Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/63

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. '21 being keenly intelligent, and could see little chap strength in a civilisation much earlier and more ; rude than their own. So in the common judgment of the world it had long seemed natural that, as a result of the decay which was thought to have come upon the Otto- man Empire, its European provinces should revert to Christendom. By many the conquest of them was thought to be an easy task : for the Turks were few and simple, and in peace-time very listless and improvident ; and the bulk of the people held under their sway in Europe were Christians, who bore hatred against their Ottoman masters. And to Russia these same provinces 6eemed to be of a worth beyond all kind ot measurement, for they lay towards the warm South, and, commanding the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, gave access to and fro between the Euxine and the Mediterranean. The Power which seemed to be abounding in might was divided from the land of temptation by a mere stream of water. No treaty stood in the way.* Was there in the polity of Europe any principle, custom, or law which could shelter the weak from the strong, and forbid the lord of eight hundred thousand soldiers from crossing the Pruth or the Danube ? the expediency of maintaining the Sultan's dominion, but there was nothing in the articles of eithei of those treaties which en- gaged the contracting parties to defend the empire from foreign invasion.
 * The preambles of the Treaties of 1840 and 1841 recognised