thousand men. It is not unreasonable to suppose that if they had been really wanted we should never have had the chance given to us of declining with thanks their proffered services.

Lord Palmerston now foresaw, with the daily de-. crease of the dangers which accompany war, the near approach of dangers from diplomacy. He writes to his brother:

Piccadilly: August 25, 1855.

I am kept in town for the present, but hope to go down to Broadlands in the first week of September, subject to weekly attendances here in London on matters connected with the conduct of the war. Things in that matter are looking well. Our bombardment of Sweabourg and our successes in repulsing the Russians in the Crimea will, I hope, be followed by the capture of Sebastopol and the expulsion of the Russians from the Crimea. Our danger will then begin-a danger of peace, and not a danger of war. Austria will try to draw us again into negotiations for an insufficient peace, and we shall not yet have obtained those decisive successes which would entitle us to insist on such terms as will effectually curb the ambition of Russia for the future.

I must try to fight the battle of negotiation as well as the battle of war, and, fortunately, the spirit of the British nation will support us. I wish I could reckon with equal confidence on the steady determination of the French.

King Bomba's insult to England, through the British mission at Naples, must be properly atoned for. Clarendon being at Paris, nothing can be decided till he returns and the Cabinet >can be assembled; but I have written to Clarendon to say that my opinion is that we ought to insist upon the immediate dismissal of Massa,1 and upon a promise that he shall never again be employed in any public capacity. I would not make this demand till our reserve squadron-now in 'attendance on the Queen, but which will return with her on Tuesday, and which consists of three line-of-battle ships-shall have anchored in the Bay of Naples, opposite the King's palace, and shall have taken on board the mission and the consul, and then I would have a boat sent on shore with a demand that in two hours an answer should be sent by the King saying that Massa was dismissed, allowing half an hour for the letter to go, half an hour for the answer to come back, and a whole hour for writing the answer.

Minister of Police at Naples.

APOLOGY FROM KING BOMBA.

321

If the time passed without a satisfactory reply, the place should share the fate of Sweabourg; e poi dopo, if that should not be sufficient. However, we shall see what resolution may be come to when the Cabinet meets on the question.

The King of Naples had acted a very unfriendly part during our war with Russia. He had forbidden, within his territory, the sale of horses, mules, or other supplies to English agents. He gave way in this matter of the Minister of Police as soon as he heard of our success at Sebastopol, which happened very shortly after the date of this letter.

RENEWAL OF

CHAPTER XII.

NEGOTIATIONS PEACE SIGNED DECLARATION OF PARIS-DISPUTES ABOUT EXECUTION OF TREATY-MISUNDERSTANDING WITH THE UNITED STATES-DEATH OF SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE-EGYPT-PERSIAN AFFAIRS.

IN September came the news of the fall of Sebastopol. Austria, who had never relaxed her efforts to bring about an accommodation, now renewed her endeavours, and found in France a much more pliable subject to deal with than England. The French Emperor was assailed on all sides by a 'feu d'enfer' of Russian and Austrian intrigue trying to shake his constancy and to drive him to some act of weakness. One such act that he meditated at this moment, and that it required all the weight of English persuasion to arrest, was the recall of a considerable number of his troops home from the Crimea.

The Austrian and French Cabinets, however, very much mistook the intention of this country if they imagined that we were going to surrender ourselves blindly into the hands of our allies without fully exercising our own rights and judgment. On November 21, Lord Palmerston thus writes to the Comte de Persigny, French ambassador in London:

Piccadilly: 21 Novembre 1855.

Mon cher Comte,-D'après notre Constitution et notre Régime Parlementaire, le pouvoir exécutif ne doit jamais faire une démarche aussi importante que celle dont il s'agit, sans avoir des pièces officielles à produire au Parlement, afin d'être à même d'expliquer clairement ce qui a été proposé à l'Angleterre, par quels motifs la proposition a été appuyée, et quelles on été les raisons qui ont conseillé son adoption.

FALL OF SEBASTOPOL.

323

Mais, jusqu'à présent, nous n'avons rien de tout cela. Il y a eu à Vienne une négociation à laquelle nous n'avons pas pris part; on a signé, du moins paraphé, un protocole pour nous, mais sans nous; on nous communique confidentiellement ce protocole paraphé, à prendre ou à laisser, en nous disant qu'il faut ou le rejeter ou l'accepter immédiatement, bon ou mauvais, sans en discuter la rédaction et les détails.

Cette manière d'agir dans une affaire tellement grave ne nous convient pas. Nous souhaitons nous conformer aux désirs de l'Empereur, mais il faut que nous soyons en règle vis-à-vis de notre Parlement; et nous ne pouvons pas souscrire à une proposition de paix à être faite en notre nom, à la Russie, sans que nous soyons entièrement d'accord et sur la forme et sur la substance d'une telle proposition. Il est donc indispensable que nous ayons une proposition par écrit, dont nous puissions bien examiner la rédaction, avant de pouvoir donner à l'Autriche l'autorisation qu'elle nous demande, de parler à la Russie en

notre nom.

Je dis parler en notre nom, parce que, malgré que l'Autriche doit s'approprier la démarche qu'elle voudrait faire à Pétersbourg, elle se propose de dire qu'elle sait d'avance que sa proposition serait adoptée par la France et l'Angleterre, si elle venait à être acceptée par la Russie.

La nation anglaise serait enchantée d'une bonne paix qui assurât les objets de la guerre ; mais plutôt que d'être entraînée à signer une paix à des conditions insuffisantes, elle préférerait continuer la guerre sans d'autres alliés que la Turquie, et elle se sent tout-à-fait en état d'en soutenir le fardeau, et de se tirer ainsi d'affaire. Soumettez, je vous prie, ces observations à Walewsky.

These observations were not unnecessary, because Count Buol had already persuaded France to favour his proposal that the Black Sea arrangements should be contained in a separate treaty between Russia and Turkey. Four days after this letter, Count Persigny came to urge, at Downing Street, acquiescence in this arrangement, but he met with a distinct refusal.

as to

'We ought to stand firm,' said Lord Palmerston, having all the stipulations about the Black Sea made parts of the Treaty between Russia and all the belligerents. I can fancy how I should be hooted in the House of Commons if I were to

get up and say that we had agreed to an imperfect and unsatisfactory arrangement about one of the most important parts of the whole matter, as a personal favour to Count Buol, or to save the amour-propre of Russia. I had better beforehand take the Chiltern Hundreds.'1

Towards the end of the year, when winter had caused hostilities to cease, Count Buol put forward, in the name of Austria, four new points, which in substance were nearly the same as the four old points. The third, on which the former negotiations had broken off, proposed that no fleet and no naval station of any country should be permitted in the Black Sea. The Czar, on January 16, 1856, accepted these proposals as a basis for negotiating a treaty of peace; although, of course, there were other points, many and difficult, to be settled by subsequent negotiation. Sir Hamilton Seymour was now our ambassador at Vienna. He was one of the ablest members of our diplomacy, and Lord Palmerston felt that he could speak proudly to him in reply to Austrian pressure without leading him into imprudences.

94 Piccadilly January 24, 1856.

My dear Seymour,-Buol's statement to you the night before last was what in plain English we should call impertinent. We are happily not yet in such a condition that an Austrian minister should bid us sign a treaty without hesitation or conditions. The Cabinet of Vienna, forsooth, must insist upon our doing so! Why, really our friend Buol must have had his head turned by his success at St. Petersburg, and quite forgot whom he was addressing such language to. He should remember that he is a self-constituted mediator, but that nobody has made him umpire, arbiter, or dictator. He may depend upon it we shall do no such thing. We shall not sign without knowing what it is that we are signing. We shall not sign un

less we are satisfied with that which we may be asked to put our names to. Pray tell him so, and say to him privately from me, with my best regards and compliments, that we feel very sincerely obliged to him for his friendly and firm conduct in these recent transactions, that we accepted, with the addition 1 To Lord Clarendon, November 26, 1855.