And farther on:—
'They [the French Government] submit it to the Cabinet of St.
Petersburg with the hope that it will find that its general sense
differs in nothing from the sense of the proposition presented by
Prince Menchikoff.'
The French words are:—
'Que son sens général ne diffère en rien du sens du projet présenté par M. le Prince Menchikoff.'
It then goes on:—
'And that it gives it satisfaction on all the essential points of its demands. The slight variation in the form of it will not be observed by the masses of the people, either in Russia or in Turkey. To their eyes, the step taken by the Porte [that is, in accepting it] will preserve all the signification which the Cabinet of St. Petersburg wishes to give it; and His Majesty the Emperor Nicholas will appear to them always as the powerful and respected protector of their religious faith.'
This despatch was written, recommending la note Française; which is the basis of, and is in reality and substance the same thing with, the Vienna note; but, up to this moment, neither the Government of France nor the Government of which the noble Lord is a Member has for an instant denied the justice—I do not say the extent or degree—but the justice of the claim made on the part of the Russian Government against the Turks; and now they turn round upon their own note and tell you that there was a different construction put upon it. Was there any construction put upon it, which was different from the recommendation here made and the argument used by the French Government? No; and the whole of that statement is a statement that is delusive, and if I were not in this House I would characterize it by a harsher epithet. I say now what I stated in March last, and what I have since said and written to the country, that you are making war against the Government which accepted your own terms of peace; and I state this now only for the purpose of urging upon the House and upon the Government that you are bound at least, after making war for many months, to exact no further terms from the State with which you are at war, than such as will give that security which at first you believed to be necessary; and that if you carry on a war for vengeance—if you carry on a war for conquest—if you carry on a war for purposes of Government at home, as many wars have been carried on in past times, I say you will be guilty of a heinous crime, alike in the eyes of God and of man.
One other remark perhaps the House will permit me to make. The noble Lord spoke very confidently to-night; and a very considerable portion of his speech—hoping, as I do, for the restoration of peace at some time or another—was to me not very satisfactory. I think that he would only be acting a more statesmanlike part if, in his speeches, he were at least to abstain from those trifling but still irritating charges which he is constantly making against the Russian Government. I can conceive one nation going to war with another nation; but why should the noble Lord say, 'The Sovereign of that State does not allow Bibles to be circulated—he suppressed this thing here, and he put down something else there'? What did one of the noble Lord's present colleagues say of the Government of our ally? Did he not thank God that his despotism could not suppress or gag our newspaper press, and declare that the people of France were subject to the worst tyranny in Europe? These statements from a Minister—from one who has been Prime Minister, and who, for aught I know, may be again Prime Minister—show a littleness that I did not expect from a statesman of this country, whose fate and whose interests hang on every word the noble Lord utters, and when the fate of thousands, aye, and of tens of thousands, may depend on whether the noble Lord should make one false step in the position in which he is now placed.
And when terrible calamities were coming upon your army, where was this Government? One Minister was in Scotland, another at the sea-side, and for six weeks no meeting of the Cabinet took place. I do not note when Cabinets are held—I sometimes observe that they sit for four or five hours at a time, and then I think something is wrong—but for six weeks, or two months, it is said no meeting of the Ministers was held. The noble Lord President was making a small speech on a great subject somewhere in Cumberland. At Bedford he descanted on the fate of empires, forgetting that there was nothing so likely to destroy an empire as unnecessary wars. At Bristol he was advocating a new History of England, which, if impartially written, I know not how the noble Lord's policy for the last few months will show to posterity. The noble Lord the Member for Tiverton undertook a more difficult task—a labour left unaccomplished by Voltaire—and, when he addressed the Hampshire peasantry, in one short sentence he overturned the New Testament and destroyed the foundations of the Christian religion.
Now, Sir, I have only to speak on one more point. My hon. Friend the Member for the West Riding, in what he said about the condition of the English army in the Crimea, I believe expressed only that which all in this House feel, and which, I trust, every person in this country capable of thinking feels. When I look at Gentlemen on that bench, and consider all their policy has brought about within the last twelve months, I scarcely dare trust myself to speak of them, either in or out of their presence. We all know what we have lost in this House. Here, sitting near me, very often sat the Member for Frome (Colonel Boyle). I met him a short time before he went out, at Mr. Westerton's, the bookseller, near Hyde Park Corner. I asked him whether he was going out? He answered, he was afraid he was; not afraid in the sense of personal fear—he knew not that; but he said, with a look and a tone I shall never forget, 'It is no light matter for a man who has a wife and five little children.' The stormy Euxine is his grave; his wife is a widow, his children fatherless. On the other side of the House sat a Member, with whom I was not acquainted, who has lost his life, and another of whom I knew something (Colonel Blair). Who is there that does not recollect his frank, amiable, and manly countenance? I doubt whether there were any men on either side of the House who were more capable of fixing the goodwill and affection of those with whom they were associated. Well, but the place that knew them shall know them no more for ever.