_pottering_ about the extremities of the empire, month after month, even
year after year, at a ruinous expense, in a way justly calculated to
excite the derision of even the Chinese--of the whole world who had
heard of our mode of procedure. It will be in vain for the late
Government to endeavour meanly to make Captain Elliot their scapegoat.
Let them, if they can, satisfy the nation that, in all he appears to
have done so ineffectually and disgracefully, he did not act according
to the strict orders of the late Government; that in all he would have
done, and wished to have done, viz. to carry hostilities at once, with
an adequate force, to the right point of attack, he was not either
positively overruled, or left without advice and authority. Owing to
their own want of forethought, of energy, and of practical knowledge,
and their financial mismanagement, even if they had contemplated the
plan of operations which led ultimately to the successful enterprize on
which we are now justly congratulating ourselves, they _could_ not, they
_did not_ act upon them. No, it was left for the present Government,
under the auspices of him who told us that "England _could_ not carry on
a little war," amidst all the embarrassments and dangers which they had
just inherited from their predecessors, to send out the peremptory
instructions which have been so ably acted upon; and _above all_, a
naval and military force fully adequate for the occasion. This done,
China succumbed; and we understand that poor Lord Palmerston is pluming
himself on being able to produce, next session, a despatch which he
issued to Sir Henry Pottinger, chalking out the very line of operations
which was adopted with such supreme success. We, of course, cannot
officially know that such is the fact: but even admitting it, why did
not Lord Palmerston do this far earlier? What excuse can be offered for
this vacillation and procrastination in an affair of such vast urgency?
"We had not the means to equip a sufficient force," his lordship may
reply, in his usual strain of bitter flippancy. And why had he not the