The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-06 00:00:00

BAROMETEA-30.06.

WIND, Easterly; fresh, with fine weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 9h. 25m.--Afternoon, 10h. 7m.
To-Mon now-Morning, 10h. 49m.—Afternoon, 11h. Mtn.

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TIE SUN.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER G, 1859.

At length we are in possession of all the rn-
portant particulars relating to that unfortunate
disaster upon the Peiho Consequent upon the
abrupt and lawless rupture of the Treaty of Tien-
tsin by the Chinese themselves. The _London
Gazette of last evening has given the whole of the
correspondence seriatinz, verbatim et literatim. The
documents consist of twelve seperate despatches, with
a variety of minor, but some of these very im-
portant enclosures. The whole collection of
papers will be found in their entirety, and
therefore to the monopoly of very many of our
rttlzuns, in the earlier pages of our publication of
They begin, these official documents,
(as th(y
kith—the beginning, They set I

out in fact with (No. 1.) Lord MALMESBURY'S
really admirable, temperate, most explicit, and
most dignified instructions—dated Foreign office,
March 1, 1859—addressed to Mr. BRUCE, then pro-
ceeding on his momentous mission to China, as her
Britannic MAJESTY'S Envoy Extraordinary, and
Minister Plenipotentiary. They terminate with
(No. 12.) Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S no less admirable,
because in all essential respects equally temperate
explicit, and dignified rejoinder—dated Foreign-
office, Sept. 26, 1859—addressed to Mr. BRUCE in
acknowledgment of his despatches descriptive of
the Envoy's advance (according to instructions)
from Shanghai to the mouth of the Peiho, and of
the disaster which there befell the British expedi-
tionary force from the sudden unmasking of the
secretly-armed Chinese fortifications. The case is
now as clearly put before the world as lan-
guage well could put it. And so put, it
will serve for us at once as a signal vindi-
cation, before Posterity and before Christendom,
Nothing, really, in its way, could well have been
more carefully detailed, more minutely categori-
cal, so to speak, than Lord MALMESBURY'S instruc-
tions to Mr. BRUCE, in his character as Envoy to
Pekin. That minister is there enjoined by the
Foreign Secretary, in the first place, upon his ar-
rival at Hong-King, to supersede Sir JOHN Bow-
RING as Chief Superintendent of British Trade,
I making " arrangements for transferring the gene-
ral direction of British affairs in China to Shang-
hai at which port it is to be carried on until such
time as circumstances shall admit of its being per-

manently established at Pekin." It will be ob-
served particularly that Pekin is the goal which is
hold in view throughout this remarkable despatch, as
under any circumstances, Mr. BRUCE'S immediate
under some (contingently) his permanent, and'
under all, his ulterior destination !
First of all, however—before entering upon
this point, Lord MALMESBURY enjoins Mr.
BRUCE as follows—" You will not remain,"
says he, "at Hong Kong longer than is
absolutely necessary, but proceed to Shang-
hai on your way to Peiho." And his lordship adds
Her Majesty's Government were fully prepared
at once to carry out the provision of the Treaty of
Tien-tsinowhich admits of the permanent residence
of a British Ambassador at Pekin; but the obser-
vations on this point, which Lord ELGIN has so ably
laid before them, coupled with the fact that the
French Government, on considering Baron GROS'S
reports, have arrived at the same conclusion, have
determined Her Majesty's Government, for the
present at least, to fix at Shanghai the residence of
the British Mission, and only to require that it should
be received occasionally at Pekin." The one remain-
ing delicacy in the diplomatic situation growing out
of the treaty of Tien-tsin is, there, in those few but
sufficient words clearly defined. ‘; But," says Lord
MALMESBU ItY—having defined thus distinctly the
one remaining delicacy in the diplomatic situation
of affairs between the Western Powers and the

Chinese Government—" But you will be careful to
make the Chinese authorities at the capital and at
Shanghai distinctly understand that her MAJESTY'S
Government do not renounce the right of perma-
nent residence ; and, on the contrary, •will in-
stantly exercise it if at any time difficulties
are thrown in the way of communications be-
tween her MAJESTY'S Ministers and the Cen-
tral Government at Pekin, or any disposi-
tion shown to evade or defeat the objects of the
Treaty." There was obviously from this no over-
weening confidence in the mind of the English
Foreign Secretary as to the security of our new rela-
tions with the Chinese. To understand this, how-
ever, vet more clearly, it is only necessary to mark
well the prescient words that follow. " Her MA-
JESTY'S Government," wrote Lord MALMESBURY,
on the Ist of March last, " Are prepared to expect
that all the arts at which the Chinese are such
adepts will be put in practice to dissuade you
from repairing to the capital, even for the pur-
pose of exchanging the ratifications of the
Treaty ; BUT"—now let these words be here most
carefully noted—" it will be your duty firmly, but
temperately, to resist any propositions to that effect
and to admit of no excuses ; and you will say that
the effect of any persistence on the part of the
Chinese Government in throwing obstacles in the

way of your arrival at Pekin, and of the presenta-

tion of your credentials to the EMPEROR in per-
son, will be that her MAJESTY'S Government will
insist on the literal fulfilment of the Treaty, and
establish the Mission permanently at Pekin."
There is the very contingency to which we have
already referred. Insisting then upon the
necessity for the Envoy requiring point-
blank an honourable reception at the mouth
of the Peiho—Lord MALMESBURY observes,
" The Admiral in command of her MAJESTY'S
navallorces in China has been directed to send up
with you to the mouth of the Peiho a sufficient naval
force ;" and even adds the recommendation that the
Envoy should, if possible, proceed to Tien-tsin in a
British ship of war. Later on in this despatch the
Foreign Secretary remarks—" Although you will
insist upon your being received at Pekin, and will
refuse to exchange ratffications at any other place,
and will further decline to make any compromise
in regard to the time of your stay in the Chinese
capital or the frequency of your visits to it, her
MAJESTY'S Government are willing to leave to your
diiscretion the duration of your stay on the first
occasion." From this it will be seen that Mr. BRUCE
had discretionary power simply as to the length of
his first visit to Pekin—but as to his going there
at once, he was to insist upon that under
any and every circumstance ! So resolutely
bent, however, was the Foreign Secretary in en-
forcing upon the Envoy the absolute and imperative
necessity of his admitting upon no single pretext
whatever cf anything bearing even the shadowiest
semblance of an indignity to the British Crown

through its diplomatic representative, that Lord
MALMESEURY even goes so far as to write thus :
"Perhaps the best method of putting a stop to any
attempt to impose upon you in this respect, will be

that you should distinctly declare that you will
withdraw at once, even from the Presence Chamber
of the Sovereign, on the slightest appearance of a
disposition to treat you, and the office that you
hold, with disrespect." At the very mouth of the
Peiho----was there no disrespect in the booms and
stakes, and the insolent messages from underlings,
and the lawless gun fired as the signal for the mur-
derous cannonade opened upon a handful of men
by 20,000 bombardiers lurking there in
infamous ambuscade to welcome the advent
of a friendly ambassador ?

No wonder, remembering the great crimes
perpetrated by the Chinese upon the Peiho,
and seeing what were the explicit instruc-
tions given to Mr. BRUCE by Lord MALMES-
BURY at the time of the Envoy's departure
in March--no wonder, we say, that Lord JOAN
RUSSELL, in his despatch, dated the 26th of this
last September, should write in the name of heir
MAJESTY__" Your conduct in insisting upon being
received at Pekin, and in proceeding to the month
of the Peiho, was in strict conformity with your
instrUctions." His Lordship adding —" Upon
arriving at the mouth of the Peiho you were
placed in circumstances of great difficulty. In
selecting the course you were to- pursue you
were obliged to found that course rDaiuly upon pre-

sumptive evidence." So difficult indeed was Mr.
BRUCE'S position at that moment that the Foreign
Secretary is constrained to observe thereupon,
" That her MAJESTY'S Government, without being
able in the present state of their information to
judge precisely what measures it might have
been most advisable for you to adopt at the moment
see nothing in the decision that you took to diminish
the confidence which they repose in you." " Her
MAJESTY," writes the Minister, " deeply regrets
the loss of life which attended the gallant though
unsuccessful efforts of the British and French forces
to clear the passage of the river. But her Majesty
has commanded preparations to be made which will
enable her forces, in conjunction with those of his
Majesty the Emperor of the French, to support you
in the execution of the instructions which will be
hereafter addressed to you." And so with that
significant closing sentence of the twelfth despatch
ends this remarkable correspondence. We have
been thus careful in analysing Lord MALMESBURY'S
despatch (No. 1) of the Ist of March, and Lord
JOHN RUSSELL'S despatch (No. 12) of the 26th of
September, because those two documents, in reality,
constitute the very Alpha and Omega in the record
of these momentous transactions.

During six months Ministers are free to prepare
their plans—undisturbed in their deliberations by
either side in either of the two Houses of Parlia-
ment. This is, of course, in accordance with con-
stitutional usage. Autumnal sessions are excep-
tional events recorded only now and then, at un-
welcome intervals, in the annals of our Legislature.
There was a rumour towards the close of this last
QefiCl/11.1 that cnrapthinz of this kind was again in
preparation—that her MAJESTY'S present advisers
were so eager for Reform that they must needs, at
any cost and at every hazard, summon Parliament
to re-assemble at the very latest, early in November.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL especially, it was intimated,
regarded himself as in some mysterious manner,
and for some inexplicable reasons, and through some
utterly incomprehensible conjuncture or concatina-
tion of circumstances, pledged—that was the word—
"pledged" to an autumnal session as a sine qua
non ! As, in fact, the one simple but inexorable
condition, upon the concession of which, by his
colleagues generally, he consented to sink his own
claims to the Premiership— magnanimously agree-
ing to devote, in a subordinate position, the whole
of his immense genius and herculean energies—for
the good of the country and for the advantage of
the Crown—to the conduct of the affairs of her
MAJESTY'S Government. Parliament, in fact, was
prorogued upon this tacit understanding—that it
would, in all probability, meet again for a brief but
important autumnal session some time in the early
palA of November. In the sacred interests of
Reform, it was said, that the man who, among all
men now living, regards himself as incomparably
beyond all others the Arch• Champion of the
Cause, would insist upon the autumnal session
as a matter of certainty. And so, with this
Fata Morgana glimmering exquisitely in the air
before them, the more credulous and infatuated be-
lievers in the great Whig Reformer witnessed the
close of the last session "ST ith a certain degree of
equanimity. Granted, they said, that the new,
grand, liberal, reforming Coalition Government has

ended this session without whispering one hint as
to their projects in regard to Reform—granted that
upon this one paramount question of Reform
Ministers have remained inscrutably and imper-
turbably dumb to the very last—granted that Mr.
BRIGHT'S " unsubstantial pageant" has " faded"
out entirely, leaving " not a wrack behind" (saving
and excepting alone the rack upon which the
nation was kept during the period in which that
Halcyon Measure was being promulgated)—granted
that Mr. DISRAELI'S bill is as irretrievably lost as
the wand of PRosPERo was broken, or his book
sunk in the ocean deeper than ever plummet
sounded—yet are the nation's hopes of Reform
certain of realisation through the new Reform
Bill of the true Reformers for Lord JOHN
RUSSELL is " pledged" to bring forward the Go-
vernment measure in an extraordinary autumn
session not later than the beginning of next No-
vember. Rumours of this kind were, of course, got
up simply " for a purpose." And that purpose
having been served—they are quashed now conve-
niently as utterly ridiculous.

An autumnal session was never once seri-
ously thought of by Lord JOHN or by any
one of his fifteen colleagues. They were al-
together too wise in their generation. They
felt instinctively that by insisting upon an au-
tumnal session—especially an autumn session con-
vened for the purpose of introducing a new project
of Parliamentary Reform—they would be courting
peril, if not actual destruction. Old birds like
Lord JOHN and Lord PALMERSTON were not to
be caught so easily by the empty and worthless
" chaff" of a little possible increase to their popu-
larity. Six months' quiet power "in hand" was
better than six years of it to be sought for wild
". in the bush," through the risk of a precipitate
Reform Bill introduced prematurely in November.
Ministers, in fact, at the close of the session,
gladly gave themselves half-a-year's immunity from
the danger of a defeat in Parliament. Predisposed
to do so, more especially remembering, as they could
hardly fail to do, that their exceedingly minute
majority in the House of Commons had been reduced
to something just" next to nothing "—to something
even bearing a rather alarming resemblance to a mi-
nority—through the adverse deci.tions of a series of
extremely annoying election committees! Therefore,
as a matter of common sense, and of the most ordi-
nary prudence, when Parliament was prorogued for
the long vacation in August, it was really pro-
rogued until February.
Six months' grace therefore fell in due
course to the lot of her MAJESTY'S Ministers.
Upon their use of that interval upon their
mode of availing themselves of that golden
opportunity—will depend their own fortunes in
1860. If they postpone everything to the evil day
when Parliament shall have re-assembled, they will
infallibly go the way of their predecessors. If
their occasional Cabinet Councils mean merely what
Cabinet Councils generally do mean—namely, .a
careless club-room sort of chat about this, that, and
the other, while every question that ought to be
seriously discussed is, on the contrary, systemati-
cally shirked as inconvenient—then will they
assuredly and inevitably have to look out for squalls
in their management of the State Vessel. Parlia-
ment, the Public, the Press—are each and all of
them sick to very death of this wretchedly affected
• •
dilletantiism in statesmanship, this frivolous pro-
crastination of all the vital interests of the hour—a
system of government the promoters of which
appear to be perfectly satisfied with, if only they
can contrive so to conduct affairs that they keep
their opponents Out and themselves In. Ministers,
therefore, ought distinctly to understand this—that
they, in a peculiar manner, hold at this moment
their fate iu their own hafids ! and that according
to their use of the next four months October,
November, December, and January—will be their
prospects for good or for evil in February, upon
the re-assembling of the Lords and Commons.

The Wakefield and Gloucester Election Commis-
sioners are still proceeding with their inquiries.

LATEST NEWS.

THE BOMBAY, CALCUTTA,
AND AUSTRALIAN MAILS.

(BY SUBMARINE AND BRITISH TELEGRAPH.)
The following telegram has been received from
Marseilles :

CALCUTTA, AUG. 31.

The Government has increased the license-tax
to an income-tax of 7d. in the pound on all in-
comes above £25 a Sear; officials and landlords
are exempted.

The Council refuses to pass the bill without a
clear statement of receipts and expenditure, and
denounces the clause exempting officials.

We have been favoured with the following from
the Red Sea and India Telegraph Company :
Mr. Gisborne, Alexandria, to Charles L. Peel, Esq.,
London.—Dated, Sept. 28.
The Columbian arrived at Aden on the 21st, with
Bombay dates to the 12th.

The Nana and Begum are in Nepaul, and Ro-
maine is watching. Feroze Shah is in Central
India.

Disturbances seem imminent on the coast of
Kattywar. A report states that the people of
Jeypore will not comply with the disarming order.
Captain Richards, of the Central India Field Force,
has compelled Chuttersall, a leading rebel, to sur-
render.

China dates to August reached Bombay on the
2d inst. There is no additional news of import-
ance.

The ship Admiral Boxer was wrrcked 14 miles
from Kurrachee ; all lives saved.
Import markets steady. No change in prices.
Export market less active.
Exchange on London, six months, 2s. 13d.
Freights to London, 12s. 6d. to 17s. 6d. ; to
Liverpool, 12s. 6d. to 20s.