from the Colonial
Office to inform him of it. But the general did not mean to attempt
the same thing with the same force, and therefore sent for aid where he
might naturally have expected to derive the little he sought. There
can be no doubt that if matters had been left to the general's own
discretion, and his forces been adequately strengthened, he would
have performed what was proper to the occasion, and, perhaps, all that
English safety and interests required, and thereby have averted future
conflict, as well as the humiliations which Englishmen had to endure,
and to punish at a great cost of treasure and immense sacrifice of
blood.

_France_.--The Spanish marriages caused stormy debates in the French
chambers, which reflected much moral discredit upon the King of the
French, his minister Guizot, his ambassador M. Bresson, the queen and
queen-mother of Spain, and Narvaez, the chief abettor and tool of the
faction of Christina. The eloquent denunciations of M. Thiers
against Guizot and his policy told upon the French mind, and led to
modifications in the cabinet; but this clever invective was purely in
the spirit of party: the honour of France and the love of truth were as
little considered by the one leader as the other. The British government
maintained an attitude of coldness to that of France, but it was not
possible to act independently of it: in many of the affairs of other
countries to which England stood