_London, September 26th._--I stayed three days at Jervaulx, then to Doncaster, Bretby, and to town. All the Ministers in London, having passed their lives during the last fortnight in the railway or in Cabinets, which have been very numerous, as well they may, for they have plenty to occupy them in the Italian, Chinese, and American questions, all, in their several ways and degrees, extremely embarrassing. I have not the slightest conception what our Government are doing about the Italian question, but I suppose trying to keep well with Napoleon III., and to obtain good terms for the Italian Duchies. At present it looks as if a Congress would be got together to untie this complicated knot, but I fear we are not likely to play in it a part which will be consistent with our principles, or creditable to our national character, and I wish we could abstain from having anything to do with it. The incident about the American Boundary is awkward, but I feel confident it will be amicably settled. [Sidenote: DISPUTES WITH CHINA.] The Chinese affair is the most serious, and one can see no solution of it that is not full of objections and embarrassments.[1] In the first place it looks at present very much as if our case was a bad one. We had no business to go with an armament and force our way up the river, and even if we were upon any ground justified in such an extreme measure, it was to the last degree impolitic and unwise to exercise such a right. The object for which Bruce was sent to China was to conclude a peace, and to establish amicable relations with the Chinese Government, and it might have occurred to him that the employment of force, even if it was ever so successful, must infallibly defeat his object. It required no great sagacity to perceive that the arrival at Pekin of a victorious Ambassador, who had forced his way to the capital at the head of an imposing force, would not serve to make his reception a friendly one, or to establish permanent harmonious relations between the English and the Chinese Governments. As long as there was a possibility of procuring access to Pekin by peaceful means and by negotiation, it would have been better to be patient and to wait any time than to employ force; and besides the political objections that seem conclusive against the adoption of such a course, it seems highly probable that no such force as that which we employed on this occasion could have been pushed on into the heart of the country without imminent danger of its being cut off and eventually destroyed. The mere fact of destroying again the Peiho forts would be deemed by the Chinese as the renewal of the war, and the perpetrator of the outrage would not have been received in the sacred character of an Ambassador, but would have been looked on as an invader, and treated accordingly. This is the first view of the question which presents itself. Then comes that of vindicating our honour, and retrieving the disaster we