for his "wise abstinence from politics." Having stupidly deceived themselves as to the precise influence which the Prince wielded, they were in the right state of mind to be deceived by the Prince's enemies as to the influence which he did not wield, and which he never sought to wield. These reasons, and not the dubiety of the British Constitution as to the political rights of the husband of an English Queen, gave rise to much of the foolish clamour of the hour.

It need hardly be said that when Parliament met on the 31st of January, the leaders of both parties in both Houses summarily disposed of the falsehoods which had been uttered to the discredit of the Court. The Debates on the Address on this occasion are of high historical and Constitutional importance, because they defined with great precision the position of the consort of a queen regnant in the British Constitution, establishing beyond doubt his right to assist the Sovereign with advice in all matters of State. The addressof Lord Campbell may be usefully referred to as giving the legal view of the question; but the speeches which delighted the Queen most were those of Lord John Russell, who, she says, in a letter to Stockmar, "did it admirably," and "dear, excellent Lord Aberdeen, who has taken it terribly to heart." It was, however, Lord Campbell's address which gave most satisfaction to Prince Albert. The common-sense view of the question obviously was, that if the husband of a queen regnant in England embarrassed her Majesty's responsibleMinisters by unconstitutional interference, the fault must be theirs and not his. The Constitution places in their hands the formidable weapon of resignation, and resignation in such circumstances simply means that government is rendered impossible till the unconstitutional interference which is objected to is stopped.

Nobody has stated with greater correctness the political situation of the country at the beginning of 1854 than Sir George Cornewall Lewis. "If," said he, in a letter to Sir Edmund Head, "war is averted, there will be a Reform Bill, which is likely to lead to an early Dissolution. If war arrives,

the Reform Bill and all other similar measures likely to produce party struggles and divisions must be postponed."* The Tories had, therefore, one strong temptation to encourage the War Party. Those Whigs who, like Lord Palmerston, dreaded Reform, were in like case, except Lord John Russell, who, with a Reform Bill on the anvil, was foolish enough to share with Palmerston the leadership of the War Party in the Cabinet. As the war would be one against Russia, the mainstay of despotism in Europe, the Radicals, mindful of how the revolution was stamped out in Hungary, were for once on the side of war. Nobody, in fact, had any genuine desire for peace save the Queen, Prince Albert, and the Peelites, who desired "peace with honour," and the Cobdenites, who seemed to desire "peace at any price." The Peace Party was strong in brains and common-sense, but weak in numbers. The strength *Letters of Sir G. C. Lewis, p. 276.

1854.]

THE COBDENITES AND PEACE.

577

of the War Party lay in its numbers, and it would be absurd to assert that, with leaders like Derby, Disraeli, Palmerston, and Russell, it lacked intellectual ability. As usual, numbers won the day, and an abnormal alliance

mh odi gaiss Jo
THE OUTER CLOISTERS AND ANNE BOLEYN'S WINDOW, WIND OR CASTLE.

of "the classes and masses" rendered the Peace Party-sadly weakened in moral authority by the Moravian fanaticism of the Cobdenites-utterly impotent. Mr. Cobden cherished the illusion that his influence had strengthened the Peace Party. Yet, with the exception of Lord Palmerston, Lord John

Russeil, Lord Derby, and Lord Lyndhurst, no public men did more to make peace impossible than Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, the tone of whose pacific speeches acted on the pugnacious temper of the country as soothingly as a sting on an open and irritable wound.*

As might be expected, the Eastern policy of Ministers was fiercely attacked in both Houses of Parliament. But to understand the point of these attacks and the relation of the Queen to them, one must explain what was done after Sinope drove England into a frenzy of anger only comparable with that of the Danes when Nelson destroyed their fleet at Copenhagen.

To rightly appraise the criminal blunder of Russia at Sinope, it is necessary to remember that when that "massacre" occurred, the European Powers had agreed on a new Note embodying what they considered an honourable settlement of the dispute between Russia and Turkey. That was the Note of the 5th of December, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, under orders from Lord Clarendon, persuaded the Porte to accept it. This was a great step towards peace, for all that remained was to induce the Czar to be equally reasonable. But on the very day (the 13th of January, 1854) when the Powers, in concert at Vienna, decided to press this settlement on Russia, Sir Hamilton Seymour was instructed by Lord Clarendon to intimate to Count Nesselrode at St. Petersburg that England and France had lifted the gage of battle flung to them at Sinope. Russia was informed that the English and French fleets had sailed for the Black Sea, charged to "require" every Russian ship they met to put back to port. This irritated the Czar, who professed to regard it as “a flagrant act of hostility." Yet the Czar, or rather Nesselrode-who, like Lord Aberdeen, was braving infinite obloquy on account of his pacific proclivities— was willing to condone the act, if England would only state formally that she would impose on Turkish ships the same restrictions she imposed on those of Russia. Lord Clarendon, in his despatch, dated the 31st of January, did not make this statement, and accordingly, on the 4th of February, the Russian Ambassador in London announced that he and his retinue must return at once to St. Petersburg. On the 7th of February Lord Clarendon ordered the British Ambassador at the Court of the Czar to return to England ;

*It is only just to the memory of Mr. Cobden to state that towards the end of his career some suspicion of the truth crept into his mind. Speaking on the American Civil War, he said :"From the moment the first shot is fired or the first blow struck in a dispute, then farewell to all reason and argument; you might as well reason with mad dogs as with men when they have begun to spill cach other's blood in mortal combat. I was so convinced of the fact during the Crimean War: I was so convinced of the utter uselessness of raising one's voice in opposition to War when it has once begun, that I made up my mind that so long as I was in political life, should a war again break out between England and a great Power, I would never open my mouth upon the subject from the time the first gun was fired till the peace was made."-Cobden's Speeches, Vol. II., p. 314. See also Mr. John Morley's masterly defence of the Cobdenites in 1854, in his Life of Cobden, Chap. XXII.

+ Count Nesselrode's Despatch to the Russian Ambassador in England, dated the 16th of January,

1854.]

THE RUSSIAN COUNTER-PROPOSALS.

579

the French Government took the same course, and thus the rupture between Russia and the Western Powers became complete. It was in such circumstances hopeless to expect that the Note of the 5th of December, which had been accepted by the Porte, and which the Four Powers agreed to recommend to Russia on the very day that the despatch of the allied fleets to the Euxine was notified to Count Nesselrode (the 13th of January), would be accepted by the Czar. Indeed, but for Nesselrode, it would have been ignored with contempt.* Russia, however, temporised. Taking advantage of the false step of England and France in sending their fleets to the Euxine without consulting Austria and Prussia, Russia artfully attempted to detach the German States from the European Concert. Having failed in this, the Russian Government sent two replies to the Protocol of the 13th of January, transmitting the settlement which the Powers had agreed upon, and which the Porte had accepted.

The proposal of the Powers provided, amongst other things, for (1) the evacuation of the Principalities as soon as possible; (2) the renewal of the ancient treaties; (3) a formal guarantee by Turkey to all her non-Mussulman subjects of their spiritual privileges, which should likewise be communicated to all the Powers, including Russia, "accompanied with suitable assurances to each of them; (4) a pledge from the Porte to reform its system of administration; and (5) the customary promise on the part of the Sultan to uphold the old rights and immunities granted to his Christian subjects by existing treaties. Russia rejected these proposals, and committed the blunder of extending her demands in her first series of counter-propositions.† But subsequently she submitted a second series of propositions, in which she withdrew the stipulations as to political refugees, and her ungenerous demand that the Porte should negotiate terms of peace at St. Petersburg, or at the Russian headquarters in Moldavia. The Powers decided that the Russian settlement could not be recommended to Turkey, their main objection being, that while their terms embodied a recognition of the principle that the Turkish con-cessions and guarantees were given to Europe as well as to Russia, the Russian terms proceeded on the assumption that they were given to Russia alone. The Czar here was in the wrong. In the war on the Danube the Turks had been victorious. He insisted, however, that they should sue for peace, as if they were prostrate in defeat. On the other hand, the Four Powers proposed terms which did not imply that victory or defeat rested with either belligerent. The only defence that can be made for the obstinacy of the Emperor Nicholas in thus refusing to cross the golden bridge of

* See Sir H. Seymour's Despatch to Lord Clarendon, dated the 30th of January, 1854.

+ Amongst other things, she demanded that some fresh arrangement should be made as to the right of asyium granted to political refugees in Turkey. This obviously pointed at Turkey's refusal to surrender the Hungarian patriots after the Revolution of 1848 was suppressed; and, knowing the opinion of England on the subject, it was absurd to add such stipulations to new preliminaries of peace.

honourable retreat built for him by the Powers is, that the War Party in Russia was as rabid as the War Party in England. "The Emperor,"

wrote Sir H. Seymour to Lord Clarendon on the 2nd of January, "is infinitely more moderate than the immense bulk of his subjects," who denounced Nesselrode "as an alien, a traitor, and a man bought by English

gold "-precisely the language which the same kind of people in England applied to Lord Aberdeen. In fact, the Czar himself was rapidly losing his popularity and authority because of the deference he was showing to the Powers, and it is probable that if he had made further concessions he would have been assassinated. But inasmuch as Nicholas himself, in spite of the advice of his three ablest servants, had roused the fanaticism and fury of his subjects by his policy, even this defence, though it explains, does not justify his conduct.

*Nesselrode, Orloff, and Kisseleff,