But, when the time comes, I can have no doubt what the instructions ought to be. Firmans ought to be asked of the Sultan for the entry of the fleets within the outer castles of the Dardanelles. If he refuses them our honour is safe, and we may retire to any good anchorage farther off.

On the second point Lord John was more emphatic :

Supposing the Emperor of Russia to agree to some of the amendments and reject others, there remains a fair ground for the conference to attempt a compromise. But, if he reject altogether the amended note, we must recur to the original pretexts of quarrel. The pretence of the Emperor of Russia was that his influence in behalf of the Greek Church in Turkey, as sanctioned by treaty and confirmed by long usage, had been treated with neglect. His demand was that concessions should be made to him such as could only be made as the fruit of a successful war, ... When the Sultan, astonished at this demand, asked his allies for advice, they said he was the best judge of his own honour and dignity. All he now asks is to make some amendments to save his honour and dignity in a note presented to him by these four powers. Such being the case, we surely cannot again present to him the same note unamended, with whatever explanations we may accompany it. What we might do is to forward to Petersburg through the conference the note of Reshid Pacha of July 23.1 It is a very good and sufficient note. If the Emperor of Russia rejects both the amended note of the conference and the Turkish note of July 23, we must conclude that he is bent on war, and prepare our measures accordingly,

J. RUSSELL.

But, whether

The policy which Lord John laid down in this memorandum may have been right or may have been wrong. right or wrong, there can be no doubt that it differed essentially both from the opinion which he had expressed three weeks before, and from the course which in the seclusion of his old age he fancied he had recommended, and he thought should have been adopted. The Czar's unconditional acceptance of the note, however, had given Russia an advantage which she was not likely to throw away. She could fairly claim that she had done all that the allies had thought it right

1 This note will be found in Eastern Papers, pt. ii. p. 31. It was drawn up by Lord Stratford. Reshid Pacha was the Sultan's Prime Minister.

to ask, and that they were not justified in asking her to do more. And so clear was this position that, when news reached London on September 13 that she refused to accept the Turkish modifications, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Clarendon, and Lord Palmerston-for Lord John, in the interval, had returned to Roseneath-agreed to urge the powers represented at Vienna to recommend the Porte to sign the unmodified note, declaring at the same time that the allies understood the note in the sense of the Turkish modifications.

Lord Aberdeen wrote to Lord John

ARGYLL HOUSE, September 16, 1853.

The Russian answer is such as we expected; indeed, more favourable, for the Emperor adheres to the Vienna Note, from which he might have been freed, according to the terms of his acceptance. He also expresses a desire to evacuate the Principalities. We have not yet received the despatch, but it appears to contain further statements of a conciliatory character.

Palmerston was with us yesterday; and we agreed to propose at Vienna that the four powers should declare that they adopted the Turkish modifications as their own interpretation of the note, and that they were prepared to adhere to this interpretation in all time hereafter. This would be a virtual guarantee to the Porte, of more value than any they could expect. Indeed, the declaration is so strong, that I entertain some doubt of its being agreed to by Austria and Prussia. But it is still more doubtful whether Lord Stratford will allow the Turks to accept it.1

In asking the Porte to sign the unmodified note, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Clarendon, and Lord Palmerston were, like Lord John, guilty of inconsistency. If they had intended to take this course, they ought to have done so on September 1.

1 The letter goes on:

I entirely agree with you in thinking that Nesselrode has not established the points you mention in his notes; but I think you do not state them quite fairly. He wished to show that the occupation of the Principalities, however exceptional, did not establish an entirely new principle of action in Europe, as had been asserted, and that measures of violence and coercion, without actual war, were not rare. The bombardment of Antwerp, and blockade of the Scheldt, were of this kind, although constituting an undoubted casus belli for the King of the Netherlands. The French occupation of the Morea, in 1828,

By asking the Czar on that day to consent to the modification of the note, they made it possible for the Porte to argue that they had admitted the necessity for modifying it. And the terms1 in which the Czar refused their request increased their difficulty; for he made it plain that he attached a meaning to the note different from that which the allies who drew it up had intended it to bear, and similar to that which Lord Stratford and the Porte had contended that it did bear.

But the proposal of the three Ministers was not merely inconsistent with their previous decision; it was opposed to the course which Lord John had himself recommended in his memorandum of September 3, and on which, when he returned to Scotland, he believed that his colleagues had agreed. He not unnaturally, therefore, was intensely annoyed when he learned their decision.

He wrote to Lord Clarendon on the 17th

It is good to make attempts to retain the blessings of peace; but I own I cannot but think your proposal at Vienna premature. We do not yet know in what sense the Emperor may have rejected the modifications, and it would be strange to give an interpretation to the note at Constantinople which is contradicted by the very powers to whom it is to be offered.

As to the guarantees to Turkey, I confess I see none in your proposal. You only propose to say that the note does not confer any droit d'ingerence between the Sultan and his subjects. "To be sure not,' the Czar may say, 'it only admits and confirms a right I have always had and always exercised, and which I mean to keep and exercise.' And, if so, what does the Porte gain?

I must say I much lament the step you have taken. I think it

and our destruction of the Turkish fleet, are similar instances. The object of these acts does not affect their character, for about that there may be great difference of opinion. Austria and Prussia thought we were wrong in coercing the Turks in 1828, and Russia, Austria, and Prussia thought we were wrong in coercing the King of the Netherlands in 1832.

We think Russia wrong in the present occupation of the Principalities without being at war, not because there is anything new or unprecedented in the act itself, as the means of enforcing a demand, but because we think the demand itself unjust.

1 These terms were not known in England till a little later.

is degrading Turkey, not to reject her modifications, but to reject them after submitting them to the Emperor of Russia.

The conference at Vienna in Westmorland's hands has been an instrument very injurious to peace. In your hands in London it would have been otherwise. . . I am vexed about the last move, and you must not be surprised, if it is accepted at Vienna, if I were to decline any responsibility.

Two days afterwards he wrote to Lord Aberdeen

The only hope I have is that Turkey may instantly reject such a proposal. But even that will not wipe away the shame of having made it. . . . It is unwise and unfair to propose again a note which his [the Sultan's] Ministers have declared they can none of them sign. All this makes me very uneasy; and, if the Austrians agree to Clarendon's terms, and forward them to Constantinople, I do not see how I can remain a member of your Government.

That evening Lord John spoke at a public meeting at Greenock, and he alluded to the crisis in terms which must have been much more intelligible to his colleagues, who read them, than to his audience, who listened to them

While we endeavour to maintain peace, I certainly should be the last to forget that, if peace cannot be maintained with honour it is no longer peace.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, however, the publication of the Russian reasons for refusing the modified note convinced Lord John's colleagues that the declaration that the powers represented at Vienna understood the original note in the sense of the Turkish modifications could no longer justify its signature by the Porte. Such a declaration could only mean that these powers attached a sense to words different from that which Russia applied to them. Instead of terminating a dispute, it would have emphasised a variance of opinion. The project, in consequence, fell through, and Lord Aberdeen was able to announce to Lord John that it was at an end. He added

The comical part of this affair is that the proceeding which you thought so unfavourable to the Turks, and which had nearly produced such serious consequences, was not only approved by Palmerston, but in great part written at his dictation.

But, though the new project had fallen, its proposal led Lord John to meditate on the whole proceeding, and on his own position in the Cabinet; and, when Lord Clarendon expressed to him the pain with which he had read his letter of September 17, Lord John replied on the 23rd

The fatal facility of the electric telegraph led you and Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston to take a step of which the best that can be said is that it has done no harm.

After remarking that he had not meant to write in an un-, friendly tone, he added of his own position—

That which I have held this year has been, and is, and must be, a degrading one. I have deserved it, and I have borne it as I best could. Lord Aberdeen, by his kindness and good feeling, has done all in his power to make it tolerable. Still, on more than one occasion, I have had to summon all my patience to my aid. But you have made me feel my degradation more than I ever felt it before. You assumed that I was to be the chief organ for defending in the House of Commons that which I had no share in deciding, and of which I had previously recorded my disapproval. It was impossible that I could so lower myself, or that I should not feel the blow you had inflicted on me more than all the other humiliations I have endured.

I am sure you did not see the matter in this light, and I make every allowance for the difficulty of your course. . . . Liberavi animam meam, and I hope never to revive the subject with you.And so I remain, yours very truly, J. RUSSELL.

With the failure of the proposal Lord John felt that the necessity for his resignation had passed away. But, anxious and ill at ease, he determined to bring his stay at Roseneath to an abrupt conclusion, and to return to London. In the meanwhile he drew up an elaborate memorandum on the situation for circulation in the Cabinet:

RUSSIA AND TURKEY.

The present situation of affairs makes it necessary to look back, around us, and forward. The question between Turkey and Russia is to be looked at, Ist, as one of right; 2nd, as one of power.

In respect to right there can be no doubt in any honest mind. VOL. II.

N