The importance of the determination, thus simply announced, can hardly be exaggerated.  ‘Tell Lord Elgin,’ wrote Sir William Peel, the heroic leader of the celebrated Naval Brigade, after the neck of the rebellion was broken, ’tell Lord Elgin that it was the Chinese Expedition that relieved Lucknow, relieved Cawnpore, and fought the battle of the 6th December.’  Nor would it be easy to praise too highly the large and patriotic spirit which moved the heads of the Expedition to an act involving at once so generous a renunciation of all selfish hopes and prospects, and so bold an assumption of responsibility.  Proofs were not wanting afterwards that the sacrifice was appreciated by the Queen and the country; but these were necessarily deferred, and it was all the more gratifying, therefore, to Lord Elgin to receive, at the time and on the spot, the following cordial expressions of approval from a distinguished public servant, with whom he was himself but slightly acquainted—­Sir H. Ward, then Governor of Ceylon:—­

“You may think me impertinent in volunteering an opinion upon what in the first instance only concerns you and the Queen and Lord Canning.  But having seen something of public life during a great part of my own, which is now fast verging into the “sere and yellow leaf,” I may venture to say that I never knew a nobler thing than that which you have done in preferring the safety of India to the success of your Chinese negotiations.  If I know anything of English public opinion, this single act will place you higher, in general estimation as a statesman, than your whole past career, honourable and fortunate as it has been.  For it is not every man who would venture to alter the destination of a force upon the despatch of which a Parliament has been dissolved, and a Government might have been superseded.  It is not every man who would consign himself for many months to political inaction in order simply to serve the interests of his country.  You have set a bright example at a moment of darkness and calamity; and, if India can be saved, it is to you that we shall owe its redemption, for nothing short of the Chinese expedition could have supplied the means of holding our ground until further reinforcements are received.”

For the time the disappointment was great.  His occupation was gone, and with it all hope of a speedy end to his labours.  Six weary months he waited, powerless to act and therefore powerless to negotiate, and feeling that every week’s delay tended to aggravate the difficulties of the situation in China.

Singapore.—­June 5th.—­It is, of course, difficult to conjecture how this Indian business may affect us in China, and I shall await our next news from India with no little anxiety.  Await it, I say, for there is no prospect of my getting on from here at present.  There is no word of the ‘Shannon’ and till she arrives I am a fixture.

[Sidenote:  Convict establishment.]