In Part IV, we got tantalizingly close to the pivotal origins of the Arrow War, principally through the imprecise public statements made during the debates in Parliament. Now in Part V, we hope to follow those clues and do something which the British public at the time, including Marx, could not have done. We shall probe behind the scenes, to find out some details of Cabinet meetings; private correspondence among the political leaders; secret negotiations among the British, French, U.S., and Russian governments; and the like. To do so, we shall have to start our story in each of this part's three chapters from the moment London received news about the quarrel in China, or even before. The time scale will be the same, the focus different. Thus, Chapter II will deal with the diplomacy of imperialism, Chapter 12 the politics of imperialism, and Chapter 13 the lobbies of imperialism.

A telling example of Marx's ignorance of what was actually going on may be found in the fact that the general public in Britain did not get to hear about the Arrow quarrel until Monday 29 December 1856. On this day The Times printed a telegraphic despatch from Trieste, in which were outlined events from the Arrow incident of 8 October to the capture of the Bogue forts on 12-13 November. ‘ But Whitehall had already received on 1 December Bowring's despatch about all this and had been keeping quiet all the time.