Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/176

 liG CAUSES I^■VOLVI^"G FKANCE AxD ENGLAND CHAP. — the notion that England would not go to war; ■y I ^, and the Czar's belief on this subject was so dear to his heart, that perhaps nothing short of the resignation of the Prime INIinister could have undeceived him. Still, to a common observer, it M'ould seem that some effort might have been made to disperse his error ; and that, as the danger was caused in great measure by the last- ing effect of old impressions upon the mind of the Emperor Nicholas, a special mission to St Petersburg might have been usefully resorted to as a means of rousing the Czar to a sense of what might be expected from England. Nothing of this kind was done ; nothing was done to break the fatal smoothness of the incline. But if the cause of peace was harmed by ill- judging friends in the Cabinet, it was brought to sheer ruin by the disqualification which our country inflicted upon its popular leaders as the punishment of their former excesses. Mr Cobden and Mr Bright, as we have seen, had shut themselves out from the counsels of the nation. They were powerless. By their indiscriminate denunciations of war in general, they had destroyed the worth of any criticism they could bring to bear upon the pending dis- ])ute. Their arguments, however well pruned and shaped out to suit the occasion, were sure of being treated by an English audience as the off- spring of their doctrines ; and, their doctrines being repudiated, they could make no good use of their privilege of .'Speech. It was impossible