The appearance of the British fleet with the nominal object of protecting life and property at Constantinople, was immediately followed by the advance of Russian troops thirty miles nearer to Constantinople with the same laudable object. The London cabinet only grew the wilder in its Projects, among them being a secret expedition of Indian troops to seize Cyprus and Alexandretta, with the idea that [pg 574] it would be fairer to the Turk not to ask his leave. Two ministers resigned in succession, rather than follow Lord Beaconsfield further in designs of this species.[350]
“It is a bitter disappointment,” Mr. Gladstone wrote to Madame Novikoff, “to find the conclusion of one war, for which there was a weighty cause, followed by the threat of another, for which there is no adequate cause at all, and which will be an act of utter wickedness—if it comes to pass, which God forbid—on one side or on both. That unhappy subject of the bit of Bessarabia,[351] on which I have given you my mind with great freedom (for otherwise what is the use of my writing at all?) threatens to be in part the pretext and in part the cause of enormous mischief, and in my opinion to mar and taint at a particular point the immense glory which Russia had acquired, already complete in a military sense, and waiting to be consummated in a moral sense too.”
Public men do not withstand war fevers without discomfort, as Bright had found in the streets of Manchester when he condemned the Crimean war. One or two odious and unusual incidents now happened to Mr. Gladstone:—
Feb. 24.—Between four and six, three parties of the populace arrived here, the first with cheers, the two others hostile. Windows were broken and much hooting. The last detachment was only kept away by mounted police in line across the street both ways. This is not very sabbatical. There is strange work behind the curtain, if one could only get at it. The instigators are those really guilty; no one can wonder at the tools.
One Sunday afternoon a little later (March 4):—
Another gathering of people was held off by the police. I walked down with C., and as a large crowd gathered, though in the main friendly, we went into Dr. Clark's, and then in a hansom off the ground.
Stories were put about that Lord Beaconsfield reported the [pg 575] names of dissentient colleagues to the Queen. Dining with Sir Robert Phillimore (Jan. 17), Mr. Gladstone—
was emphatic and decided in his opinion that if the premier mentioned to the Queen any of his colleagues who had opposed him in the cabinet, he was guilty of great baseness and perfidy. Gladstone said he had copies of 250 letters written by him to the Queen, in none of which could a reference be found to the opinion of his colleagues expressed in cabinet.
On the same occasion, by the way, Sir Robert notes: “Gladstone was careful to restrain the expression of his private feelings about Lord Beaconsfield, as he generally is.”