Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/112

 70 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1853 part in dismembering the Empire, it was his interest to preserve it intact. For more than twenty years his actions as well as his declared intentions were in accordance with this view ; and it would be wrong to believe that the policy thus shown forth to the world was only a mask. Just as the love of killing game generates a sincere wish to preserve it, so the very fact that the Czar looked upon Turkey as eventual booty, made him anxious to protect it from every other kind of danger. In 1833 the Emperor Nicholas saved the Sultan and his dynasty from destruction; and although he accompanied this measure with an act offensive to the other maritime Powers,* his conduct towards Turkey was loyal. In 1840 he again acted faithfully towards the Sultan, and joined with England and the two chief Powers of Germany in preventing the disruption of the Ottoman Empire. In 1844 the Czar came to England, and anxiously strove to find out whether there were any of our foremost statesmen who had grown weary of a conservative policy in Turkey. He talked confi- dentially with the Duke of "Wellington and Lord Aberdeen, and also, no doubt, with Sir Robert Peel; but evidently meeting with no encourage- ment, he covered his retreat by giving in his adhe- sion to England's accustomed policy, and to do this with the better effect, he left in our Foreign Office a solemn declaration not only of his own policy, but likewise, strange to say, of the policy of Austria;
 * The Treaty of Unkiur Skelessi.