the sultan, Prince Mentschikoff, meanwhile, attempting to obtain from the sultan personally the concessions which he had hitherto failed to wring from the vizier.

The alarm in Constantinople was extreme at first, but was soon in some degree abated by the support of the English ambassador, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and by the even more significant attitude of France. On the 10th, a reply was made by the Turkish minister, in which it was declared to be the intention of the Porte to maintain unimpaired the rights of all the tributary subjects of the empire, and a willingness was expressed to negotiate with Russia concerning the Holy Places at Jerusalem; but the reply objected to that portion of the demands of Russia which concerned a protectorate of the Greek church in Turkey. Prince Mentschikoff was extremely offended. He did not, however, at once leave Constantinople, but a further interchange of notes ended finally by the departure of the Russian envoy on the 22d of May

The czar had already taken his precautions in prospect of this negative response from Turkey. As early as the 6th of March, Colonel Rose, English chargé d'affaires, wrote to his government that Russia was advancing her forces into Turkish territory, and provisioning her army in Moldavia and Wallachia, without having indicated to the Porte her causes of complaint; "a thing unheard-of," wrote the chargé, "and contrary to the rights of civilized nations." The intention of Russia was manifestly, in Colonel Rose's judgment, either to destroy the independence of Turkey or to make war upon her. On the 2d of July, the Russian columns crossed the Pruth, and three days later Prince Gortschakoff entered Bucharest. Meanwhile, on the 2d of June, the British fleet under Admiral Dundas was ordered to the neighborhood of the Dardanelles; and three days later, the French squadron received instructions to proceed to Besika Bay.

The English government had for a long time persisted in a benevolent incredulity with respect to the ambitious designs of the Emperor Nicholas upon Turkey. She was at last obliged to recognize them; but the first steps in opposition to that aggressive policy were to be made by France. The latter country had no direct and personal interest in the question. France had not to guard, as had England, the road toward Oriental supremacy, but the balance of power in Europe was endangered, and also an occasion was offered for an English alliance, and the Emperor Napoleon was impelled towards it by that blending of personal obstinacy and vague hopes which so often characterized his policy. The combined action of France and England was sustained by Austria and Prussia in so far as it remained a question of diplomacy, the German Powers being disinclined to actual

war.

For some time a conference was in session at Vienna, proposing expedients, preparing notes, lured by the apparent concessions of the czar, irritated by the obstinate resistance of the Turks. A note was finally submitted to Turkey, backed by the recommendations of the four Powers; but the Turkish government refused to accept the terms, which virtually were the same as those proposed by Prince Mentschikoff, in May. The Vienna note, although recommended by the four Powers, was really the work of the Austrian representative, Count Buol, and has long since come to be regarded as a trap laid by Russia through Austria. That the sultan ventured to refuse it is now well understood to have been in great measure due to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the English ambassador in Turkey, who, while laboring assiduously to secure peace, had too wise a judg ment and sincere a regard for the right to allow Turkey to be sacrificed.

The sultan summoned his grand council, composed of nearly two hundred of the most distinguished men in the Turkish