Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/447

recommend the first volume of Sir John Francis Davis’s recently published and excellent work, "China during the War and since the Peace."

The history of the war (says Sir John) describes the impression produced on this most ancient existing empire, by a blow unequalled in importance since the Manchou Tartar conquest. The British undertaking was the furthest military enterprise, of the same extent, in the history of the world; surpassing, in that respect, the expeditions of Alexander and Cæsar in the one hemisphere, and those of Cortez and Pizarro in the other.

Qui gurges, aut quæ flumina lugubris
Ignara belli?—quæve Britannicæ
Non decoloravere cædes?
Quæ caret ora cruore nostro?

Followed so soon by the El Dorado of California, to which the Chinese are swarming from Hong Kong across the Pacific—by that of Australia—and by the short passage over the Isthmus of Panama, it is not easy to calculate the extent of the forthcoming revolutions in the channels of national and commercial intercourse. But it may be predicted that a British colony with 25,000 Chinese subjects, in sight of the south coast of China, is destined to play a part in the drama of the future.

Comparing the China war with the Japan expedition, Sir J. F. Davis also remarks:

Whatever may be the result of this undertaking (the expedition to Japan), nothing important is likely to be gained by mere negotiation, as the United States had already, in 1846, about as strong a force in the bay of Jédo, including a ship of ninety guns, under Commodore Biddle. It is possible that the present exclusively naval armament may prove sufficient to carry out strong measures; but its amount is very different from our own seventy vessels of war and transports, with 12,000 fighting-men, before the walls of Nanking in 1842. If not sufficient, however, it may lead to something further, from either the same or some other quarter.

This expedition is an opportune confirmation of the views and expectations entertained in the two chapters on the Indo-Chinese nations, who certainly will not be allowed much longer to remain in a state of avowed hostility to the rest of the world;—more especially Japan, which fires on ships in their necessity, and exhibits shipwrecked mariners in cages, preparatory to a cruel death. With them, at least, the time has arrived

————— pacis imponere morem.

It remains for the rest of the civilised world to wish the United States all success, and to expect that they will make a humane, liberal, and enlightened use of it.

We shall turn presently to Mr. Fortune’s interesting account of the progress of British connexion with China, but must precede those statements with a few observations of Sir. J. F. Davis. First, in regard to Chusan, for the loss of which we are remotely comforted by the assurance that it "is a point of such importance, political and military, if not commercial, that the course of time and events might again some day make us acquainted with it," Sir J. F. Davis says, that when occupied by us, nothing could exceed the good-humour and contentedness of the native Chinese, so different from the assumptions in Yukien’s mock declaration during the war. It was impossible to traverse the suburb between the sea and the town without observing plain proofs of the good understanding existing between the military and the people. In one shop might be seen inscribed, 'Stultz, Tailor, from London in another,