Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/367

 LORD JOHN RUSSELL ATTACKED. 335 1 we must look to your sword to cut the way to chap. J XII. peace. IV. Anticipating that failure of the direct peace TheAus- • it i o * r ' an P ro * negotiations which took place on the 21st of posais. April, Count Buol some three days before had been submitting for the consideration of the Western Powers three separate plans, all intend- ed to meet the exigency of the Third Condition ; and it was from the last of these plans — one originated by M. Drouyn de Lhuys — that Lord John derived the ' faint hope ' which we saw him impart to Lord Eaglan. Months later, when under the reign of a new Allusions French Commander the prospects of the war had sequent been changed, and when none without study and Lord John access to much of what was then secret knowledge could acquire a true idea of the questions encoun- tered in the previous April, a sudden disclosure of the reception accorded to Count Buol's pro- posals roused in England an outburst of anger against Lord John Russell — an outburst that sprang from the notion of his having tried to make peace on terms not sufficiently honourable to the Western Allies; and accordingly, whilst in close union with the rest of the Cabinet, and no less determined than they were to press on the war with due vigour, he all at once found himself marked, and singled out as the object of a great House of Commons attack — an attack by