While Elgin returned to England, his brother George and the allied forces attempted to proceed to Peking with the ratified treaty. In front of the Taku forts, built at the mouth of the Pei-ho, they were fired on and the flotilla of British gunboats was nearly destroyed, on the 25th of June, 1859. Then it was that our own Commodore Tatnall, technically violating neutrality, came to the aid of the British, not only to offer his surgeons for the scores of wounded that lay on the decks of the shattered ships, but to blink at his boat’s crew of American sailors, as they served the one British gun on the flagship that was left unhurt. Later on, he lent the aid of his boats to land detachments, which turned the Chinese defences from the rear. Tatnall gained world-wide reputation by his declaring that “Blood is thicker than water.” This phrase, now international, in its original form, was an old Scottish proverb, and as used by Sir Walter Scott more than once, it reads, “Blood is warmer than water.” “For course of blood, our proverbs deem, Is warmer than the mountain-stream,”-- says Scott in his introduction to Canto VI of “Marmion.” Lord Elgin was sent again to China to demand apology, the execution of the treaty, and an indemnity from the Chinese. Then took place that awful sacking of the Imperial Summer Palace, by which the accumulations of art and taste for centuries were given over to the British and French common soldiers for plunder and devastation. The purpose in view was that the punishment for perfidy should fall, not on the common people, but immediately and personally on the faithless rulers. When, later, Elgin was sent as Viceroy and Governor-General of India,--the first appointed directly by the Crown,--he showed wonderful energy, firmness, and dignity, but died in the midst of his labors. The last, or ninth, Earl of Elgin was Viceroy of India from 1894 to 1899, and in 1905–8 was Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Cabinet of Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, where he was somewhat overshadowed by his brilliant under-secretary, Winston Churchill, of whom we heard in 1916, in a soldier’s uniform. Elgin retired from the Cabinet when Mr. Asquith became Prime Minister.