Calcutta; and in June 1858 a treaty was signed, throwing open all China to
British subjects. In a third war (1859-60), to enforce the terms of that
treaty, Pekin surrendered, and its vast Summer Palace was sacked and
destroyed.

In January 1858, an attempt on the life of the Emperor Napoleon was made
by Orsini, an Italian refugee, who had hatched his plot and procured his
bomb-shells in England. Lord Palmerston therefore introduced a bill,
removing conspiracy to murder from the class of misdemeanour to that of
felony. The defeat of that bill, as a truckling to France, brought in the
second Derby administration, which lasted sixteen months, and in which a
professed Jew was first admitted to parliament, in the person of Baron
Rothschild. Another Jew, by race but not by creed, Mr Disraeli, was at the
time the leader of the House of Commons. His new Reform Bill satisfied
nobody; its rejection was followed by a dissolution; and Lord Palmerston
returned to office, June 1859.

Sardinia had aided France against Russia, and France was now aiding
Sardinia to expel the Austrians from Italy. The campaign was short and
successful; but rejoice as we might for the cause of Italian unity, the
French emperor's activity suggested his future invasion of Britain; and to
this period belongs the development, if not the beginning, of our
Volunteer army, which, from 150,000 in 1860, increased to upwards of
200,000 in twenty-five years. Still, a commercial treaty with France, on
free-trade lines, was negotiated between Louis Napoleon and Mr Cobden; and
Mr Gladstone carried it through parliament in the face of strong
opposition. Lord John Russell again introduced a Reform Bill, but the
apathy of Lord Palmerston, and the pressure of other business, led to its
quiet withdrawal. The rejection by the Lords of a bill to abolish the duty
on paper seemed likely at one time to lead to a collision between the two