Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/361

 ON THE CONFERENCE. 329 against the idea of substituting it, as the Eussians chap. desired, for a plan of Limitation there existed at !_ the time of the Conference one fatal objection. The ' counterpoise ' plan was not one that imposed grave restraint on the Czar, was not one that pen- ally humbled him, and for that very reason of course would not fasten upon him the badge of acknowledged defeat, nor serve the Allies — like a trophy — to show abroad amongst men instead of a captured Sebastopol. The Conference being one carried on simultane- compared ously with the strife on the Chersonese, it fol- mere ad- duccd lowed of course that the ' reasons ' adduced on ' reasons, 1 ,.-.,.,,., _. the actual each side by the disputants were only as chaff stress of the ji -i -I-11 -in 'motives. 1 to the gram when compared with the weight of the motives — the motives derived from stern war — which, although not acknowledged in words spoken out between foes at a table, were still swaying every man in the Conference-room at Vienna. There was one — only one — tract of ground (and this a tract not more extensive than many an English 'estate') where the actual condition of things was such as to give the Czar strength in negotiating with his Western assailants. What humiliations by sea and by land he or rather his sire had been suffering one after another until the 25th of September 1854 we know and need not repeat ; but then — as though heaven were grant- ing that sagacious, old prayer which besought it to darken the minds of her enemies * — she saw
 * Quoted ante, vol. iii. p. 265.