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among flower-beds, corn and potatoes are now grown.

own risk.

765

LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

A SKETCH BY THE EDITOR.

At

I went down into the park, the sun was setting behind Blois, it was a won- THE name of this distinguished Nobledrously mild evening, which harmonized man is widely known and highly honored with my feelings. Everything was still among all the leading governments of around me, and the château seemed Europe, and the United States. only to be a vast hermitage in the soli- nearly every Court of Europe of any tude of the forest. "Oh, Count de political importance, his Lordship has, Chambord," I said pensively to myself, at one time or another in the long and "may your end be like this sunset. brilliant career of his diplomatic life May you never crave for a throne, round of some fifty years, filled the office of which the tempests of revolution howl; Ambassador or Minister plenipotentiary let this nation complete its destiny at its as the representative of the English govYour life is tranquil, and ernment. In additon to this, he has been sympathy stands reverentially on the sent on special missions for the adjustment road along which you wander in exile, of difficult questions and treaties of interSince national importance requiring consumate 60 let end be tranquil too. your your ancestor Louis XVI. died on the skill and judgment. The fact that the scaffold, since you went into exile, the English government under different cabworld of the new era has grown recon- inet Ministers has so often called for his ciled with your race, and the revolution eminent talents and services for so long grants you the peaceful happiness of a period, furnishes ample proof of the this life. Be contented with a crown of sorrow, do not listen to the false suggestions of so-called royalists, who play a daring game with you, and only wish to employ your person for their own profit.'

I spent the night here. The next morning I visited the pretty village church, which has been rebuilt at the count's expense. He spends the entire income of the estate-eighty thousand francs-in preserving and restoring the chateau: owing to the smallness of the sum, the works progress very slowly. The glass paintings in the windows represent St. Clotilde, and Queen Blanca, mother of St. Louis, as well as St. Henri and Charlemagne. It may be In the asked what the last does here. first place, the Catholic Church made him a saint, and, secondly, he is reckoned in France a French emperor, an ancestor of the Count de Chambord, according to the Legitimists. Lilies and H's are everywhere painted on the walls and ceiling. In this solitude a monastic silence constantly rules. I sat down and thought over the varied scenes which I had witnessed during my wanderings in Brittany and the Vendée, and saw how history buried a dynasty. It was thus I bade farewell to Chambord.

Six

high estimation in which he is held
among the statesmen of the old world.
Perhaps no Ambassador from a foreign
court, was ever regarded and treated
with higher respect and consideration by
the government of the Sublime Porte,
than Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.
times-from 1810 to 1858-he had gone
as Ambassador to that court at Constan-
tinople. He was present at the celebra-
ted Congress of Vienna, in 1814, by
order of the English government, to aid
by his counsels in adjusting the affairs of
Europe at the close of the long wars of
the old Napoleon, and perhaps is the only
survivor of that renowned Congress.
He was Ambassador at Washington in
1820, when John Quincy Adams was
Secretary of State, with whom he at-
tempted the adjustment of the boundary
questions, which, though the treaty pass-
ed the House of Lords, yet failed at
Washington. The sun of his bright and
useful life in the public service still shines
luminous upon his path. His place in
the House of Lords is still well filled and
honored by his presence and counsels.
We make these few obvious statements
concerning the character and history
of this distinguished nobleman in connec-
tion with his fine Portrait, which adorns
our present number of the Eclectic. We
are sure many of our readers who are
familiar with his name and public servi-

ces will be gratified to possess so good a portrait of his face and form. In regard to its accuracy and truthfulness, we may be permited to say, that it has been carefully engraved for the Eclectic by Mr. Perine, from a portrait which his Lordship kindly gave us, at our request at his house in London, last summer, 1864. The kindness of his manner was only equalled by the affluence of his instructive conversation of historic interest, on the past and present current events on both sides of the Atlantic.

We beg to record also a brief outline biographical sketch of his lordship, for the interest of the reader. Viscount Stratford Canning is the fourth son of Stratford Canning, Esq., merchant of London, and first cousin to the late Right Honorable George Canning and of the first Lord Garvagh, and is descended from a younger branch of the ancient family of Canning of Foxcote, in the county of Warwick. He was born in London, January 6th, 1788, and received his early education on the foundation at Eton, where he rose to the captaincy of the school. He was admitted a scholar of King's College, Cambridge, in 1806, but quitted the university in the following year, without having taken a degree, on being appointed a précis writer in the Foreign Office under his cousin; and in the same year he accompanied Mr. Merry as secretary on his embassy to Denmark and Sweden. In 1808 he was despatched as secretary to Sir Robert Adair's special mission to the Dardanelles, for the purpose of negotiating terms of peace between England and the Porte, which had been forcibly interrupted in 1807; an object which was eventually accomplished by the treaty signed January 5, 1809. These negotiations were secretly opposed by both France and Russia; but the Sultan Mohammed remained firm to the interests of Britain. In the following April Mr. Canning was made secretary of legation at the Porte, and on the recall of Sir Robert Adair in 1810 was accredited minister plenipotentiary at that court. This important post he retained till 1812, when he returned to England and took the degree of M. A. by royal letters at King's College, Cambridge. In 1814 he was appointed envoy to Switzerland, and assisted in the formation of

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the Treaty of Alliance between the nineteen cantons, which eventually became the basis of their federal compact. In 1820 having been sworn a member of his majesty's Privy Council, he was accredited as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the United States, and remained at Washington for three years; during which time he had an opportunity of obtaining correct knowledge of the details of the various questions which had been left for future adjustment between the two governments by the treaty of Ghent. At the end of 1824, Mr. Stratford Canning was sent to St. Petersburg on a special mission, having reference to the Greek troubles, and another also to the Emperor of Austria. After accomplishing the duties of these missions he proceeded to Constantinople, having been appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to that court on the 10th of October, 1825. Here he lost no occasion of negotiating with the sultan in favor of the Greek nation, whose heroic exertions and horrible sufferings had engaged alike the admiration and sympathy of men of all nations and of all parties; but his appeals were unfortunately without avail. The obdurate sultan could pardon, but would not treat with men whom he looked upon as his slaves. Under these circumstances, the three powers-England, France, and Russia-determined upon concerting more effectually for terminating a condition of things which had become a scandal to all Europe. In 1827 Mr. Canning returned to England for a time, and in the July of that year was signed the treaty of London, by which the three powers agreed to tender to the Sublime Porte their mediating offices towards putting an end to the internal war and establishing the relations which ought to exist between Turkey and the people of Greece, and in event of such mediation being rejected, to interfere by force in the matter. The reply of the Porte was a refusal, and was immediately followed by active measures of coercion. The battle of Navarino, on the policy of which so much discussion and debate has taken place, was fought in September 1827, and the allied powers resolved to take the Greek nation under their protection, and consulted on the

propriety and means of establishing it as an independent state. Mr. Canning, on the part of the British government, took an active share in the inquiries and deliberations necessary towards this result. In 1829 he had conferred upon him the distinction of a Civil Knight Grand Cross of the Bath for these and former diplomatic services. He had been already elected for the borough of Old Sarum, and shortly afterwards was chosen to represent the since disfranchised constituency of Stockbridge, Hants. In October 1831 he was again despatched on a special mission to the Ottoman Porte, for the purpose of treating upon and defining the future boundaries of the kingdom of Greece, which were eventually settled according to his recommendations in 1829. The result was another treaty signed at London, on May 7th, 1832, between the same three powers, and ratified by Bavaria on the 27th of the same month, upon the basis of which Prince Otho of Bavaria accepted and ascended the throne of Greece. In the same year Sir Stratford Canning was deputed upon a special mission to the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, the latter of which however he did not visit. In December 1834 he was again elected to Parliament, this time for King's Lynn, Norfolk, which he continued to represent down to the month of January 1842. In 1836 and again in 1841 the ministry of Lord Melbourne of fered to him, though politically opposed to them, the governorship-general of Canada, the acceptance of which however he declined. Towards the close of the year 1841 he was appointed a third time as ambassador at Constantinople, in succession to the late Lord Ponsonby: this post he has held under each successive ministry down to 1857. In April 1852 he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, a title which he chose to mark his paternal descent from William Cannynge, the "pious founder of the Church of St. Marye Redclyffe," at Bristol.

The policy of Lord Stratford in Turkey has been manly and consistent. Considering the integrity of the Ottoman power to be essential to the permanent relations of Europe, he gave a firm support to the independent policy of the Porte, against the attacks and machinations of Russia.

Shrewd to detect the schemes of that government, he met them when discovered with a bold and resolute front. In the dispute between the Porte and the Court of Russia, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe gave to the Porte the full extent of the moral support at his command, without compromising his government beyond the point to which his instructions warranted him. When, in May, 1854, the Foreign Secretary of the Porte consulted him, in common with the representatives of France and Austria, in reference to the ultimatum of Prince Menzikoff, the reply was one leaving the Ottoman government free to adopt and declare its own line of policy; but that line of policy being once adopted, and announced to the British ambassador, the latter did not hesitate to express his approval of it and to promise the friendly offices of his governinent. Independently of the more important political questions bearing upon European relations, to which Lord Stratford has never been blind, and of the part which he has taken in transactions connected therewith, too numerous for us to mention, there have been very many occasions on which he has been the means of promoting the ends of humanity, religious freedom and intellectual progress. Owing to his successful representations, the infliction of torture was prohibited in the Turkish dominions; to him is due the abolition of the penalty of death, formerly inflicted upon renegades-that is, Christians. who, having embraced the Mohammedan belief, reverted to Christianity; also the appointment of the mixed courts for the trial of civil and criminal causes in which Europeans are concerned, and the reception therein of the testimony of Christians upon an equal footing with that of Mohammedans; he likewise procured, in 1845, a firman for the establishment of the first Protestant chapel in the British Consulate at Jerusalem; and in 1855 another firman, establishing the religious and political freedom of all descriptions of Protestants throughout the Turkish empire-for which he has received niemorials of thanks from the representatives of various bodies of Protestants. To scientific discovery Lord Stratford has always lent his valuable aid. In 1845, when Mr. Layard could not find a govern

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