第26章

Nobody will fancy that the Hon. Mr. Bruce acted on his own responsibility in thus baffling the ostensible end aimed at by the last Chinese war, but that, on the contrary, he only executed secret instructions received from London. Now, it is true that Mr. Bruce was dispatched, not by Palmerston, but by Derby; but, then I have only to remind you that during the first administration of Sir Robert Peel, when Lord Aberdeen kept the seals of the Foreign Office, Sir Henry Bulwer, the English Ambassador at Madrid, picked a quarrel with the Spanish Court, resulting in his expulsion from Spain, and that, during the debates in the House of Lords on this " untoward event,", it was proved that Bulwer, instead of obeying the official instructions of Aberdeen, had acted up to the secret instructions of Palmerston, who then sat on the Opposition benches.

A manoeuvre has also been carried out during these last days in the Palmerstonian press, which leaves no doubt, at least to those acquainted with the secret history of English diplomacy during the last thirty years, as to the real author of the Peiho catastrophe and the impending third AngloChinese war. The Times intimates that the guns planted on the forts of Taku which caused such havoc among the British squadron were of Russian origin, and were directed by Russian officers.

Another Palmerstonian organ is still more plain spoken. I quote:

"We now perceive how closely the policy of Russia is interwoven with that of Peking; we detect great movements on the Amur; we discern large Cossack armies manoeuvring far beyond Lake Baikal, in the frozen dreamland on the twilight borders of the Old World;we trace the course of innumerable caravans; we espy a special Russian envoy" (Gen. Mouravieff, the Governor of Eastern Siberia)"making his way, with secret designs, from the remoteness of Eastern Siberia to the secluded Chinese metropolis; and well may public opinion in this country bum at the thought that foreign influences have had a share in procuring our disgrace and the slaughter of our soldiers and sailors."Now, this is one of Lord Palmerston's old tricks. When Russia wanted to conclude a treaty of commerce with China, he drove the latter by the opium war into the arms of her northern neighbour. When Russia requested the cession of the Amur, he brought it about by the second Chinese war, and now that Russia wants to consolidate her influence at Peking, he extemporizes the third Chinese war. In all his transactions with the weak Asiatic States, with China, Persia, Central Asia, Turkey, it has always been his invariable and constant rule to ostensibly oppose Russia's designs by picking a quarrel, not with Russia, but with the Asiatic State, to estrange the latter from England by piratical hostilities, and by this roundabout way drive it to the concessions it had been unwilling to yield to Russia. You may be sure that on this occasion the whole past Asiatic policy of Palmerston will be again sifted, and I draw, therefore, your attention to the Afghan papers ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on the 8th June, 1859.

They throw more light on Palmerston's sinister policy, and the diplomatic history of the last thirty years, than any documents ever before printed. The case is, in a few words, this:

In 1838 Palmerston commenced a war against Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Cabul, a war that led to the destruction of an English army, and was commenced on the plea of Dost Mohammed having entered into a secret alliance against England with Persia and Russia. In proof of this assertion, Palmerston laid, in 1839, before Parliament, a Blue Book, chiefly consisting of the correspondence of Sir A. Burnes, the British envoy at Cabul, with the Government at Calcutta. Burnes had been assassinated during an insurrection at Cabul against the English invaders, but, distrustful of the British Foreign Minister, had sent copies of some of his official letters to his brother, Dr. Burnes, at London. On the appearance, in 1839, of the "Afghan papers," prepared by Palmerston, Dr. Burnes accused him of having "garbled and forged the dispatches of the late Sir A. Burnes," and, in corroboration of his statement, had some of the genuine despatches printed. But it was only last summer that the murder came out. Under the Derby Ministry, on the motion of Mr. Hadfield, the House of Commons ordered all the Afghan papers to be published infull, and this order has been executed in such a form as to constitute a demonstration, to the meanest capacity, of the truth of the charge of garbling and forgery, in the interest of Russia. On the title-page of the Blue Book appears the following: