This bastard burnt the Summer Palace down and looted its priceless treasures. Also dumped his Chinese wife when he returned to Britain. If an earl exhibited such barbarism, one can well imagine that the unwashed masses of British society were mere savages.
As for ang moh 'civilization', it was built on the back of 500 years of thuggery, oppression and murder.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine,
KT,
GCB,
PC (20 July 1811 – 20 November 1863), was a British colonial administrator and diplomat. He was the
Governor General of the
Province of Canada, a High Commissioner in charge of opening trades with China and Japan, and
Viceroy of India.[SUP]
[1][/SUP] As British High Commissioner in China during the
Second Opium War, in 1860 he ordered the destruction of the
Old Summer Palace in Beijing in retaliation for the imprisonment, torture, and execution of almost twenty European and Indian prisoners.
China and Japan[edit]
In 1857 he became High Commissioner to China and travelled to China and Japan in 1858-59, where he led the bombing of
Canton. He oversaw the end of the
Second Opium War by signing the
Treaties of Tianjin on 26 June 1858.
In June 1860 he returned to China to assist with additional attacks, which were initially led by his brother. On 18 October 1860, Elgin, not having received the Chinese surrender and wishing to spare the royal city of Beijing, ordered the complete destruction of the
Yuan Ming Yuan (or
Old Summer Palace) outside the city in retaliation for the imprisonment, torture, and execution of almost 20 European and Indian prisoners (including two British envoys and a journalist for
The Times). The Old Summer Palace was a complex of palaces and gardens eight kilometres northwest of the walls of Beijing; it had been built during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and was where the emperors of the Qing Dynasty resided and handled government affairs. An alternative account says that Elgin had initially considered the destruction of the
Forbidden City. But, fearing that this act might interfere with the signing of the
Convention of Beijing, which was where it was being negotiated, he opted for the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in its stead.[SUP]
[6]
[/SUP]
Entry of Lord Elgin into Beijing, 1860
The Old Summer Palace was fired by 3,500 British troops and burned for three days. Elgin and his troops looted many treasures from the Yuan Ming Yuan imperial gardens and took them to Britain. Attacks on the
Summer Palace were also made, but the extent of destruction was not as great as to Yuan Ming Yuan. On 24 October 1860 Elgin signed the Convention of Beijing, which stipulated that China was to cede part of Kowloon Peninsula and Hong Kong in perpetuity to Britain.[SUP][
citation needed]
[/SUP]
In between Elgin's two trips to China, he had visited Japan. In August 1858, he signed a
Treaty of Amity and Commerce whose negotiation was much eased by the recent
Harris Treaty between Japan and the United States. Elgin was ambivalent about the British policy on forcing
opium on the people in the Far East. It was not without internal struggle that he carried out the duty laid on him by Britain. In a letter to his wife, in regard to the bombing of Canton he wrote, "I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life."[SUP]
[2]
[/SUP]
He had three sons with a Chinese woman in China while serving in the country. He took the three sons back to England at the end of his term. He left his Chinese
concubine in China because she was unfit for upper British society.
