_May 1st._--Parliament met yesterday, the last (Irish) election having ended only a few days before. Denison's election as Speaker went off very quietly. The prevailing opinion now seems to be that this will prove a good Parliament, on the whole safe and moderate, and an improvement on the last. All the news we get from China, or in reference to Chinese affairs, only proves the more strongly how foolish and mischievous the conduct of Bowring was, and what a sound and correct judgement the vote of the House of Commons expressed upon it. It is impossible to conjecture what the result of the war now began will be, but is quite certain that we shall have to wade to our ends through all sorts of horrors and atrocities, which it does not become us to inflict, though the Chinese are a savage, stupid, and uninteresting people, who in some degree deserve the sufferings that will be inflicted on them, though perhaps not at our hands. George Anson[1] writes to me from India that there is a strange feeling of discontent pervading the Indian Army from religious causes, and a suspicion that we are going to employ our irresistible power in forcing Christianity upon them. It is not true, but the natives will never be quite convinced that it is not, as long as Exeter Hall and the missionaries are permitted to have _carte blanche_ and work their will as they please in those regions. Footnote 1: [General Anson was at this time Commander-in-Chief in India. He died there shortly after the outbreak of the great military revolt, of which the letter mentioned in the text was the first premonitory indication.] [Sidenote: DEATH OF LADY ASHBURTON.]