Page:The Letters Of Queen Victoria, vol. 2 (1908).djvu/457

 opening of the year 1853 saw a strong Coalition Ministry in power; the necessity of a cordial understanding with France was obvious, but bitter and indiscreet attacks on the Emperor of the French were made by certain members of the Government, for which Mr Disraeli took them severely to task. Lord John Russell, who had been appointed Foreign Secretary, resigned that office in February, in favour of Lord Clarendon, being unable to bear the twofold burden of the Leadership of the House and the Foreign Office. Though the arrangement was questioned, he continued during the year to lead the House without office. A Canadian Clergy Reserves Bill, an India Bill, introducing competitive examination into the Civil Service, and various measures of Metropolitan improvement were passed. A more important feature of the Session was Mr Gladstone’s first Budget, dealing comprehensively with the Income Tax, and imposing a duty on successions to real property.

The Eastern Question, however, overshadowed all other interests. For some time a dispute had existed between the Latin and Greek Churches as to the guardianship of the Holy Places (including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) in Palestine. After long negotiations between the French and Russian Governments, as representing these Churches, an indecisive judgment was pronounced by the Porte, which, however, so incensed Russia that she began to make warlike demonstrations, and sent Prince Menschikoff to Constantinople to make peremptory requisitions as to the Holy Places.

In the meanwhile, the Czar had made confidential overtures to Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British Ambassador at St Petersburg, representing the Sultan as a very “sick man,” and suggesting that, on the dissolution of his Empire, a concerted disposal of the Turkish dominions should be made by England and Russia; these conversations were reported at once to the British Government. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who had been sent to represent British interests at Constantinople, arrived there after Prince Menschikoff, and a settlement of the disputes as to the Holy Places was then easily effected, Lord Stratford insisting on this question being kept independent of any other issue. But Prince Menschikoff had come to the conference with instructions to keep an ulterior object in view, namely, to advance a claim, by means of a strained interpretation of the Treaty of Kainardji of 1774, of a Russian protectorate over the Christian