hundred thousand persons of all ages in this kind of labour; we have some of the deepest and largest mines, and the most stupendous accumulations of steam power for pumping out water and drawing up coals; we have the most expeditious and ingenious methods of shipping the produce; we have at this hour, in our coal-mining districts, scenes of activity above ground, and galleries of mining industry under ground, which astonish all foreigners who care to glance at the one and dare to descend to the other; we have mining engineers of large experience, and even wealth and social position; and we have a national stake in the whole of at least as great importance as we hold in any department of British industry; but we have no adequate publication on the subject-we have as yet no complete surveys of our coal fields-no uniform and official maps of the whole-no compact and continuous account of their mineral character and contents. Here are Professor Rogers' three beautifully illustrated quarto volumes on one American State, and we have not three illustrated quartos on the whole of our British coal fields. It is only a few years ago that we learned what our annual produce of coal really was, and it was then found to be so much in excess of what had been previously conjectured as to appear incredible. At this very time, with the exception of mere statistics officially published, we have no means of tracing some of the most interesting and important circumstances connected with supply and demand. That these are facts, no one can deny; that our ignorance is indefensible, every impartial inquirer will acknowledge. One popular book alone, Our Coal Fields,' has been recently published on the Newcastle and Durham pits and pitmen, and all that we are likely to learn in addition, is from similar publications. Nearly all that has been officially made public of our coal fields and our colliers is to be found in the generally unread, and we might add, generally unknown, 'blue books' of several indefatigable commissioners, whose primary objects of inquiry were philanthropic and educational. Such a deficiency is a literary reproach to our nation.*

In these remarks we do not attach blame to the Geological Survey of Great Britain, which is doing its work well, though tardily. Such a survey ought to have been commenced long since, and to be near completed. The recent annual Report of the Director-General of this survey shows that much has been accomplished, considering the

means at his command.

ART. IV. Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the years 1857, 1858, and 1859. By LAURENCE OLIPHANT, Esq., Private Secretary to Lord Elgin. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh: 1860.

ORD ELGIN'S mission to the courts of Pekin and Yedo has been extremely fortunate in its historiographer; and although these volumes have not the pretensions of the stately quartos which recorded the embassies of Lord Macartney and Lord Amherst to the Court of China, they are infinitely more agreeable, from a more familiar admixture of personal adventure, and from the increased knowledge we have now acquired of the habits of these singular nations. Few men of our time have seen more of the globe than Mr. Oliphant, or have described what they have seen with more apropos. He visited the steppes of Southern Russia, and the arsenal of Sebastopol, before the Crimean war. He has explored the distant confines of Minnesota in the Western World, and the Caucasian tributaries of the Euxine in the East. Attached as he was to the personal service of our late ambassador to China, conversant with his political designs, and an eye-witness of all that occurred in this strange medley of peace and war, no one could be better qualified to preserve the record of this mission. Several circumstances conspired to give Lord Elgin and his suite greater opportunities of exploring some of the great lines of river communication in China than ever were enjoyed before; the successful excursion of the ambassador to Japan is beyond all comparison the most curious and important addition yet made to our imperfect knowledge of that most remarkable country; and although we are afraid it cannot be said that Lord Elgin's treaties have permanently established our relations with the furthest empires of the East on a secure and peaceful footing, there is no doubt that the narrative of his lordship's proceedings is highly instructive as to the best mode of conducting them hereafter.

The spring of the year 1857 was a crisis of no common danger to many of the most important interests of this country in Asia; and those who for the purpose of a factious attack on the Ministry of the day, lent themselves to a false cry of justice to 'China' were, as it has since turned out, as ignorant of the real situation of our countrymen at Canton at that moment, as they necessarily were of the terrific tempest which was about to sweep over British India in the summer of the same year.

In

6

truth, a series of untoward events had contributed to extinguish the respect felt by the Chinese authorities for the power which fourteen years before had extorted from them the treaty of Nankin. All experience has proved that our treaties with China cease to be worth more than the paper on which they are written from the moment that the Chinese think they can be evaded with impunity; and whatever may be thought of the legal merits of the 'lorcha' question, Sir John Bowring and Mr. Parkes were perfectly right in the conclusion at which they arrived, that British interests in Canton could no longer be sacrificed with impunity to the arrogance and obstinacy of Commissioner Yeh. Unfortunately their judgment was not equally correct as to the means at their disposal for enforcing their demands. The result showed that Yeh was perfectly able to resist them. A reward of thirty, and afterwards of a hundred, dollars was offered for the head of every Englishman. Mr. Cowper was kidnapped from Whampoa; the Thistle,' postal steamer, was seized, and eleven persons murdered; supplies were interdicted; trade was stopped; an attempt was made to poison the whole foreign community at Hong-Kong; the very urchins in the street, says Mr. Oliphant, considered a Briton a fit subject for chaff,' while their respectable parents took a mercenary view of his head; and at length the Admiral was compelled to abandon all the forts in the Canton river, except one at Macao, to write to India for 5000 troops, and to wait for instructions from England. Such was the state of our affairs in China when the House of Commons engaged in that most discreditable debate on Mr. Cobden's motion; and when, in fact, had the exact truth been known, every Englishman would have agreed that we must above all things rescue our countrymen from so dangerous and ignominious a position. This state of affairs had not much altered when Lord Elgin reached China; nor could it materially improve for some considerable time afterwards, because in the interval the Indian mutiny drew to itself, as to some great mael-strom, the interest and the available resources of the British Empire. With the utmost judgment, resolution, and disinterestedness, Lord Elgin at once diverted the forces on their way to China, and sent them to Calcutta, where they powerfully contributed to restore our authority in the Lower Provinces of Bengal. He himself followed in the Shannon,' and that magnificent frigate, with her intrepid commander, William Peel, was thus withdrawn from the Chinese expedition altogether; and, in short, many weary months elapsed before it was possible to assume the attitude and language of a British plenipotentiary at Canton. That these things were not unknown to

VOL. CXI. NO. CCXXV.

H

the Chinese, appears from the draft of a report from Yeh himself to the Emperor, which was probably sent about the commencement of December, 1857. The paper was found among those captured in Yeh's yamun, on the last day of the year, and it deserves to be quoted as a specimen of that mixture of fact and fiction, good sense and puerility, which commonly occur in Chinese state documents. It also throws some light on the Chinese notions of French interference.

(Yeh, &c.) 'presents a Memorial to the effect that the English barbarians, troubled at home, and pressed with daily increasing urgency by other nations from without, will hardly attempt anything further; that they are reported to have had several consultations upon the opening of trade, and earnestly desire the sugges tion of some means to that end; that in consequence of the English chief not returned to Canton. A respectful memorial (of which particulars) he forwards by courier, at the rate of 600 li à day, and looking upward, solicits the sacred glance thereon.

a

On the 6th of the 9th moon (23rd October 1857) your servant had the honour to forward to your Majesty various particulars of his administration of barbarian affairs during the 7th and 8th moons (August and September), as it is recorded.

'Since the engagement of the 10th of the 5th moon (1st June), a period of more than six months, the English barbarians have made no disturbance up the Canton river.* (It should be known), however that in the defeat sustained by Elgin at Mang-ga-ta† in the 7th moon, he was pursued by the Mang-ga-la (Bengal) barbarian force to the sea-shore. A number of French men-of-war, which happened to be passing, fired several guns in succession, and the force of the Bengal barbarians falling back, the Chief, Elgin, made his escape. The Chief, Elgin, was very grateful to the French force for saving his life, and on the arrival of the French minister, Lo-so-lun, who in the beginning of the 9th moon had also reached Quang-Tung, he, the Chief, Elgin, fêted the Chief, Gros, at HongKong (lit. merrily feasted and prayed him [to drink] wine), and consulted him upon the present position of affairs in China.

The Chief, Gros, said: "I was not an eye-witness of last year's affair, but the story current among people of different nations who

*The affair of the 1st June is the destruction of Heoang's fleet up Fatschau Creek, doubtless reported to Pekin as a victory. The manner in which the next sentence is introduced, shows that Lord Elgin's return had been already announced, but without full particulars.

† Mang-ga-ta is clearly a compromise between Mang-ga-la, Bengal and Calcutta.

The French ambassador's name is elsewhere given as Go-lo-so (Gros); his title of baron is evidently taken to be his name, and is put in Chinese fashion after his surname lun representing, doubtless, pa-lun for baron.

-

were by at the time, has made me familiar with the whole question. You see, when the forts were taken, the Chinese Government made no retaliation; when the houses of the people were burned, it still declined to fight. Now, the uniform suppression, three years ago, of the Quang-Tung insurrection, in which some hundreds of thousands were engaged, shows the military power of China to be by no means insignificant. Will she take no notice of her injuries? (No.) She is certain to have some deep policy which will enable her so to anticipate us, that before we can take up any ground she will have left us without the means of finding fault with her, while she, on the other hand, will oblige the foreigners to admit themselves completely in the wrong. On the last occasion that your nation opened fire, it was but for some days, and people came forward (as mediators), but this time you did your utmost for three months. (You fired) 4000 rounds and more from great guns, as well as 3000 rockets. The high authorities of Canton, it is plain, have all along made their minds up (or have seen their way). They understand the character of all classes, high and low, in our foreign states. This is the reason why they have been so firm and unswerving. When I was leaving home the instructions my own sovereign gave me, with affectionate earnestness, were these:

"There is a quarrel with the English in Quang-Tung; when 'you go thither, confine yourself to the observance of the treaty 'and pacific communications. You are not to avail yourself of the 'opportunity to commit acts of aggression or spoliation. Do not 'make China hate the French as a band of hostile wretches who 'violate their engagements. The circumstances, too, are so dif'ferent (from those of the last war of the English with China), 'that it is essential you should judge for yourself what course to 'pursue. There is no analogy, I apprehend, between the present case and the opium question of some ten years since, in which 'they had some wrong to allege.'

'It appears that in the country of the five Indies appropriated by the English barbarians, they have established four tribal divisions -three along the coast, and one in the interior. One of the coast divisions is Mang-ga-la (Bengal), the country in the extreme east; one is Ma-ta-la-say (Madras), south-west of Bengal; and one is Mang-mai (Bombay), on the western limit of India. That in the interior is A-ka-la (Agra), lying midway between east and west. About the end of last summer, it is stated, twelve marts (or ports) in Bengal which had revolted, were lost. Since the 8th moon, the marts in Bombay have all been retaken (sc. from the English) by (Indian) chiefs; and since Elgin's return after his defeat, the leaders of the English barbarians have sustained a succession of serious defeats. The Indian chief drove a mine from bank to bank of a river, and by the introduction of infernal machines (lit. water-thunder) blew up several large vessels of war, killing above On shore they enticed (the English) far into the country, and murdered above 7000 of them killing a distinguished soldier named Pu-ta-wei-ka-lut, and many more.

1000 men.