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XI.

CHAP. no longer do this upon grounds which Europe would regard as having a semblance of fairness. When he had despatched his Note of the 19th of April, the question of the Holy Places was still unsettled, and he was then able to blend that grievance with other matters, and make it serve as a basis for his ulterior demands; but now that that question was disposed of his standing-ground failed him, for he alleged against the Sultan no infraction of a treaty, and the only grievance of which he had had to complain had been redressed on the 22d of April; and yet, passing straight from this smooth condition of things, he had to call upon the Sultan to sign a treaty which he disapproved, and to make his refusal to do so a ground for the immediate rupture of diplomatic relations.

He is baffled by Lord Stratford.

The natural hope of a diplomatist placed in a stress of this sort would have lain in the chance that the Government upon which he was pressing might be guilty of some imprudence, and it may be inferred that the Note of the 19th had been framed with a view of provoking the Turkish Ministers into a burst of anger. But every hope of this kind had been baffled. Turks were fanatical, Turks were fierce, Turks were quick to avenge, and, above all, Turks were liable to panic; but some spell had come upon the race. The spell had come upon the Sultan, it had come upon the Turkish Ministers, it had come upon the Great Council, it had come even upon the larger mass of the warlike people who bring their feelings to bear upon the policy of their Sultan. At every step of his negotiation Prince Mentschi

XI.

koff encountered an adversary always courteous, CHA P. always moderate, but cold, steadfast, wary, and seeming as though he looked to the day when perhaps he might wreak cruel vengeance. Who this was the Prince now knew; and he perhaps began to understand the nature of the torment inflicted upon his imperial Master by the bare utterance of the one hated name. Prince Mentschikoff found himself powerless as a negotiator, and it was clear that, unless he could descend to the rude expedient of an ultimatum or a threat, he was a man annulled. deed, without some act of violence he could hardly deliver himself from ridicule.

In

his de

mand in a

new form.

Therefore, on the 5th of May, Prince Mentschi- He presses koff forwarded to the Minister for Foreign Affairs the draft of a Sened or Convention, purporting to be made between the Sultan and the Emperor of Russia. This proposed Sened confirmed, with the force of a treaty engagement, the arrangements respecting the Holy Places which had been made in favour of the Greek Church, and it also introduced and applied to the rival Churches a provision similar in its wording to that which often appears in commercial treaties, and goes by the name of the 'most favoured nation clause.' But the noxious feature of the Convention was detected in the Article which purported to secure for ever to the Orthodox Church and its Clergy all the rights and immunities which they had already enjoyed, and those of which they were possessed from ancient times.*

Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 167.

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CHAP. Here, under a new form, was the old endeavour to XI. obtain for Russia a protectorate of the Greek Church in Turkey.

Counsels of Lord

This draft of a Convention was annexed to a Note, in which Prince Mentschikoff pressed its immediate adoption, and urged the Sublime Porte, 'laying 'aside all hesitation and all mistrust, by which,' he declared, 'the dignity and the generous sentiments of 'his august Master would be aggrieved,'* to delay its decision no longer. In conclusion, Prince Mentschikoff suffered himself to request that the Minister for Foreign Affairs would be good enough to let him have his answer by the following Tuesday, and to add that he could not consider any longer delay in 6 any other light than as a want of respect towards 'his Government, which would impose upon him the 'most painful duty.'*

Upon receiving this hostile communication, the Stratford. Minister for Foreign Affairs appealed to Lord Stratford for counsel. He advised the Turkish Government to be still deferential, still courteous, still willing to go to the very edge of what might be safely conceded, but to stand firm.

His communica

Prince

koff.

At this time Lord Stratford received a visit from tions with Prince Mentschikoff, and ascertained from him that Mentschi he did not mean to recede from his demands. The Prince declared that he had run out the whole line of his moderation, and could go no further, and that his Government would no longer submit to the state of inferiority in which he said Russia was held *Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 165.

with reference to the co-religionists of the Emperor CHA P. Nicholas.

A few days later Lord Stratford addressed a letter to Prince Mentschikoff, in which, with all the diplomatic courtesy of which he was master, he strove to convey to the Prince some idea of the way in which he was derogating from that justice and moderation towards foreign sovereigns which had hitherto marked the reign of the Emperor Nicholas. The answer of Prince Mentschikoff announced that it was impossible for him to agree in the views pressed upon him by Lord Stratford, and (after a little more of the wasteful verbiage in which Russia used to assert that her exaction was good and wholesome for Turkey) the Prince claimed a right to freedom of action. He said that he was not conscious of having failed in the loyal assurances given by his Government to the Cabinet of the Queen, declared that he had been perfectly sincere in his communications with Lord Stratford, and owned that he had expected a frank co-operation on his part. But when he had written these common things the truth broke out. The Emperor's legation,' said he, 'cannot stay at Con'stantinople under the circumstances in which it has 'been placed. It cannot submit to the secondary position to which it might be wished to reduce it.'* Lord Stratford, it would seem, had now little hope of being able to bring about an accommodation, and henceforth his great object was to take care that the Porte should stand firm, but should so act that,

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*Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 217.

XI.

XI.

CHAP. in the opinion of England and of Europe, the Sultan should seem justified in exposing himself to the hazard of a rupture with Russia.

His advice

to the Turkish

Ministers.

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Late at night Lord Stratford saw the Grand Vizier at his country-house, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Seraskier were present. During the day there had been a little failing of heart, and when the Turkish Ministers were in the presence of M. de la Cour, they had seemed 'disposed to shrink from encountering the consequences of Prince Mentschikoff's retiring in dis* pleasure;' but either they had dissembled their fears in the presence of the English Ambassador, or else, whilst Lord Stratford was in the same room with them, their fear of other Powers was suspended. They were unanimous in regarding the Convention as inadmissible. Lord Stratford's determination was that the demand of Prince Mentschikoff should be resisted; but that at the same time there should be shown so much of courtesy and of forbearance, and so great a willingness to go to the utmost limit of safe concession, and to improve the condition of the Christian subjects of the Porte, that the Turks should appear before Europe in a character almost angelic. I advised them,' said he, 'to open a door 'for negotiation in the Note to be prepared, and to 'withhold no concession compatible with the real 'welfare and independence of the Empire. I could 'not in conscience urge them to accept the Russian

6

' demands as now presented to them, but I reminded * Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 177.

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