France , Russia and America concluded versions of it .sx The resumption of war in 1859 had hardened Palmerston's outlook ; he dismissed apprehensions that the fall of Peking might subvert the Chinese empire , and disrupt trade .sx The aftermath produced his public conversion , in language greeted with incredulity :sx Britain was morally bound to rehabilitate the central authority she had undermined ; hence the deployment of her troops to counter the Taiping rebels .sx It should not be forgotten that Lewis's argument against the coercion of both China and Japan in 1857 impressed Palmerston .sx The de facto protectorate that Lewis feared became a reality , while the Indian Mutiny inspired profound misgivings at the thought of responsibility for another huge Oriental dependency .sx The Chinese empire was appreciably weaker than the Ottoman , but as in the latter , a network of interlocking agreements spread the burden among Western nations , and restrained others from too much interference harmful to Britain's local economic superiority .sx Although Japan's external trade was a fraction of China's , Palmerston attached similar importance to international co-operation there , when it came to bombarding the Japanese into compliance with the letter and spirit of agreements which granted extraterritoriality and designated treaty ports on the Chinese pattern .sx The Anglo-Japanese treaty of Yedo could not be directly attributed to force , unlike that of Tientsin in the same year , " unless" , observed Lewis drily , " the Emperor of Japan is influenced by the example of his brother of China " .sx The fiercer Japanese reaction to Europeans coming among them resulted in a succession of Western naval operations , the largest of which assembled seventeen warships - eight British , the rest French , American and Dutch - to silence the batteries guarding the Straits of Shimonoseki at the entrance to the Inland Sea .sx The United States Navy was represented , owing to the civil war in America , by a small vessel under the command of a junior officer , for whom Palmerston wanted the Order of the Bath that was to be conferred on senior allied officers in the action .sx A beneficiary of China's defeat at the hands of Britain and France , the United States had not , after all , been a belligerent power in the conflict ; although units of her navy did come under and return Chinese fire .sx Her insignificant naval participation at Shimonoseki should be marked , the prime minister argued , to draw her into more active promotion of " the common cause " .sx The civil war growth of the American fleet , and speculation about its future employment , reinforced the case for partnership with her in the Far East , where her traders and missionaries were busy .sx Co-operation helped to disarm critics at home .sx Cobden and Bright found it difficult to attack the United States , while Gladstone hoped their joint efforts in China would offset Anglo-French discord in Europe .sx Interrogated by a friend , he confessed to the " misery .sx .. it is not too strong a word " of having to endorse decisions that flowed from a policy and the commencement of war which he still condemned :sx " Often have I tried to cure or mitigate the system of parading force which I conceive to be the root of the evil .sx " Later , when the question of coercing Japan arose he asked only that the resort to force should be " " .sx The British bombardment of Kagoshima , which unintentionally burnt down the town , revived moral unease in Parliament .sx Ministers , said Layard in his successful explanation , conformed to the wishes of backbenchers , " who were forever telling the Government that it was their duty to open fresh markets all over the world " .sx The Kagoshima debate " went well " , wrote Gladstone in his diary , reconciled , politically , at any rate , to the element of violence in commercial empire .sx Lord Elgin , who recorded his distaste for much that he had to do in the Far East , put it to Gladstone , doubtfully , that compulsion on the Chinese to follow their strong trading instincts without hindrance amounted to liberation of a sort :sx " This may hardly be a justification of such force , but it affords some grounds for a new and better order of things .sx " Trade improved ; but little else .sx If legalizing the import of opium into China from India , to whose finances it was so important , ended abuses connected with smuggling the drug before 1858 , that legality did not still the prickings of conscience , even in mercantile circles handling the commodity .sx The value of opium was still about twice that of imports from Britain in 1865 , evidence of China's intractability to Westernization , as of India's in a lesser degree .sx The illusion of trade as civilizing in itself had begun to fade by then .sx Palmerston was conscious of the subtle change and its damaging implications .sx To call British policy in the Far East 'selfish' was to misunderstand its main concern , fundamentally the same anywhere , the accessibility of markets .sx Government had an absolute duty to expand the nation's trade " by every means in its power .sx .. and so to render our own people happy and prosperous at home " .sx That great purpose was not to be confused with the sectional interests of British merchants overseas .sx Those who challenged his definition of the national interest in global commerce were " doing their best to take the bread out of the mouths of our working - classes " ; a statement that wrung a cry of protest from Bright .sx " I do not admit " , said Palmerston , " .sx .. that our policy has been a selfish one in the sense in which the word is sometimes employed .sx " The welfare of the country and the classes could not be sacrificed to international altruism which had no place in the real world .sx Morocco , unlike China and Japan , produced talk of resignation in the cabinet .sx The Anglo-Moroccan commercial treaty of 1856 , which broke down the country's isolation , had a strategic motive .sx Unable to prevent Spain's invasion in 1859-62 , warranted by the attacks of Riffian tribesmen on her enclaves in the North and supported as it was by the European Great Powers , Britain came to the Sultan's rescue with diplomacy and finance .sx She objected to any significant cession of territory and arranged a loan for him in London towards the indemnity on which the Spanish evacuation of the fortress city of Tetuan was conditional .sx The cabinet twice considered guaranteeing the loan to attract investors , and decided against it .sx Russell , with some encouragement from the prime minister , proposed to ignore the collective opinion after his colleagues had dispersed .sx He or Russell , Gladstone believed , might have to resign ; but the foreign secretary dropped the idea for the time being .sx " So that is over " , the chancellor told his wife in January 1861 .sx Later that year he had second thoughts , and ideally wanted a joint Anglo-French guarantee :sx " Thus .sx .. mutual jealousies would be neutralized .sx " There was reason to fear France behind Spain .sx Morocco's trade , which Britain dominated , could not compare with that of Turkey .sx The case for a loan was far more political and military than economic .sx The cabinet refused to see it in November 1860 as " " , afraid of taking on , at a difficult juncture in the affairs of Europe , a tangible commitment to the preservation of Moroccan independence .sx Gladstone did not contest Palmerston's insistence on the value of her independence to the British position in Gibraltar , and therefore in the Mediterranean .sx Neither man thought it probable that Parliament would agree to a loan on its security , which it regarded jealously .sx Layard , who arrived at the Foreign Office in the summer , acted as intermediary between the government and the City , relaying Baron Rothschild's advice that " a virtual guarantee " would be needed to get the money on the right terms .sx Palmerston wrote a long memorandum on the arrangement that Rothschild wanted .sx According to the prime minister , it involved only " a shadow of responsibility " and avoided recourse to Parliament .sx In fact , it involved a substantial responsibility without Parliamentary sanction .sx Under the convention with Morocco , a British commissioner , whose duties the minister resident and consuls discharged , received half the total customs revenue on which the loan was secured ; subtracted interest and sinking fund payments ; and returned the surplus to the Moroccans .sx Gladstone felt the additional functions given to Britain's representatives might very well lead to further interference in the country and Anglo-French dissension .sx Lewis disliked the evasion of Parliamentary sanction by the absence of a formal guarantee , when investors supposed , as they were meant to do , that government would not see them lose their money .sx In his memorandum , Palmerston anticipated that if the Sultan failed to meet these obligations , " we as a maritime power .sx .. have ample means without trouble or exertion .sx .. to compel him to stand by his bargain " .sx The cabinet reluctantly agreed to the convention ; " an impolitic measure " , Lewis called it .sx Parliament , apparently , had few questions .sx The City was distinctly pleased with the loan , four times oversubscribed , " both as a political and a financial operation " .sx With official British sponsorship , the Sultan paid 5 per cent on his bonds ; without it , the Pasha of Egypt had recently had to pay 10 per cent .sx Palmerston's personal crusade against the slave trade finally succeeded when it did only because states too powerful to coerce abandoned policies that would have ensured its defeat .sx Secession , civil war and Lincoln dispersed the Southern lobby in Congress .sx France's revival of the traffic under the guise of 'free emigration' lent it a veneer of respectability .sx Slaves purchased on the coasts of Africa landed in French sugar colonies as indentured labour , with the prospect of freedom to go home , in theory , on the expiry of their contracts .sx France wanted to be able to tap the supply of coolies available from India to British territories as voluntary substitutes for freed negroes .sx Britain's objections rested on her regulations governing the supply of indentured labour and its treatment , and on the partial diversion of the flow that was none too large from her own sugar colonies .sx The French were , they made it clear , driven to the expedient of 'free emigration' from Africa .sx Talking to Palmerston in November 1857 , Napoleon's minister of state , Fould , maintained , not altogether disingenuously , that their captives or subjects were all that African chiefs had to sell in exchange for European goods .sx They certainly had nothing else so valuable .sx Fould did not deny , speaking privately , that his country was dealing in slaves .sx The French government , throughout , contended otherwise ; this official pretence exasperated Palmerston :sx " it is not a question of law but of common sense " , he remarked .sx Disturbing in themselves , the open activities of the French emboldened clandestine slavers of various nationalities .sx French vessels engaged in recruiting 'free emigrants' were fitted out as slavers .sx Two earned notoriety .sx The human cargo of the misnamed Regina Coeli , lying off the West African shore , staged a bloody revolt , known to the world after the ship was found drifting and taken into Freetown harbour .sx When Palmerston , out of office , saw the Emperor and Walewski in Paris some months later , they talked about the revived French slave trade , exposed for what it was .sx Within weeks , two French battleships entered the Tagus and secured the release of the Charles et Georges , arrested in Mozambique waters and brought to Lisbon , whose captain alleged that he had been picking up " colonists" .sx The British were severely embarrassed by their inability to help Portugal , whom they stood treaty-bound to aid ; but they left her to suffer for having carried out the general anti-slavery policy adopted at Britain's instance and overseen by her .sx Malmesbury , the foreign secretary of the moment , consulted Palmerston , and instructed Cowley at Paris to transmit what he had said to the ex-premier , soon to visit the Emperor at Compi e-grave , gne about the danger of war and France's neglect of arbitration over the Charles et Georges .sx The British ambassador was enjoined to tread delicately , " but we cannot pass over the event in silence " .sx Napoleon lost no time in moving towards the British , and exploiting the nervousness of the Tory government .sx Negotiations on the availability of coolie labour had been initiated in January 1858 when Palmerston was still prime minister and following the candid discussion with Fould .sx " The French are , I believe , excessively anxious not only to get the thing done , but to get it done immediately " , wrote the civil servant who had talks with Persigny , the ambassador in London , that were cut short by the change of ministry .sx