My Lord Mayor (be said), I should be very much to blame if, having an opportunity of addressing an assembly in this place, I omitted to call attention to the fact that the occasional misconduct of our own countrymen and other foreigners in China is one of the greatest, perhaps the very greatest, difficulties with which the Queen’s representatives there have to deal.  We send out to that country honourable merchants and devout missionaries, who scatter benefits in every part of the land they visit, elevating and raising the standard of civilisation wherever they go.  But sometimes, unfortunately, there slip out from among us dishonest traders and ruffians who disgrace our name and set the feelings of the people against us.  The public opinion of England can do much to encourage the one class of persons and discourage the other.  I trust that the moral influence of this great city will always be exerted in that direction.  In addressing the merchants of Shanghai some three years ago, at the time when I announced to them that it was my intention to seek a treaty in Pekin itself if I could not get it before I arrived there, I made this observation—­that when force and diplomacy should have effected in China all that they could legitimately accomplish, the work which we had to do in that empire would still be only in its commencement.  I repeat that statement now.  My gallant friend who spoke just now has returned his sword to the scabbard.  The diplomatist, as far as treaty- making is concerned, has placed his pen on the shelf.  But the great task of construction—­the task of bringing China, with its extensive territory, its fertile soil, and its industrious population, as an active and useful member, into the community of nations, and making it a fellow-labourer with ourselves in diffusing over the world happiness and well-being—­is one that yet remains to be accomplished.  No persons are more entitled or more fitted to take a part in that work than the merchants of this great city.  I implore them, then, to devote themselves earnestly to its fulfilment, and from the bottom of my heart I pray that their endeavours towards that end may be crowned with success.

[1] Vide supra, p. 310.

[2] It may not be out of place here to quote the words used later
    in the evening by Sir Hope Grant, in returning thanks for his own
    health:  ’With regard (he said) to what Lord Elgin has said about the
    destruction of the Summer Palace of the Emperor of China, I must say
    that I do candidly think it was a necessary act of retribution for an
    abominable murder which had been committed, and the army, as Well as
    myself, entirely concurred with him in what he did.’

CHAPTER XV.

INDIA.

APPOINTED VICEROY OP INDIA—­FOREBODINGS—­VOYAGE TO INDIA—­INSTALLATION—­
DEATHS OF MR. RITCHIE, LORD CANNING, GENERAL BRUCE—­THE HOT SEASON—­
BUSINESS RESUMED—­STATE OF THE EMPIRE—­LETTERS:  THE ARMY; CULTIVATION OP
COTTON; ORIENTALS NOT ALL CHILDREN; MISSIONARIES; RUMOURS OF DISAFFECTION;
ALARMS; MURDER OF A NATIVE; AFGHANISTAN; POLICY OF LORD CANNING;
CONSIDERATION FOR NATIVES.