should be stationed near Canton, "till the trade should take its
regular peaceable course." Those are His Grace's own words. Do
they not imply that, when the trade had again taken its regular
peaceable course, it might be right to remove the ship of war?
Well, Sir, the trade, after that memorandum was written, did
resume its regular peaceable course: that the right honourable
Baronet himself will admit; for it is part of his own case that
Sir George Robinson had succeeded in restoring quiet and
security. The third charge then is simply this, that the
Ministers did not do in a time of perfect tranquillity what the
Duke of Wellington thought that it would have been right to do in
a time of trouble.

And now, Sir, I come to the fourth charge, the only real charge;
for the other three are so futile that I hardly understand how
the right honourable Baronet should have ventured to bring them
forward. The fourth charge is, that the Ministers omitted to
send to the Superintendent orders and powers to suppress the
contraband trade, and that this omission was the cause of the
rupture.

Now, Sir, let me ask whether it was not notorious, when the right
honourable Baronet was in office, that British subjects carried
on an extensive contraband trade with China? Did the right
honourable Baronet and his colleagues instruct the Superintendent
to put down that trade? Never. That trade went on while the
Duke of Wellington was at the Foreign Office. Did the Duke of
Wellington instruct the Superintendent to put down that trade?
No, Sir, never. Are then the followers of the right honourable
Baronet, are the followers of the Duke of Wellington, prepared to