Via Ross Douthat: Leave it to the Derb to go, uh, sort of overboard and in doing so get right to the pith of things. I doubt that many will want to sign on to the idea that it was "contempt for other nations that sustained [the British] for so many centuries." Suppose it was, though?
To spare you the trouble of reading all through, Moyse was a British soldier of the East Kent Regiment, nick-named “The Buffs” on account of their 17th-century uniforms, which prominently featured that color. Moyse was captured by the Chinese during the Second Opium War of the late 1850s. Taken before a Mandarin, he was ordered to kowtow, but refused. He was thereupon clubbed to death and decapitated, and his body thrown on a dung-heap.
Don't expect such a performance nowadays. Douthat doesn't. I doubt that Derbyshire really demands one, despite his recommendation that the British hostages "be court-martialed for dereliction of duty . . . with shooting definitely an option." You can hardly demand such Moysean bravery from those who are most likely only dimly aware that, once upon a time, it would have been expected.
All the same, it's sobering to see how things have changed.