Lord Aberdeen, who did not hope very great things from the war which had initiated during his Ministry, had yet deemed it possible that Eastern Europe might reap from it the benefit of a quarter of a century’s peace.  He was curiously near the mark in this estimate; but neither he nor any other English statesman was unwary enough to risk such a prophecy as to the general tranquillity of the Continent.  In fact, the peace of Europe, broken in 1853, has been unstable enough ever since, and from time to time tremendous wars have shaken it.  Into none of these, however, has Great Britain been again entrapped, though the sympathies of its people have often been warmly enlisted on this side and that.  A war with China, which began in 1857, and cannot be said to have ended till 1860, though in the interim a treaty was signed which secured just a year’s cessation of hostilities, was the most important undertaking in which the allied forces of France and England took part after the Crimea.  In this war the allies were victorious, as at that date any European Power was tolerably certain to be in a serious contest with China.  The closing act of the conflict—­the destruction of the Summer Palace at Pekin, in retaliation for the treacherous murder of several French and English prisoners of distinction—­was severely blamed at the time, but defended on the ground that only in this way could any effectual punishment of the offence be obtained.  That act of vengeance and the war which it closed have an interest of their own in connection with the late General Gordon, who now entered on that course of extraordinary achievement which lacks a parallel in this century, and which began, in the interests of Chinese civilisation, shortly after he had taken a subordinate officer’s part in the work of destruction at Pekin.

From this date England did not commit itself to any of the singular series of enterprises which our good ally, the French Emperor, set on foot.  A feeling of distrust towards that potentate was invading the minds of the very Englishmen who had most cordially hailed his successes and met his advances.  “The Emperor’s mind is as full of schemes as a warren is full of rabbits, and, like rabbits, his schemes go to ground for the moment to avoid notice or antagonism,” were the strong words of Lord Palmerston in a confidential letter of 1860; and when he could thus think and write, small wonder if calmer and more unprejudiced minds saw need for standing on their guard.  Amid all the flattering demonstrations of friendship of which the French court had been lavish, and which had been gracefully reciprocated by English royality, the Prince Consort had retained an undisturbed perception of much that was not quite satisfactory in the qualifications of the despotic chief of the French State for his difficult post.  Thus it is without surprise that we find the Queen writing in 1859, as to a plan suggested by the Emperor:  “The whole scheme is the often-attempted one, that England should take the chestnuts from the fire, and assume the responsibility of making proposals which, if they lead to war, we should be in honour bound to support by arms.”  The Emperor had once said of Louis Philippe, that he had fallen “because he was not sincere with England”; it looked now as though he were steering full on the same rock, for his own sincerity was flawed by dangerous reservations.