in framing the first instructions which were given by my noble
friend to our first Superintendent at Canton. For those
instructions the right honourable Baronet frankly admits that he
is himself responsible. Are those instructions then very copious
and minute? Not at all. They merely lay down general
principles. The Resident, for example, is enjoined to respect
national usages, and to avoid whatever may shock the prejudices
of the Chinese; but no orders are given him as to matters of
detail. In 1834 my noble friend quitted the Foreign Office, and
the Duke of Wellington went to it. Did the Duke of Wellington
send out those copious and exact directions with which, according
to the right honourable Baronet, the Government is bound to
furnish its agent in China? No, Sir; the Duke of Wellington,
grown old in the conduct of great affairs, knows better than
anybody that a man of very ordinary ability at Canton is likely
to be a better judge of what ought to be done on an emergency
arising at Canton than the greatest politician at Westminster can
possibly be. His Grace, therefore, like a wise man as he is,
wrote only one letter to the Superintendent, and in that letter
merely referred the Superintendent to the general directions
given by Lord Palmerston. And how, Sir, does the right
honourable Baronet prove that, by persisting in the course which
he himself took when in office, and which the Duke of Wellington
took when in office, Her Majesty's present advisers have brought
on that rupture which we all deplore? He has read us, from the
voluminous papers which are on the table, much which has but a
very remote connection with the question. He has said much about
things which happened before the present Ministry existed, and
much about things which have happened at Canton since the
rupture; but very little that is relevant to the issue raised by