XI. CHAP. stantinople, and ceding to Russia a virtual protectorate of the Greek Church in Turkey, and was enjoining the Turkish Ministers to keep this negotiation concealed from the ill-disposed Powers,' for so he called England and France; and again, in the very week in which the Czar was joining with the English Government in a form more than usually solemn in denouncing the practice of harassing the Porte by overbearing demands, put forward in a manner humiliating to its independence and its 'dignity,' he was shaping the angry despatch which caused Prince Mentschikoff to insult the Porte by his peremptory Note of the 5th of May. But notwithstanding all this variance between what the Czar said and what he did, it must be acknowledged that it would be hard to explain his words and his course of action by imputing to him a vulgar and rational duplicity; for it was plain that the secrecy at which he aimed would be terminated by the success of the negotiation; and supposing him to have been in possession of his reason, and to have been acting on grounds temporal, he could not have imagined that, for the sake of extorting a new promise from the Sultan, and giving a little more semblance of legality to pretensions which he already maintained to be valid, it was politic for him to forfeit that reputation for honour, which was a main element of his greatness and his strength. *Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 108. The + Memorandum by the Emperor Nicholas confidentially delivered to Sir Hamilton Seymour, and dated the 15th April 1853. Eastern Papers,' part v. p. 25. XI. dreams of territorial aggrandisement which he im- CHAP. parted to Sir Hamilton Seymour in January and February had all dissolved before the middle of March, and it is vain to say that after that time his actions were governed by any rational plan of conquest. Policy required that for encroachments against Turkey he should choose a time when Europe, engaged in some other strife, might be likely to acquiesce ; far from doing this, the Czar chose a time when the four Powers had nothing else to do than to watch and restrain the aggression of Russia. Again, policy required that pressure upon the Sultan of a hostile kind should be justified by narratives of the cruel treatment of the Christians by their Turkish masters; yet if any such causes existed for the anger of Christendom, the Emperor Nicholas never took the pains to make them known to Europe. From first to last his loose charges against the Turks for maltreatment of their Christian subjects were not only left without proof, but were even unsupported by anything like statements of fact. Still, the Czar was not labouring under any general derangement of mind. The truth seems to be that zeal for his Church had made greater inroads upon his moral and intellectual nature than was commonly known, and that when he was under the stress of religious or rather of ecclesiastic feelings he ceased to be politic, and even perhaps ceased to be honest. It was at such times that there came upon him that tendency to act in a spirit of barbaric cunning which was really inconsistent with the general XI. CHAP. tenor of his life. But if it happened that whilst his mind was already under one of these spiritual visitations, it was further inflamed by any tidings which roused his old antagonism to Sir Stratford Canning, then instantly it was wrought into such a state that one must be content to mark its fitful and violent impact upon human affairs without undertaking to deduce the result from any symmetrical scheme of action. Position in which Lord Stratford's But, whatever the cause, the fall was great. The polity of the Russian State was of such a kind that, when the character of its monarch stood high he exalted the empire, and when he descended he drew the empire along with him. In the beginning of March the Emperor Nicholas almost oppressed the continent of Europe with the weight of his vast power, conjoined with moderation and a spirit of austere justice towards foreign States. Before the end of May he stood before the world shorn bare of all this moral strength, and having nothing left to him except what might be reckoned and set down upon paper by an inspector of troops or a surveyor of ships. In less than three months the station of Russia amongst the Powers of Europe underwent a great change. The English Ambassador remained upon the field of the conflict. Between the time of his return to skill had Constantinople and the departure of Prince Mentschikoff there had passed forty-five days. In this period Lord Stratford had brought to a settlement the question of the Holy Places, had baffled all the efforts of placed the Porte. XI. the Emperor Nicholas to work an inroad upon the CHAP. sovereign rights of the Sultan, and had enforced upon the Turks a firmness so indomitable, and a moderation so unwearied, that from the hour of his arrival at Constantinople they resisted every claim which was fraught with real danger-but always resisted with courtesy-and yielded to every demand, however unjust in principle, if it seemed that they could yield with honour and with safety. Knowing that, if he left room for doubt whether Russia or the Porte were in the right, the controversy would run a danger of being decided in favour of the stronger, he provided, with a keen foresight, and at the cost of having to put a hard restraint upon his anger, and even upon his sense of justice, that the concessions offered by the Turks should reach beyond their just liability; nay, should reach so far beyond it as to leave a broad margin between, and make it difficult even for any one who inclined towards the strong to deny that Russia was committing an outrage upon a weaker State, and was therefore offending against Europe. In truth, he placed the Moslem before the world in an attitude of Christian forbearance sustained by unfailing courage; and in proportion as men loved justice and were led by the gentle precepts of the Gospel, they inclined to the Mahometan Prince, who seemed to represent their principles, and began to think how best they could help him to make a stand against the ferocious Christianity of the Czar. In England especially this sentiment was kindled, and already it was beginning XI. CHAP. to gain a hold over the policy of the State. Less than three months before, the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire had been thought a fair subject to bring into question, and now the firmness and the strange moderation with which the Turks stood resisting the demands of their oppressor, was drawing the English people, day by day, into a steadfast alliance with the Sultan. But if Lord Stratford had succeeded in gaining over to his cause the general opinion of Europe, or rather in adapting the policy of the Divan to what he knew would be approved by the people of the West, he did not neglect to use such means as he had for moving the Governments of the four Powers; and the concerted action to which he had succeeded in bringing them on the 21st of May was a beginning of the peaceful coercion with which it was fitting that Europe should withstand the encroachEngage- ments of a wrong-doer. But this was not all that ments con tracted by was effected by the diplomatic transactions of the England. spring. It cannot be concealed that, without the solemnity of a treaty-nay, without the knowledge of Parliament, and perhaps without the knowledge of her Prime Minister-England, in the course of a few weeks, had slided into all the responsibility of a defensive alliance with the Sultan against the Emperor of Russia. It may seem strange that this could be ; but the truth is, that the general scope of a lengthened official correspondence is not to be gathered by merely learning at intervals the import of each despatch. Taken singly, almost every despatch com |