of Clarendon, dated December 29, 1854, which shows clearly what were the views of the British Government and its allies at that time :

'There is no question at present of curtailing the territory of Russia; there is no question of humiliating her, unless she chooses to regard as humiliation the intention of Europe to be safe from her aggression. England, Austria, and France are agreed about the guarantees upon which that safety will depend. They consider that Russia must no longer have the right, which she now possesses by Treaties, to enter the Principalities and to deal with that portion of the Sultan's territory as her own. They consider that the navigation of the Danube must be secured, not by Treaty as now, which only secures the accumulation of obstacles to it, but by an independent authority at the mouths of that river. They consider that Russian preponderance in the Black Sea is incompatible with the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire and consequently with the equilibrium of Europe. They consider that it would be monstrous to renew that part of the Treaty of Kainardji by the misinterpretation of which the Emperor claims to interfere between the Sultan and twelve millions of his subjects, and virtually to obtain on land the preponderance he has acquired in the Black Sea-in fact, to displace the Sultan, and become the virtual, until he constituted himself the actual, and inexpugnable, possessor of the Ottoman dominions.'

These were precisely the principles and conditions which the allied Powers insisted on and obtained fifteen months later at the Congress of Paris.

M. Gentz supplies us with a very curious and apparently acurate account of the origin of the Duke of Wellington's Protocol, in his reports to the Hospodar of May 31 and November 1, 1826, and we shall borrow from him some of these details. The object of the Duke's mission to Petersburg was nominally to congratulate the Emperor Nicholas on his accession, but in reality to divert the new Sovereign from giving effect to the warlike schemes of his predecessor. Mr. Canning's instructions to the Duke of February 10, 1826 (which are printed in the third volume of these Despatches), are a masterly survey of the whole question, and might very well serve as a vindication of the policy of her Majesty's Government at the present time. The primary object of Great Britain was to prevent Russia from making war on Turkey; the secondary object to obtain terms of separation or autonomy for the Greeks. Nicholas told the Duke that if he did go to war he would not ask for, or take, a single village of Turkish territory; he also said that he cared nothing for the Greeks, whom he regarded as rebels against their lawful sovereign. The Duke told the Czar that if he went to war, he could as soon

turn the course of the Neva, as determine beforehand the limits of his operations. So matters went on, till the last days of the Duke's visit; and then, upon his asking for a written assurance from the Court of Russia, in conformity with the verbal promises and declarations he had received from the Czar, a Protocol was somewhat hastily drawn up, by the authority of the Duke himself. It is to this celebrated document that the following observations relate:

This agreement was only inspired to the ministers of England and Russia, and by the mutual jealousies and fears, caused on the one hand by the threatening appearance of war imminent between Russia and the Porte; and on the other by the secret designs attributed to the British Government in Greece. [Mr. Stratford Canning had recently made a separate attempt at mediation between the Greeks and the Turks.] The parties to the Protocol, far from attaching much importance to it themselves, regarded it rather as a means of precaution, to be used on either side, in case the other party attempted to possess itself of the question. The document was drawn up in so vague and careless a manner that Mr. Canning would probably have disavowed it, if the name of the Duke of Wellington had not shielded the transaction. Such was the state of things down to the return of Count Lieven to London, when a change occurred, due in great measure to personal influence, of so delicate a nature that I can only describe it with considerable circumspection.

'Count Lieven is a man of mild and agreeable disposition, whose talents are by no means brilliant. His mother held a place at court. The Emperor had just made him a prince, and Lieven would probably have been perfectly contented with his modest diplomatic situation, had it not been for his wife, Madame de Lieven, born Benkendorf. She is a woman of superior talents and excessively active, passionately fond of politics, and capable of treating them with the intelligence and acuteness of a consummate minister. She has carried on for the last eight years an intimate correspondence with Prince Metternich, to which the Prince has always attached the greatest value, because it gave him the most accurate information on the interior of the British Government and the Court of England. During the absence of her husband, Mr. Canning, usually indifferent to the charms and the society of women, prevailed on himself to approach Madame de Lieven; and by flattering her vanity, and showing her a degree of confidence rare in a man so close and impenetrable as he is, he succeeded in gaining her to his interests. Her own ambition contributed to this result. Madame de Lieven discovered in this connexion (which was exclusively political) a means of raising herself and her husband to a point of credit and influence to which she had in vain aspired. She hoped to play an important part, as well at Petersburg as in London; and to become the central point of a union, more or less durable, between England and Russia. Lieven gladly availed himself of so brilliant an opportunity; and as he, as well as his wife, exercise great influence over the flexible and feeble mind of Count Nesselrode, it was not difficult for them to engage him too in this strange coalition.'

The Duke of Wellington left Petersburg with the conviction that he had secured the peace of Europe by his Protocol. But it seems that the Russian Government and the combination organised in London between the Lievens and Mr. Canning took a different view of that instrument. Hence arose what afterwards became an open and vehement dissension between the Duke on the one hand, and the Minister acting with the Russian Ambassador on the other. Princess Lieven had sincere regard for Mr. Canning; she sympathised with his generous sentiments; she admired his eloquence and his wit; and she always maintained that he had been ill-used by the Duke. However this may be, it is certain that the Court of Russia saw in Mr. Canning a Minister not unwilling to concur in the very measures of hostility to the Porte which the Duke had sought to avert. Mr. Canning's own views became more adverse to Turkey on the failure of his attempt at a separate mediation; and the Treaty of London, signed during Mr. Canning's own brief Administration, was the result.

When the Duke arrived at the head of affairs, six months later, on the dissolution of the Goderich Cabinet, the battle of Navarino had been fought-Great Britain and France had been led to assume a position nearly akin to that of open hostility to the Porte-the Ambassadors had been withdrawn from Constantinople-the affairs of the Ottoman Empire were in desperate confusion, and the Emperor Nicholas, not satisfied with the further concessions he had extorted by the Treaty of Akerman, was preparing for war. The Duke considered the declaration of the Czar that he now felt at liberty to consult 'ses convenances et ses intérêts,' as a direct breach of the assurance given to himself by word of mouth at Petersburg. The first campaign was costly and unsuccessful; and the Duke's reflections upon those operations (in 1828) will be found in the volume immediately preceding that now before us. In the following year the Russian invasion was carried on with more success, and by July Diebitsch had won a victory which laid the Balkan and the road to Constantinople open to his forces. It is at this crisis, which seemed likely to prove absolutely fatal to the Ottoman power, that we resume our examination of these papers. The Duke's observation on it was as follows:

'Walmer Castle, July 14, 1829.

'My dear Lord Aberdeen,-We must expect that this victory will raise the Russian demands, and I can't say that the Porte has any means of resistance.

'We are certainly interested in preventing the extension of the

Russian power in Asia, and particularly in preventing their having possession of Poti and Anapa. They feel that this is the case, and therefore keep secret from us this intended departure on their part from the letter and spirit of their engagement to the world when they commenced the war.

'I quite agree with Lord Heytesbury respecting the nature of their power. But observe that they are harmless only when single-handed. If united with France or either of the great German Powers they are very formidable, and having the desire not only as a nation, but as individuals, to mix themselves up as principals in every concern, and having a real interest in none, I am not quite certain that they are not the most inconvenient for us to deal with on friendly terms of any Power of Europe. Whatever may be the course which the Greek question takes we have behind us a very difficult and important question, that is the guarantee.'

And he returned to this point a fortnight later, well knowing the importance of the Asiatic side of this question :

'It is believed that we object to any Russian aggrandisement in Asia, and particularly to the cession of these places; and that is true.

'But the cession of these places, however important in itself, and however increased in importance by the manner adopted of obtaining it, is a trifle in comparison with the risk attending the continuance of the Turkish war. We ought not, we cannot advise the Turks not to cede Anapa and Poti without promising and giving them assistance; and Anapa and Poti are not sufficiently well known, nor, indeed, are they so important to our interests, as to induce us to incur the risk of involving ourselves and all Europe in war, in order to prevent these places from falling into the hands of the Russians. But the Emperor of Russia ought to be told a little of our mind upon this subject when the Turks shall be out of the scrape.

'There is one thing which delights me in all this, and that is the proof afforded every day of that which I told Mr. Canning in April 1826, viz., that the Emperor did not care one pin about the Greeks, and that all that he cared about was his affairs with the Turks, and these very points Anapa and Poti.'

As the Russians approached Adrianople matters became more serious. Lord Aberdeen writes:

'It strikes me that Lieven and Madame de Lieven both look to the arrival of the Russians at Constantinople as a probable event. They talked of the necessity of confidence; and when I asked if they expected us to confide while Constantinople was burning, they both said that it was precisely the time when it was most required and would do most good.'

And the Duke replied:

It is quite evident that everything in Greece, as well as in Turkey, is going on as badly as possible for the interests of this country. The affair of Greece was taken up in 1826 in order to prevent war between

Russia and the Porte, which our interference has since occasioned; and to prevent the establishment in Greece of an exclusive Russian influence, which has been established there under French as well as Russian protection, in a form, under circumstances, and by agency likely to occasion discontent, revolutionary notions, and possibly insurrection against our authority in the Ionian Islands. Then the only chance of terminating this war in Turkey is by concessions on the part of the Porte of territory, the demand of which is inconsistent with the promises and engagements made by the Emperor to all Europe; and the concession of the particular territory is, and is known by all Europe to be, injurious to the interests of Great Britain alone. Then if this or some such concession is not made, we must expect, in very few weeks possibly, to see a Russian army in Constantinople.

'This is not a bright prospect, but it is not the less a true one.

There is very little use in making complaints upon any subject, unless one is prepared to strike a blow.'

This state of things was as opposite as possible to that which the Duke had desired; and it was aggravated by the undisguised attempt of the Lievens, who enjoyed considerable influence at the Court of George IV., to undermine and overthrow the Government of which he was the head. To this was added an internal danger. The King had never forgiven his Ministers for having wrung from him a reluctant assent to the Catholic Relief Bill; and the Duke of Cumberland, the head of the Orange party, had come over to settle in England for the purpose of working on the fears and prejudices of his brother. Wellington even saw reason to suspect that the Lievens had encouraged His Royal Highness to come over for the purpose of upsetting the Government; but this was strenuously denied. At any rate there is no doubt that a RussoCumberland cabal was using every means to poison the mind of the King; and if a man had not been at the head of affairs of whom George IV. stood in awe, the intrigue might have been successful. The Duke of Wellington continued to treat the Lievens with courtesy and respect, though he knew they were his mortal enemies; and he would not condescend to reprisals against them. But on the subject of the Duke of Cumberland's intrigues he expressed himself with the greatest energy.

To the Attorney-General.

'Walmer Castle, July 27, 1829. 'My dear Sir, I am very obliged to you for your note which I have received, and I will proceed accordingly. I believe that the political party to which you refer is very small indeed if it exists at all as yet. But there is a personage in England who has little to fear, and nothing to lose, who possesses the means of mischief, who is very