[87] The story that Peter the Great of Russia left a clause in his will, bidding Russia to go on with her southern conquests until she gained Constantinople, is an impudent fiction of French publicists in the year 1812, when Napoleon wished to keep Russia and Turkey at war. Of course, Peter the Great gave a mighty impulse to Russian movements towards Constantinople.
[88] For the treaty and the firman of 1856, see The European Concert in the Eastern Question, by T. E. Holland; also Débidour, Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe (1814-1878), vol. ii. pp. 150-152; The Eastern Question, by the late Duke of Argyll, vol. i. chap. i.
[89] Sir Horace Rumbold, Recollections of a Diplomatist (First Series), vol. ii. p. 295.
[90] As to this, see Reports: Condition of Christians in Turkey (1860). Presented to Parliament in 1861. Also Parliamentary Papers, Turkey, No. 16 (1877).
[91] Efforts were made by the British Consul, Holmes, and other pro-Turks, to assign this revolt to Panslavonic intrigues. That there were some Slavonic emissaries at work is undeniable; but it is equally certain that their efforts would have had no result but for the existence of unbearable ills. It is time, surely, to give up the notion that peoples rise in revolt merely owing to outside agitators. To revolt against the warlike Turks has never been child's play.
[92] For the full text, see Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty, iv. pp. 2418-2429.
[93] Bryce, Studies in Contemporary Biography (1904).
[94] For details of this affair, see Chapter XV. of this work.
[95] See Parliamentary Papers, Turkey, No. 5 (1877), for Consul Freeman's report of March 17, 1877, of the outrages by the Turks in Bosnia. The refugees declared they would "sooner drown themselves in the Unna than again subject themselves to Turkish oppression." The Porte denied all the outrages.
[96] Hertslet, iv. pp. 2459-2463.