Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/166

 lions. 124 OltlGIN OF THE WAR OF 1353 chap. It was on the 25th of February 1853 that Sir V1IL Stratford Canning, now Lord Stratford de Red- Hisjnstruc- cliffe,* was instructed to return to his former post. The measure was not without significance. Read by foreigners, it imported that England clung to her ancient policy, and was proceeding to maintain it ; and although the instructions addressed to Lord Stratford disclosed no know- ledge of the spirit in which Prince Mentschikoff was about to conduct lus Embassy, or of the kind of proposals which he was about to press upon the Porte, they indicated that the Cabinet was alarmed for the fate of Turkey. The despatch which supplied Lord Stratford with his instructions, announced to him that, in the then critical period of the fate of the Ottoman Empire, he was to return to his Embassy at Con- stantinople for a special purpose. Then, after recording once more the fact that the duty of maintaining the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire was a principle solemnly declared and acknowledged by all the great Powers of Europe, the despatch informed Lord Stratford that it was his mission to counsel prudence to the Porte, and forbearance to those Powers who were ursins compliance with their demands. In Paris he was to remind the French Government that the interests of France and England in the East were identical, and was to explain the fatal em- barrassment to which the Sultan might be exposed Redcliffe in 1852.
 * Sir Stratford Canning was created Viscount Stratford da