THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.
France, all the risks of an European war, without having bound Turkey to any conditions with respect to provoking it. The 120 fanatical Turks constituting the Divan at Constantinople are left sole judges of the line of policy to be pursued, and made cognisant at the same time of the fact that England and France have bound themselves to defend the Turkish territory. This is entrusting them with a power which Parliament would be jealous of confiding even to the hands of the British Crown. It may be a question whether England ought to go to war for the so-called Turkish independence, but there can be none that, if she does so, she ought to be the sole judge of what constitutes a breach of that independence, and have the fullest power to prevent by negotiation the breaking out of the war.”[123] Had the Queen subjected
DESTRUCTION OF THE TURKISH FLEET AT SINOPE. (See p. 562.)
every act of the Cabinet from the day on which Menschikoff arrived at Constantinople, to the same kind of pitiless logical analysis, even the Coalition Cabinet would have found it difficult to blunder into war. There was also another calm but acute observer of events who could not be diverted from his devotion to tangible British interests by passionate outbursts of popular chauvinism, and who saw at a glance the risks the Government were running. In a letter to Baron Stockmar, dated the 27th of November, Prince Albert says:—
“Six weeks ago Palmerston and Lord John carried a resolution that we should give notice that an attack on the Turkish fleet by that of Russia would be met by the fleets of England and France. Now the Turkish steam-ships are to cross over from the Asiatic coast to the Crimea, and to pass before Sebastopol! This can only be meant to insult the Russian fleet and entice it to come out, in order to make it possible for Lord Stratford to bring our fleet into collision with that of Russia, according to his former instructions, and so make an European war certain.”[124]