ATHOUGH BOWRING'S ACTIONS had been vindicated by the British electorate, the government nevertheless felt it had to do something about him. He was a menace – absolutely impervious to other points of view, comfortable with ignoring orders when they did not suit him, and convinced of the malice of anyone who disagreed with him. Rather than reflect on what mistakes he might have made, he put the parliamentary vote down to the ‘extraordinary combination of ignorance and faction which made up a majority in the late hours of Commons’. At the same time, he could not be dismissed because to do so would mean admitting that Britain had been in the wrong. So a way was found of sidelining him: he was allowed to stay on as Governor of Hong Kong, but would be superseded in his role as effective Ambassador to China. He did not take it well, telling his son that the Commons ‘majority succeeded in displacing me – but they have not displaced my policy, though they have sent a man of higher rank to do my work and have deprived me of the honors and reputation which the success of my policy would have brought with it’.

The job of clearing up the mess in China was given to Lord Elgin, who was not enthusiastic about it, considering the whole conflict to have been a ‘wretched’ blunder. When he told his wife that he had been asked ‘to settle the important and difficult question now embarrassing us in the East’, he asked her, ‘On what grounds can I decline?’ He could not find any, so he accepted. Many a nobleman in this position would not have needed a reason, but Elgin was dependent on government jobs for money. His father had been the Elgin who had acquired the Elgin marbles, an effort that turned out to be ruinously expensive for the family. The ￡6,000 plus expenses he was being offered would be very welcome indeed. The younger Elgin had done well in the two posts he had been given: Governor of Jamaica and Governor- General of Canada, both tricky jobs which he had managed successfully.