march directly through the Russian country
to England. By carrying the war home to
them, and occupying their own country, we
should for ever banish them from our shores."
Doubtless the writer had in his mind a fine
picture of a Chinese army scaling London
Wall. As for the English army on the
Chinese coast, the Emperor directed Keshen
to send "the heads of the rebellious barbarians
to Peking in baskets;" and Keshen judiciously
replied: "I bear them many a grudge for the
difficulties with which they have surrounded
me, and only abide my time for exterminating
them—whenever it can be done."

Before the Opium War the Chinese people
were not allowed to carry firearms, or to
purchase iron, except under restrictions which
would put a check on its conversion into
weapons. During the war the exigencies of
defence caused the authorities to urge the
people into troops of volunteer militia. The
bad fighting of the Chinese soldiers, and the
absurdly vainglorious misrepresentations of
the Chinese leaders, are sufficiently notorious.
The armed people became in a large
proportion plunderers, who took advantage of
all hours of licence for the commission of
detestable excesses. The experience of the
English in the Chinese War led them very
much to prefer the Tartars to the native
Chinamen; they were both braver and more
reasonable enemies. "Throughout the war
and subsequent pacification," says Sir John
Davis, "the implacable hostility, the
obstinate persistence, and unwillingness to yield
a single point, were, with only a few
exceptions, displayed by the mandarins of
CHINESE extraction; while the moderate
advice, and ultimately the peace itself, were
the work of Mantchou TARTARS." If it should
hereafter appear, as possibly it may, that the
chief result of the Opium War is the
overthrow of Tartar influence, and the restoration
of the dynasty of Ming, or any other set of
Chinese emperors, then it will be pretty
certain that the prospects of a friendly
commerce with China have not been cleared,
but rather clouded, by our thunder.

The arming of the people was the first step
towards the internal contest that is just now
occupying Tartars and Chinese. Many such
proclamations as the following, by Yukien,
were issued during the war: "The barbarians
have become outrageous, taken possession of
Tinghae, slain our mandarins and soldiers,
and committed such excesses as to raise a
general indignation against them. You, the
inhabitants of these districts, have always
been famed for bravery, and I now call
upon the strongest and most martial among
you, to take up arms on your own account in
order to repel the enemy. Assemble from your
villages with every possible weapon, and repair
to this station, that I may despatch you to
accomplish the work of destruction. Every
one enlisting in the militia will receive three
hundred tchen a day" (something under two
shillings), "and honours and emoluments
will wait those who can kill the foreign
banditti."

Robbers on land and pirates on the sea,
more numerous than they had ever before
been, pillaged and murdered their more
quiet countrymen after the conclusion of the
peace. Against the humiliation implied by
the terms of peace the war party, headed by
the literati, protested loudly. "An army,"
said one of them to the Emperor, "has
retreated along the banks of the Yang-tse-
Kiang; the Great Canal is in the possession
of the enemy; and the Commissioners even
dare to report that Nanking would not be
tenable! Instead of inspiring awe and terror,
they lose themselves utterly in fear and
trepidation, and engage to pay the English
above twenty millions in dollars—a sum which
is nearly a year's revenue. They, moreover,
open to them five ports, and cede territory in
order to obtain peace. In addition to this,
they likewise crave that the conventions
which they have concluded may have the
impress of the imperial seal, just as if a
debtor were going to give a bond, or the
seller of property drawing up a deed! Can
such men be aware of what dynasty they
serve; and will not the tributary states on
hearing of this, look with contempt upon
China? This is the detriment which has
accrued to the majesty of the empire."

The detriment which has accrued to the
majesty of the empire has brought the
imperial power into contempt. The people,
during the Opium War, heard the great boastings
of the generals, and saw how constantly
they ran away; they felt that the Emperor
could not defend them, and they who were
themselves in arms felt that for all excesses
that they might commit, and did commit,
there was no law strong enough to bring
them to account. Authority fell into
contempt. The cost of the defence against the
English taxed to the utmost the imperial
resources; and when they were still further
taxed during the peace to pay for the expense
of the attack by which they had been subdued,
the Emperor was fairly smothered with
pecuniary difficulties, and forced into shifts and
schemes of the most perilous description.
We will trace presently the consequences
which have followed upon such beginnings of
the peace. Before we inquire, however, in
how far China is the worse for the late
war—let us see by how much Europe is the
better.

By the commercial treaty between England
and China, it was provided, on the one hand,
that the advantages secured by it to one
European state were to be the common
property of all; and on the other hand it was
stipulated, that any future additional advantages
that might be granted to another state
should be considered as extending to the
English also. The chief commercial
objections to the nature of our former intercourse