It was on the twenty-ninth of August before the royal party reached Dublin, where they were welcomed with the same enthusiasm that had marked their visit four years before. The morning of each day was devoted to the exhibition, and the Irish poplins, laces, and pottery were special objects of admiration.
After passing a pleasant week at Dublin the royal guests drove to Kingstown, on the evening of September 3, where an immense crowd assembled to bid them adieu. "The evening was very beautiful," says her majesty's diary, "and the sight a fine one,—all the ships and yachts decked out and firing salutes, and thousands on the quay cheering." As night closed in, a magnificent aurora borealis lighted up the northern sky, and fire-works were let off until late into the night.
[Original]
On the sixth of September, the court reached Balmoral; but they could not enjoy this retreat so much as usual, because the prospect of war with Russia was daily becoming more imminent. England had been at peace with all the world for forty years, and she was very reluctant to be drawn into any complication now; but a few words of explanation will show how she was forced to fight.
A treaty had been made between Francis I. and the Sultan, by which the holy places in Palestine and the monks of the Latin church were placed under the protection of France. In course of time the Greeks began to dispute the claim of the Latin monks to guard the shrines, and serious disputes arose. Then Russia, claiming to possess the greatest number of Greek Catholics among her subjects, thought fit to interfere. The matter was left to the decision of the Turkish Porte, which granted keys to certain of the shrines to the Latins, and of others to the Greeks. The French were not pleased, but agreed to accept the decision. Not so the Russians; they felt that the French had the key to the most important shrines, and had therefore obtained supremacy over them in the East. Besides, the Russian Government was determined to have the protectorate of the Christians in Turkey, even though they gained it at the point of the sword. So Prince Menschikoff was sent with a suite of naval and military officers to Constantinople to propose a sort of convention to enable his government to assert this protectorate over the Greek church within the Turkish Empire. He demanded an immediate reply. The new foreign minister, who had just entered upon his office, asked for five or six days in which to consider so important a matter. This was refused, whereupon the Ottoman council became indignant and declined to have any convention at all.
Prince Menschikoff at once left Constantinople, and Russia began her preparations for war. Before many days her troops were gathering in great force along the frontier. This aroused the patriotism of all the Turks, Moslem as well as Christian, and Russia appeared like a big giant ready to goble them up.
The czar had long before called Turkey, "the sick man," and had invited the English ministry to form an agreement with him, as to the distribution of the effects in case "the sick man" should die. He desired no strife,—oh no! He was perfectly satisfied that arrangements should be made that would be agreeable to all parties, provided he got possession of Constantinople.
England very properly refused to acknowledge that Turkey was "a sick man" at all, and would not agree that any European power should be wiped out. But she desired no war, and so a conference was called at Vienna between England, France, Austria, and Prussia, for the purpose of patching up, if possible, a reconciliation between Turkey and Russia. The eagerness with which Russia consented to accept the Vienna note made the Turkish Government suspicious that she saw something of special advantage in it to herself. Therefore, through the advice of the English ambassador at Constantinople, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the Turks declined to accept the Vienna note, unless certain changes were made. The prince consort had said that the Vienna note was a trap laid by Russia, and he was right; it was a trap in which the Western powers would have been caught, had it not been for the shrewdness of de Redcliffe.