November 8th.—­I have been absent for four days on a tour....  I liked Macao, because there is some appearance about it of a history, —­convents and churches, the garden of Camoens, &c.  The Portuguese have been in China about three hundred years.  Hong-kong was a barren rock fifteen years ago.  Macao is Catholic, Hong-kong Protestant.  So these causes combined give the former a wonderful superiority in all that is antique and monumental.

    November 14th.—­I have received your letters to September 24th.... 
    The Government approve entirely of my move to Calcutta, and Lord
    Clarendon writes very cordially on the subject.

November 15th.—­I have seen the Russian Plenipotentiary....  He has been at Kiachta and the mouth of the Peiho, asking for admission to Pekin, and got considerably snubbed at both places, as I should have been if I had gone there.  It will devolve on me, I apprehend, to administer the return, which is not, I think, a bad arrangement for British prestige in the East.

[Sidenote:  Beginning of serious work.]

Steamer ‘Ava,’ Hong-kong.—­November 17th.—­My serious work is about to begin.  I must draw up a challenge for Yeh, which is a delicate matter.  Gros showed me a projet de note when I called on him some days ago.  It is very long, and very well written.  The fact is, that he has a much better case of quarrel than we; at least one that lends itself much better to rhetoric.  An opium-ship came in from Calcutta yesterday.  It brought me nothing from Canning.  It is clear, however, that things are getting better with him.  I think it probable that my despatch anticipating a favourable turn of affairs there, and founding on that anticipation a demand for reinforcements, will reach England at the very time when the news from India justifying that anticipation will be received....  The Government and public in England would not believe there was any danger in India for a long time, and consequently allowed the season for precautionary measures to pass by, and then made up for their apathy by the most exaggerated apprehensions.  My mind has been more tranquil, for it has not presented these phases.  As soon as I heard of Canning’s difficulties, I determined to do what I could for him; but it never occurred to me that we were to act as if the game was up with us in the East.

[Sidenote:  How to govern a democracy.]

The secret of governing a democracy is understood by men in power at present.  Never interfere to check an evil until it has attained such proportions that all the world see plainly the necessities of the case.  You will then get any amount of moral and material support that you require; but if you interfere at an earlier period, you will get neither thanks nor assistance!  I am not at all sure but that the time is approaching when foresight will be a positive disqualification