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 of the diplomacy of our own country in the early part of the nineteenth century. Stratford Canning, Minister Plenipotentiary at Constantinople, received from the Foreign Minister and the Under-Secretary between 1810 and 1812 sixteen dispatches, and not one of them had any direct and immediate bearing on the troublesome and momentous negotiations which he was conducting at the Porte at the time.

The telegraph has very greatly increased the importance of the Foreign Office of the several States alike in the initiation, in the development and in the control of diplomacy. It has lessened both the difficulties and the independent value of the