eign Prince, as to carry with it a virtual sovereignty over ten or fourteen millions of laymen. All this had been seen by Lord Stratford and by the Turkish Ministers; and when Prince Mentschikoff pressed the treaty upon Rifaat Pasha he was startled, as it would seem, by the calmness and the full knowledge which he encountered. 'The treaty,' said Rifaat Pasha, 'would be giving to Russia an exclusive protectorate over the 'whole Greek population, their clergy, and their 'Churches.'*

The Prince, it would seem, now began to know that he had to do with the English Ambassador, for he made the alteration before adverted to in the draft of his treaty, and on the 20th of April fead it in its amended shape to Lord Stratford, and assured him that it was only an explanatory guarantee of existing treaties, giving to the co-religionists of Russia what Austria already possessed with regard to hers. Lord Stratford on that day had approached to within forty-eight hours of the settlement of the question of the Holy Places, which he deemed it so vital to achieve ; and it may be easily imagined that, in the remarks which he might make upon hearing the draft read, he would abstain with great care from irritating discussion, and would not utter a word more than was necessary for the purpose of fairly indicating that his postponement of discussion on the subject of the ulterior demands was not to be mistaken for acquiescence; but all that for that pur*Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 153.

CHAP.

XI.

The negotia

tions which

followed the

demand.

CHAP.

XI.

pose was needed he fairly said, for he observed to Prince Mentschikoff that the Sultan's promise 'to protect his Christian subjects in the free exercise of their religion differed extremely from a right conferred on any foreign Power to enforce that protection, and also that the same degree of 'interference might be dangerous to the Porte, 'when exercised by so powerful an empire as Russia on behalf of ten millions of Greeks, and 'innocent in the case of Austria, whose influence, ' derivable from religious sympathy, was confined to a small number of Catholics, including her ' own subjects.'* These remarks were surely not ambiguous; but it seems probable that Prince Mentschikoff, misled by his previous impression as to what Lord Stratford really objected to, may have imagined that the proposed convention in its altered form would not be violently disapproved by the English Ambassador. At all events, he seems to have instructed his Government to that effect.

On the 19th of April the Russian Ambassador addressed his remonstrances and his demands to the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs in the form of a diplomatic Note. In the first sentence of this singular document Prince Mentschikoff tells the Minister for Foreign Affairs that he must have seen the duplicity of his predecessor.' In the next he tells him he must be 'convinced of 'the extent to which the respect due to the Emperor had been disregarded, and how great was his magnanimity in offering to the Porte the *Eastern Papers,' part

p. 156.

6

XI.

means of escaping from the embarrassments CHAP. 'occasioned to it by the bad faith of its Minis'ters;' and then, after more objurgation in the same strain, and after dealing in a peremptory way with the question of the Holy Places, the Note goes on to declare that 'in consequence of the hostile tendencies manifested for some years 'past in whatever related to Russia, she required in behalf of the religious communities of the Orthodox Church an explanatory and positive ́act of guarantee.' Then the Note requested that the Ottoman Cabinet would be pleased in its ' wisdom to weigh the serious nature of the offence which it had committed, and compare it with the moderation of the demands made for repar'ation and guarantee, which a consideration of ' legitimate defence might have put forward at 'greater length and in more peremptory terms.' Finally the Note stated that 'the reply of the ⚫ Minister for Foreign Affairs would indicate to the Ambassador the ulterior duties which he would 'have to discharge;' and intimated that those duties would be 'consistent with the dignity of the Government which he represented, and of 'the religion professed by his Sovereign.'*

It might have been politic for Prince Mentschikoff to send such a note as this in the midst of the panic which followed his landing in the early days of March, but it was vain to send it now. The Turks had returned to their old allegiance. They could take their rest, for they knew that *Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 158.

XI.

CHAP. Lord Stratford watched. Him they feared, him. they trusted, him they obeyed. It was in vain now that the Prince sought to crush the will of the Sultan and of his Ministers. Whether he threatened, or whether he tried to cajole; whether he sent his dragoman with angry messages to the Porte, or whether he went thither in person; whether he urged the members of the Government in private interviews, or whether he obtained audience of the Sultan, he always encountered the same firmness, the same courteous deference, and, above all, that same terrible moderation which, day by day and hour by hour, was putting him more and more in the wrong. The voice which spoke to him might be the voice of the Grand Vizier, or the voice of the Reis Effendi, or the voice of the Sultan himself; but the mind which he was really encountering was always the mind of one man.

Far from quailing under the threatening tone of the Note, the Turkish Government now determined to enter into no convention with Russia, and to reject Prince Mentschikoff's proposals respecting the protection of the Greek Church in Turkey. The Grand Vizier and the Reis Effendi calmly consulted Lord Stratford as to the manner in which they should give effect to the decision of the Cabinet, and Lord Stratford, now placed at ease by the settlement of the question of the Holy Places, contentedly prepared to encounter the next expected moves of Prince Mentschikoff.*

* 24th April. Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 160. The settlement of the question of the Holy Places was on the 22d.

XI.

Czar on finding himself encountered by Lord

In strife for ascendancy like that which was CHAP. now going on between the Czar and Lord Stratford, the pain of undergoing defeat is of such a Rage of the kind that the pangs of the sufferer accumulate; and far from being assuaged by time, they are Stratford. every day less easy to bear than they were the day before. By the pomp and the declared significance of Prince Mentschikoff's mission, the Emperor Nicholas had drawn upon himself the eyes of Europe, and the presence of the religious ingredient had brought him under the gaze of many millions of his own subjects who were not commonly observers of the business of the State. And he who, in transactions thus watched by men, was preparing for him cruel discomfiture -he who kept him on the rack, and regulated his torments with cold unrelenting precision-was the old familiar enemy whom he had once refused to receive as the English Ambassador at St Petersburg. People who knew the springs of action in the Russian capital used to say at that time that the whole 'Eastern Question,' as it was called, lay enclosed in one name-lay enclosed in the name of Lord Stratford. They acknowledged that the Emperor Nicholas could not bear the stress of our Ambassador's authority with the Porte.

And, in truth, the Czar's power of endurance was drawing to a close. He wavered and wavered again and again. He was versed in business of State, and it would seem that when his mind was turned to things temporal he truly meant to be politic and just. But in his more religious mo