Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/52

Urquhart Europe. Urquhart returned home to justify himself, and just before his arrival his pamphlet, ‘England, France, Russia, and Turkey,’ appeared and greatly enhanced his reputation. On his return Urquhart found that Melbourne's ministry had been succeeded by that of the Duke of Wellington. He was unable to persuade the duke to make active intervention against Russia.

Lord Melbourne returned to office in April 1835, and on 23 Sept. Urquhart was appointed secretary of embassy at Constantinople. On his arrival in 1836 he found that since 1831 the Russians had prohibited foreigners from trading with Circassia, although their claim to sovereignty over the country was open to question. Urquhart had visited Circassia in 1834, and at his instigation a British schooner, the Vixen, proceeded to Soudjauk Kalé, where she was seized on 26 Nov. 1836 by a Russian warship. The English government recoiled from pressing Russia to extremities on the question, and as an alternative recalled Urquhart on 10 March 1837 on account of his share in promoting the enterprise. A motion in the House of Commons on 21 June 1838 to inquire into Palmerston's conduct was defeated by a small majority; but Palmerston himself admitted in the debate that Urquhart believed that he was acting in accordance with the secret wishes of the English ministry. In another measure in which he was keenly interested Urquhart was equally unsuccessful. Russia, by the treaty of Adrianople, enjoyed considerable commercial advantages over other nations trading with Turkey. With a view to remedying this state of things, Urquhart, before his departure from England in 1835, drew up a treaty with Turkey, which the government promised to transmit to him in Constantinople. This, however, they had failed to do at the time of his recall. The treaty was ratified in 1838, but in so altered a condition that Urquhart considered it valueless and indignantly repudiated the authorship.

Deprived by the death of William IV of the countenance of the king, and of the support of his private secretary, Sir Herbert Taylor, Urquhart found himself unable any longer to promote directly his views on state policy. He continued, however, to labour with unwearied assiduity, and by his numerous writings powerfully influenced public opinion. Already in 1835 he had founded the ‘Portfolio,’ a periodical devoted to diplomatic affairs. In the first number he published a collection of diplomatic papers and correspondence between the Russian government and its agents, which threw light on the secret policy of the imperial cabinet. They had fallen into the hands of the Polish insurgents in 1830, and had been brought to England by Prince Adam Czartoryski, from whose custody they had passed into that of the foreign office. The publication of these documents caused considerable stir, and, although Palmerston in 1838 disclaimed any responsibility, it would hardly have been possible without his tacit connivance. The ‘Portfolio’ was discontinued in 1836, when Urquhart went to the east; but it was revived in 1843, and continued to appear until 1845.

In 1840 he protested against the exclusion of France from participation in the ‘pacification of the Levant’ by publishing ‘The Crisis; or France before the Four Powers’ (London, 8vo; French edit. Paris, 1840, 8vo). In 1843, in ‘An Appeal against Faction’ (London, 8vo), he censured the conduct of the government in refusing an inquiry into the causes of the Afghan war, and in the same year he took a chief part in drawing up the report of the Colonial Society, which charged the promoters of the Afghan and Chinese wars with conspiracy against England. The society refused to ratify the reports, which appeared in the name of the committee alone. In 1844 Urquhart published in the ‘Portfolio,’ and separately in pamphlet form, a paper entitled ‘The Annexation of the Texas: a Case of War between England and the United States,’ a strong censure of the conduct of the United States government towards Mexico.

On 30 July 1847 Urquhart was returned to parliament for the borough of Stafford, for which he sat until July 1852. During 1848, in conjunction with Thomas Chisholm Anstey [q. v.], he persistently urged upon parliament the necessity of an investigation into Palmerston's conduct in the foreign office. The speeches on the subject were published under the title ‘Debates on Motion for Papers with a view to the Impeachment of the Right Honourable Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston.’

At the time of the Crimean war Urquhart strongly deprecated the principle on which English action was based—the substitution of a European protectorate over the Christian subjects of Turkey for that exercised by Russia. He remonstrated against such an interference in the internal affairs of Turkey as contrary to the law of nations, and asserted that the Turks were able unaided to cope with Russia, a prediction verified by the Turkish victories at Oltenitza and Silistria (cf. Times, 11 March 1853). He traversed the country forming societies, under the name of foreign