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effect to the means of pacification which were proffered CHAP.

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by the Vienna Note.' It soon became known that the Note was agreed to by the Emperor Nicholas. Men believed that all was settled. It was true that the courier who was expected to be the bearer of the assent of the Porte had not yet come in from Constantinople, but it was assumed that the representatives of the four Powers had taken the precaution of possessing themselves of the real views of the Turkish Government; and, besides, it was thought impossible that the Sultan should undertake to remain in antagonism to Russia, if the support which he had hitherto received from the four great Powers were to be transferred from him to the Czar.

XVII.

Stratford

been con

sulted.

Those who dwell far away from great cities can hardly, perhaps, believe that the touching signs of simplicity which they observe in rural life may be easily found now and then in the councils of assembled Europe. The Governments of all the four Lord Powers, and their representatives assembled at had not Vienna, fondly imagined that they could settle the dispute and restore tranquillity to Europe without consulting Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. They framed and despatched the Note without learning what his opinion of it was, and it is probable that a knowledge of this singular omission may have conduced to make the Czar accept the award of the mediating Powers, by tempting him with the delight of seeing Lord Stratford overruled. But, on the other hand, the one man who was judge of what ought or ought not to be conceded by the Turks was

CHAP. Lord Stratford; and it is plain that any statesmen XVII. who forgot him in their reckoning must have been

imperfect in their notion of political dynamics. It would be wrong to suppose that a sound judgment by the four Powers would be liable to be overturned by Lord Stratford from any mere feeling of neglect. He was too proud, as well as too honest, to be capable of such a littleness. What was to be apprehended was, that until it was ratified by the English Ambassador at the Porte, the decision of a number of men in Vienna and Paris and London and Berlin might turn out to be really erroneous, or might seem to be so in the eyes of one who was profoundly versed in the subject; and no man had a right to make sure that, even at the instance of all Europe, this strong-willed Englishman would consent to use his vast personal ascendancy as a means of forcing upon the Turks a surrender which he held to be dangerous.

Early in August the Vienna Note reached Constantinople; and the Turkish Government soon detected in it not only a misrecital of history, but words of a dangerous sort, conveying or seeming to convey to Russia, under a new form, that very protectorate of the Greek Church in Turkey which had brought about the rupture of the negotiation conducted by Prince Mentschikoff. The four Powers, however, had determined to press the acceptance of the arrangement upon the Porte; and on the 12th it became known at Constantinople that the Note had been accepted by the Emperor Nicholas. On the same

XVII.

The

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Vienna

Note in of Lord

the hands

Stratford.

day the English Ambassador received instructions CHAP. from London, which informed him that the English Government adhered to the Vienna Note, and con'sidered that it fully guarded the principle which 'had been contended for, and might therefore with perfect safety be signed by the Porte;' and Lord Clarendon went on to express a hope that the Ambassador would have found no difficulty in procuring the 'assent of the Turkish Government to a project which the allies of the Sultan unanimously concurred in recommending for his adoption.'*

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It cannot be doubted that Lord Stratford's opinion as to the effect of the Vienna Note was opposed to that of his Government, but it was his duty to obey. He obeyed. He scrupulously abstained from expressing any private opinion of his on the Note ' whilst it was under consideration at the Porte,' and he conveyed to the Turkish Government the desire of Europe. I called the attention of Reshid Pasha,' said he, to the strong and earnest manner in which the Vienna Note was recommended to the accep'tance of the Porte, not only by Her Majesty's Gov'ernment, but also by the Cabinets of Austria, France, and Prussia. I reminded him of the intel'ligence which had been received from St Peters

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burg, purporting that the Emperor of Russia had 'signified his readiness to accept the same Note.

I urged the importance of his engaging the Porte

'to come to a decision with the least possible delay.

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I repeatedly urged the importance of an imme+ Ibid. pp. 72, 82.

Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 27.

XVII.

CHAP. ‘diate decision, and the danger of declining, or only accepting with amendments, what the four friendly Powers so earnestly recommended, and what the • Cabinet of St Petersburg had accepted in its actual * state.**

The Turkish Government determines to reject it unless altered.

These were dutiful words. But it is not to be believed that, even if he strove to do so, Lord Stratford could hide his real thoughts from the Turkish Ministers. There was that in his very presence which disclosed his volition; for if the thin disciplined lips moved in obedience to constituted authorities, men who knew how to read the meaning of his brow, and the light which kindled beneath, would gather that the Ambassador's thought concerning the Home Governments of the five great Powers of Europe was little else than an angry 'quos ego!' The sagacious Turks would look more to these great sigus than to the tenor of formal advice sent out from London, and if they saw that Lord Stratford was in his heart against the opinion of Europe, they would easily resolve to follow his known desire, and to disobey his mere words. The result was that, without any signs of painful doubt, the Turkish Government determined to stand firm. They quietly introduced into the draft the modifications which they deemed to be necessary for extracting its dangerous quality, and resolved that, unless these changes were admitted, they would altogether reject the Note. They were supported by the unanimous decision of the Great Council.

*Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 69.

XVII.

Stratford

Turks

alone in

It might seem that, with Lord Stratford and the CHAP. Turkish Government on one side, and all the rest of Europe, including England herself, on the other, the Lord preponderance would be soon determined; and Lord and the Clarendon remonstrated against the obstinacy of the stand Turks in terms which approached to a disapproval Europe. of all that had lately been done at Constantinople ; * but Europe was in the wrong, and Lord Stratford and the Turks were in the right; and happily for the world, a strong man and a good cause make a formidable conjunction. Lord Stratford did not fail to show his Government that the objections of the Turks to the proposed Note were well founded; and Europe was compelled to remember that the Russian demand still had in it the original vice of wrongfully seeking to extort a treaty in time of peace.

firm.

On the 19th of August the Porte declined to They are accept the Vienna Note, without introducing into it the required alterations.t These alterations were rejected by Russia; and for a moment Europe was threatened with the mortification of seeing that the question of peace or war was to depend upon a mere verbal criticism—and a criticism, too, in which the English Government at first supposed that the Turks were wrong. It happened, however, that in the course of the discussion, Count Nesselrode argued

*Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 91.

+ Ibid. p. 80. A copy of the Vienna Note,' and of the alterations insisted upon by the Turks, is given in the Appendix, in order to show the exact difference of words which brought about the final rupture between Russia and the Porte

Ibid. p. 91.

VOL. I.

2 A

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