Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/221

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 179 Thus ended the ill-omened mission of Prince chap. Mentschikoff. It had lasted eleven weeks. In ^; that compass of time the Emperor Nicholas de- Effe ctof A * the mission stroyed the whole repute which he had earned l, r°, n } h * " - 1 - credit of by wielding the power of Eussia for more than a Nicholas - quarter of a century with justice and moderation towards foreign States.* But, moreover, in these same fatal days the Emperor Nicholas did much to bring his good faith into question. The tenor of his previous life, makes it right to insist that any imputation upon his personal honour shall be tested with scrupulous care ; but it is hard to escape the conviction that, during several weeks in the spring of the year, he was giving to the English Government a series of assurances which misrepresented the instructions given by him to Prince Mentschikoff during that same period. Thus, almost at the very hour when Count Nessel- rode was assuring Sir Hamilton Seymour that ' the adjustment of the difficulties respecting the ' Holy Places would settle all matters in dispute ' between Eussia and the Porte,' f Prince Ments- chikoff was striving to wring from the Porte a secret treaty, depriving the Sultan of his control over the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and ced- ing to Eussia a virtual protectorate of the Greek Church in Turkey, and was enjoining the Turkish Ministers to keep this negotiation concealed from reign of Nicholas commenced in 1825. + 'Eastern Papers,' parti, p. 102. Tire slight qualification with which Count Nesselrode accompanied the assurance, I- ndcd to strengthen it by giving it greater precision.
 * Computed from the Peace of Adrianople in 1829. The