The Russians appear to have passed the defiles on the northern side of the
Balkans, and almost without loss. There is, I conclude, a force near
Bourgas, but all that is to be hoped is that the Turks will be wise enough
not to fight. It was an unlucky appointment, that of the Grand Vizier. Old
Hussein never would have committed his fault.
R. Gordon has been magnificently received at Constantinople.
Polignac has been made Prime Minister of France. De Rigny is made Minister of Marine. The Government is Tory, and I should think very favourable to English alliance, not Greek, and certainly not Russian. If it should be able to stand, it must be good for us. Received letters from Colonel Macdonald from Tabriz. He says the Russians at Tiflis talk as if they were going to war with us.
August 11.
Received Persian despatches. The Persians will pay no more. They wanted to go to war. No one would go as Envoy to Petersburg but an attaché. They all thought they should be beheaded. Macdonald seems to have kept them quiet.
Cabinet room. Met Lord Melville. Read Gordon's letters from Constantinople. The Turks have not above 20,000 men there. They are not disposed to yield at all. Gordon thinks if we declared we would fix in any manner the limits of Greece, and maintain them, the Porte would not quarrel with us, and would rather do anything than yield the point of honour by acknowledging the independence of the Greeks.
The Russians mean to pass the Balkans with 60,000 men and march on
Adrianople. They send a large force by sea to Sizeboli to turn Bourgas.
Lord Francis Leveson holds out the apprehension of a long religious contest in Ireland. [Footnote: Unhappily, like other pessimists, he seems to have judged Ireland correctly.] I believe he looks only at the surface and judges from first appearances.
August 12.
A victory gained by Paskewitz over the Seraskier, whom he has taken prisoner, with thirty-one pieces of cannon, &c., near Erzeroum—that is, three days after the battle, Paskewitz, still in pursuit, was within forty miles of Erzeroum.