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and what he would not be able to do with a fleet which was after all insufficient for any such attempts as were feared by the first lord of the admiralty and expected by the public. The operations began with the bombardment by two ships, the Arrogant and the Hecla, of a little fort called Eckness on the coast of Finland and the capture of a merchant vessel. Then followed the bombardment of Gustafsvaern and the blockade of the forts in the Gulf of Finland. On the 16th of August (1854) the fortress of Bomarsund, with its garrison of 2235 men, surrendered to the severe cannonade of the allied fleet; and as this was the first success in the war, the news was received with enormous enthusiasm, but that was nearly the last of it as regarded this fleet. The Russian ships had been kept in durance, but had not been injured or even attacked. What had been possible at Bomarsund had been unattainable at Sweaborg and Cronstadt. By the end of August a correspondence had begun between Sir Charles Napier and Sir James Graham, which was painfully recriminatory, and was not good for the reputation of the country. Sir James Graham had sent letters to the admiral which the latter interpreted to refer to a termination of active operations in the Baltic for the approaching winter; but Sir James refused to accept this responsibility, and replied by saying:-"I was not prepared even at that time for the immediate departure of the French army after the capture of Bomarsund, and I pointed out to you Abo, Sweaborg, and Revel as points which with military aid were open to attack. Much less was I prepared for the withdrawal of the French squadron from the combined naval operations almost instantaneously with the departure of the army so soon as Bomarsund had been destroyed." Evidently the first lord of the admiralty had begun to recede from his former advice, because he had made the mistake (a very common one at that time) of computing probable successes from data which were imperfect or which had been entirely falsified by events. The admiral had followed what he believed to be his instructions; the weather was bad even for that late season, and if he was to

take care of the fleet it would be of little use to make any attempts which even under more favourable conditions would have been open to the charge of undue temerity after he had been emphatically ordered by his superiors to exercise caution. Even this reason might have been sufficient defence for Sir Charles, but he declared that the whole matter was an attempt to prejudice him. The truth appears to be that there was a complete misunderstanding, and that the admiral, who had been made a hero, and was undoubtedly brave enough and perhaps rash enough to have justified Lord Palmerston's praise and Sir James Graham's advice, became angrily suspicious that his letters had been purposely misinterpreted because the admiralty needed "a scape-goat" on whom to turn the indignation which was succeeding the impatience of the public. "Had people considered one moment," he wrote, "they would have seen the impracticability of the attempt; but they thought Sebastopol was taken, and I must take Sweaborg, Revel, and Cronstadt." There had been "a great cry and little wool;" and the admiralty and the admiral were engaged in endeavouring to place on each other the responsibility of not having achieved what became impossible after the French troops and the French squadron parted company with the Baltic fleet. Sir James Graham declared that he was not aware of their departure, and that he understood Sir Charles to have asked for reinforcements. Sir Charles accused the first lord of expecting him to attack almost impregnable strongholds under conditions which would probably have been fatal to a small force making the attempt. The controversy was unpleasantly prolonged.

Speaking at a dinner at the Mansion House in February, 1855, the admiral made a vehement attack upon Sir James Graham, which he wound up by saying "I state it to the public, and I wish them to know, that, had I followed the advice of Sir J. Graham, I should most inevitably have left the British fleet behind me in the Baltic." This he undertook to prove before all the world- -a pledge which he was never allowed, and would probably have found it hard, to redeem. The attack was

MR. BRIGHT DENOUNCES THE WAR IN PARLIAMENT.

made in terms so unseemly that the government were asked in the House of Commons a few nights afterwards (16th February) if they intended to take proceedings against the rebellious admiral. "He has proclaimed himself a hero," was Sir James Graham's answer; "but it is not my intention to allow the gallant officer to dub himself a martyr as well as a hero; and therefore it is not my intention to advise the crown to take any further notice of the matter." Replying to a taunt about his speech at the Reform Club Sir James Graham remarked on the same occasion, "I underwent due correction in this house on the subject of that speech; since that correction was made I hope I have improved in prudence." The honour of Grand Cross of the Bath was offered a few months afterwards to Sir Charles Napier; but he declined it, stating in a letter to Prince Albert (6th July, 1855) as his reason for doing so, that having demanded a court-martial from the admiralty to investigate his conduct, and this having been refused, "he did not feel he could accept an honour till his character was cleared."

Sir Charles had returned from the Baltic with his fleet, and though he received no warm welcome, he did not for any long time remain under the suspicion of not having done his duty. He had, as was written at the time by an admirer, caused the thirty sail composing the powerful Russian fleet to shrink like rats into their holes; he had taken Bomarsund, caused Hango to be blown up, interrupted the Russian commerce; and for six months had kept in a state of inaction certainly 80,000 or 90,000 good troops, namely, 20,000 at Helsingfors, 15,000 at Abo, and 40,000 at Cronstadt, besides smaller corps protecting Revel and other places. He had restored and enlarged the knowledge of the Finland Gulf to navigation; had ascertained what large vessels could do there and what they could not do, when they could act alone and when with troops, and when gun-boats could be used with effect. He had carried out an ill-manned and illdisciplined fleet, and had brought back unharmed a well-organized, well-disciplined one, with crews exercised in gunnery and seamanship. These encomiums were not undeserved,

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and the country afterwards acknowledged them and vindicated the veteran, who always had on his side a large number of people who knew and admired his courage, and many of whom looked not without distrust upon Sir James Graham in the still lingering recollection of the opened letters at the post-office, the remembrance of which stuck in the popular mind in spite of often repeated explanations.

But the country was in the midst of war by the time that Napier was disputing in London, and another Baltic fleet under Admiral Dundas, provided with the necessary gun-boats and mortars, went out and bombarded Sweaborg. Our troops were advancing towards Sebastopol. At home people were in a state of wild excitement about the want of preparation by the war-office and the alleged break-down of our commissariat and transport system.

The "peace at any price" party, as they had been dubbed, were unmoved. They abated nothing of their condemnation of the whole of the action, or rather the inaction, of the cabinet which had led to hostilities. What Mr. Bright had said at the meeting of the peace congress at Edinburgh he was ready to repeat, and to repeat with considerable additions, when he rose to speak in the House of Commons after the royal message announcing the declaration of war. Referring to one of the epigrammatic phrases used by Disraeli he said:—

"The right hon. gentleman the member for Buckinghamshire, on a recent occasion, made use of a term which differed considerably from what he said in a former debate; he spoke of this war as a 'just and unnecessary war.' I shall not discuss the justice of the war. It may be difficult to decide a point like this, seeing that every war undertaken since the days of Nimrod has been declared to be just by those in favour of it; but I may at least question whether any war that is unnecessary can be deemed to be just. I shall not discuss this question on the abstract principle of peace at any price, as it is termed, which is held by a small minority of persons in this country, founded on religious opinions which are not generally received, but I shall discuss it entirely on principles which are accepted by all the

members of this house. I shall maintain that when we are deliberating on the question of war, and endeavouring to prove its justice or necessity, it becomes us to show that the interests of the country are clearly involved; that the objects for which the war is undertaken are probable, or, at least, possible of attainment; and, further, that the end proposed to be accomplished is worth the cost and the sacrifices which we are about to incur. "The house shall bear in mind that at this moment we are in intimate alliance with a neighbouring government, which was, at a recent period, the originator of the troubles which have arisen at Constantinople. I do not wish to blame the French government, because nothing could have been more proper than the manner in which it has retired from the difficulty it had created; but it is nevertheless quite true that France, having made certain demands upon Turkey with regard to concessions to the Latin Church, backed by a threat of the appearance of a French fleet in the Dardanelles, which demands Turkey had wholly or partially complied with; Russia, the powerful neighbour of Turkey, being on the watch, made certain other demands having reference to the Greek Church; and Russia at the same time required (and this I understand to be the real ground of the quarrel) that Turkey should define by treaty, or convention, or by a simple note or memorandum, what was conceded, and what were the rights of Russia, in order that the government of Russia might not suffer in future from the varying policy and the vacillation of the Ottoman government.

"Now it seems to me quite impossible to discuss this question without considering the actual condition of Turkey. The honourable member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) assumes that they who do not agree in the policy he advocates are necessarily hostile to the Turks and have no sympathy for Turkey. I repudiate such an assumption altogether. I can feel for a country like that if it be insulted or oppressed by a powerful neighbour; but all that sympathy may exist without my being able to convince myself that it is the duty of this country to enter into the serious obliga

tion of a war in defence of the rights of that country. The noble lord the member for Tiverton is one of the very few men in this house, or out of it, who are bold enough to insist upon it that there is a growing strength in the Turkish Empire. There was a gentleman in this house sixty years ago, who in the debates in 1791 expressed the singular opinion which the noble lord now holds. There was a Mr. Stanley in the house at that period who insisted on the growing power of Turkey, and asserted that the Turks at that day 'were more and more imitating our manners, and emerging from their inactivity and indolence; that improvements of every kind were being introduced among them, and that even printing-presses had been lately established in their capital.' That was the opinion of a gentleman anxious to defend Turkey, and speaking in this house more than sixty years ago; we are now living sixty years later, and no one now but the noble lord seems to insist upon the fact of the great and growing power of the Turkish Empire.

"If any one thing is more apparent than another, on the face of all the documents furnished to the house by the government of which the noble lord is a member, it is this, that the Turkish Empire is falling, or has fallen, into a state of decay, and into anarchy so permanent as to have assumed a chronic character. The noble lord surely has not forgotten that Turkey has lost the Crimea and Bessarabia, and its control over the Danubian Principalities; that the Kingdom of Greece has been carved out of it; that it has lost its authority over Algiers, and has run great risk of being conquered by its own vassal the Pasha of Egypt; and from this he might have drawn the conclusion that the empire was gradually falling into decay, and that to pledge ourselves to effect its recovery and sustentation is to undertake what no human power will be able to accomplish. I only ask the house to turn to the statements which will be found nearly at the end of the first of the blue books recently placed on the table of the house, and they will find that there is scarcely any calamity which can be described as afflicting any country which is not there

ALLEGED INFLUENCE OF LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

proved to be present and actively at work in almost every province of the Turkish Empire. And the house should bear in mind when reading these despatches from the English consuls in Turkey to the English ambassador at Constantinople, that they give a very faint picture of what really exists, because what are submitted to us are but extracts of more extended and important communications. It may fairly be assumed that the parts which are not published are those which described the state of things to be so bad that the government has been unwilling to lay before the house and the country and the world, that which would be so offensive and so injurious to its ally the Sultan of Turkey.

"But if other evidence be wanting, is it not a fact that Constantinople is the seat of intrigues and factions to a degree not known in any other country or capital in the world? France demands one thing, Russia another, England a third, and Austria something else. For many years past our ambassador at Constantinople has been partly carrying on the government of that country and influencing its policy, and it is the city in which are fought the diplomatic contests of the great powers of Europe. And if I have accurately described the state of Turkey, what is the position of Russia? It is a powerful country under a strong executive government, it is adjacent to a weak and falling nation, it has in its history the evidences of a succession of triumphs over Turkey, it has religious affinities with a majority of the population of European Turkey which make it absolutely impossible that its government should not, more or less, interfere, or have a strong interest in the internal policy of the Ottoman Empire. Now if we were Russian-and I put the case to the members of this house-is it not likely, according to all the theories I have heard explained when we have been concerned in similar cases, that a large majority of the house and the country would be strongly in favour of such intervention as Russia has attempted? and if I opposed it, as I certainly should oppose it, I should be in a minority on that question more insignificant than that in which I have now the misfortune to find myself with regard to

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the policy of the government on the grave question now before us."

Mr. Bright boldly asserted that if Russia made certain demands on Turkey this country insisted that Turkey should not consent to them; and defied any one to read the despatches of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe without coming to the conclusion that, from the beginning to the end of the negotiations the English ambassador had insisted in the strongest manner that Turkey should refuse to make the slightest concession on the real point at issue in the demands of the Russian government. In proof of that statement he referred to the account given by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe in his despatch of the 5th May, 1853, of the private interview he had with the sultan, the minister of the sultan having left him at the door that the interview might be strictly private. In describing that interview Lord Stratford had said, "I then endeavoured to give him a just idea of the degree of danger to which his empire was exposed." This Mr. Bright interpreted to mean, "The sultan was not sufficiently aware of his danger, and the English ambassador 'endeavoured to give him a just idea of it;' and it was by means such as this that he urged upon the Turkish government the necessity of resistance to any of the demands of Russia, promising the armed assistance of England whatever consequences might ensue. From the moment that promise was made, or from the moment it was sanctioned by the cabinet at home, war was all but inevitable; they had entered into a partnership with the Turkish government (which, indeed, could scarcely be called a government at all) to assist it by military force; and Turkey, having old quarrels to settle with Russia, and old wrongs to avenge, was not slow to plunge into the war, having secured the cooperation of two powerful nations, England and France, in her qaarrel."

Speaking of the celebrated "Vienna note" Mr. Bright said, "I am bound here to say that nobody has yet been able clearly to explain the difference between the various notes Turkey has been advised to reject, and this and other notes she has been urged to accept. With respect to this particular note, nobody seems

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to have understood it. There were four ambassadors at Vienna, representing England, France, Austria, and Prussia; and these four gentlemen drew up the Vienna note, and recommended it to the Porte as one which she might accept without injury to her independence or her honour. Louis. Napoleon is a man knowing the use of language, and able to comprehend the meaning of a document of this nature, and his minister of foreign affairs is a man of eminent ability; and Louis Napoleon and his minister agree with the ambassadors at Vienna as to the character of the Vienna note. We have a cabinet composed of men of great individual capacity; a cabinet, too, including no less than five gentlemen who have filled the office of secretary for foreign affairs, and who may therefore be presumed to understand even the sometimes concealed meaning of diplomatic phraseology. These five foreign secretaries, backed by the whole cabinet, concurred with the ambassadors at Vienna and with the Emperor of the French and his foreign secretary in recommending the Vienna note to the sultan as a document which he might accept consistently with his honour and with that integrity and that independence which our government is so anxious to secure for him. What was done with this note? Passing by the marvellous stupidity, or something worse, which caused that note not to be submitted to Turkey before it was sent to St. Petersburg, I would merely state that it was sent to St. Petersburg, and was accepted in its integrity by the Emperor of Russia in the most frank and unreserved manner. We were then told-I was told by members of the government-that the moment the note was accepted by Russia we might consider the affair to be settled, and that the dispute would never be heard of again. When, however, the note was sent to Constantinople after its acceptance by Russia, Turkey discovered, or thought or said she discovered, that it was as bad as the original or modified proposition of Prince Menschikoff, and she refused the note as it was, and proposed certain modifications. And what are we to think of these arbitrators or mediators-the four ambassadors at Vienna, and the governments of France and England-who,

after discussing the matter in three different cities and at three distinct and different periods, and after agreeing that the proposition was one which Turkey could assent to without detriment to her honour and independence, immediately afterwards turned round and declared that the note was one which Turkey could not be asked to accede to, and repudiated in the most formal and express manner that which they themselves had drawn up, and which only a few days before they had approved of as a combination of wisdom and diplomatic dexterity which had never been excelled?"

It might be said that in making these statements Mr. Bright either knew too much or not enough of the actual conditions which were influencing the cabinet, and there is no need to comment on them, as they are quoted to show what was his expressed opinion at that time-an opinion, as we have seen, which differed essentially from that of many others who yet deplored the war and the occasion of it, and would have made any sacrifice for the sake of restoring peace, except that which they deemed would involve the national honour and lead to a tacit abandonment of international obligations undertaken apart from any selfish motive or for the maintenance of "British interests" in any material sense. But Mr. Bright had at least "the courage of his convictions" when he went on to say he very much doubted whether Count Nesselrode placed any meaning upon the note which it did not fairly warrant, and that it was impossible to say whether he really differed at all from the actual intentions of the four ambassadors at Vienna. Mr. Bright's explanation of the course taken by the Russian minister was this:-"Seeing the note was rejected by the Turk, and considering that its previous acceptance by Russia was some concession from the original demand, he issued a circular, giving such an explanation or interpretation of the Vienna note as might enable him to get back to his original position, and might save Russia from being committed and damaged by the concession, which, for the sake of peace, she had made. This circular, however, could make no real difference in the note itself; and

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