Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/206

 1G4 ORIGIN OF THE WAE OF 1853 chap, same time there should be shown so much of r i courtesy and of forbearance, and so great a will- ingness to go to the utmost limit of safe conces- sion, and to improve the condition of the Christian subjects of the Porte, that the Turks should appear before Europe in a character almost angelic. ' I ' advised them,' said he, ' to open a door for ' negotiation in the note to be prepared, and to ' withhold no concession compatible with the real ' welfare and independence of the Empire. I ' could not in conscience urge them to accept the ' Russian demands as now presented to them, but ' I reminded them of the guarantee required by ' Prince Mentschikoff, and strongly recommended ' that, if the guarantee he required w 7 as inadmis- ' sible, a substitute for it should be found in a ' frank and comprehensive exercise of the Sultan's ' authority in the promulgation of a firman, secur- ' ing both the spiritual and temporal privileges ' of all the Porte's tributary subjects, and, by way ' of further security, communicated officially to ' the five great Powers of Christendom.'* To all these counsels the Turkish Ministers listened with assenting mind. But it was now late in the night, and the Am- bassador rose. Perhaps the hour and the Ambas- sador's movement to depart cast a shadow of anxiety upon the minds of the Turkish Ministers. Perhaps the ripple of the waters (for the con- ference was in a house on the edge of the Bos- phorus) called to mind the thought of the English
 * ' Eastern Papers, ' jiart i. 177.