I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that "the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood"… It was absolutely necessary to stamp by some such permanent record our indignation at the treachery and brutality of these Tartars, for Chinese they are not.


Letter to Sidney Herbert (20 December 1860), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), pp. 538-539.

Henry Temple Quotes

I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood… It was ...

I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood… It was ...

I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood… It was ...

I am heartily glad that Elgin and Grant determined to burn down the Summer Palace and that the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood… It was ...