[112] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., pp. 387-389. It is right to state the fact as communicated to Lord Malmesbury by the French Emperor in conversation, because Mr. Walpole rather unfairly asserts that the Emperor of the French saw in Rose’s fear “a fresh excuse for embroiling France.”—Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 84.
[113] Russia argued that she might fairly exercise the same kind of protectorate that France had always asserted over Roman Catholics and England over Protestants in Turkey. Against this it was urged that there was a difference in degree between the two cases which amounted to a difference in kind, for, whereas the Catholic and Protestant subjects of the Sultan were only a few thousands, his Greek subjects were 12,000,000.
[114] Official Note of the Porte to the Powers, 28th of May.
[115] On the 1st of June Menschikoff’s Note of the 18th of May, intimating his withdrawal from Constantinople and threatening Turkey with coercion, arrived in London.
[116] It would have been also more candid at this juncture to have warned Russia that England would object to any actual invasion of the Principalities, before the resources of European diplomacy were exhausted.
[117] When these events had passed into history, Earl Russell, in his Recollections and Suggestions, said that, if he had been Premier in 1853, he would have insisted on Turkey accepting the Vienna Note. He was not Premier, but he was one of the leaders of the War Party in the Cabinet which supported Turkey in rejecting it. Lord Russell was, in fact, not the only statesman of the period who grew “wise after the event.”
[118] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLVIII.
[119] Prince Bismarck: an Historical Biography by Charles Lowe, M.A., Vol. I., p. 205.
[120] Eastern Papers, Part I., p. 169.
[121] In the 7th Article of the Treaty of Kainardji it is provided that “The Sublime Porte promises to protect constantly the Christian religion and its Churches, and also it allows the Ministers of the Imperial Court of Russia to make on all occasions representations as well in favour of the new Church at Constantinople, of which mention will be made in the 14th Article, as in favour of those who officiate therein.” The 14th Article provides that “it is permitted to the High Court of Russia, in addition to the chapel built in the house of the Minister, to construct in the Galata quarter, in the street called Bey Oglu, a public church of the Greek rite, which shall be always under the protection of the Ministers of that Empire, and shielded from all obstruction and all damage.” The first words in italics appear to give Russia the same general kind of pledge to protect the Greek Christians in Turkey, the insertion of which in the Vienna Note was supposed to vitiate it. The issue, however, was so close that diplomacy ought to have prevented the disputants from coming to blows.