Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/16

 X PREFACE. scarce take up arms without the general concurrence of her people, the effect of this protest was to place the power of tlic country in a state of abeyance. Apart from any logical or rhetorical merit it may have, the cogency of any lecture inflicted by one State on another must depend upon the supposition that it can, if it will, at its own chosen time, adduce 'the last ' reason of kings,' and to send England into a great diplomatic arena, after the scenes of last autumn, was to send her disabled. If our Government, under the stress of such circumstances, had consulted the dictates of a seemingly becoming, though really perhaps false dignity, it must needs have fallen back upon a policy of inaction, and determined, though watchful reserve. I have said that by the causes assigned, the feelings of the two angry multitudes of the East and of the West, were brought into harmony ; but in one respect during the autumn, our English denouncers and their gifted, impetuous leader struck deeper against the cause of peace than Russia up to that time had done, for they were the first to contend that the country of the Bulgarians — ground including a great part of Eoumelia — must be wrested from Turkish govern- ance ; and, if it be true that agreement upon other subjects of difference substantially lay within reach, we shall have to confess that the single question which has been threatening and still threatens to prove in- soluble without a i-esort to arms was one furnished — not by liussia but — England. It so happened, however, that, besides the i)ulicy or