Note 35 — JOHN BRIGHT. ON THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND; DELIVERED AT A BANQUET GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. BRIGHT, AT BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 29, 1858.

Note 35, p. 178.—The “Opium War” of 1839, and the “Lorcha Arrow War” of 1856, are now generally and justly condemned. But to say that “no man with a spark of morality in his composition,” or “who cares any thing for the opinion of his fellow-countrymen,” “has dared to justify that war,” is scarcely less than an absurd and amusing exaggeration. The election of 1856 turned expressly on the justification of Lord Palmerston in the “Lorcha Arrow War,” and it was Bright’s opposition to the war which caused his defeat at Birmingham, and obliged him to take a seat for Manchester. The causes of both of these wars are given with admirable spirit in McCarthy’s “History of Our Own Time,” chapters viii. and ix. Cobden also lost his seat for opposition to the war.