Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/67

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 37 even for one moment survive an announcement of chap. the scheme which only some ten days later our ' Government had been brought to adopt. It was one thing for the Western Powers to enforce the neutrality of the Black Sea, and another and a very different thing to announce to the sovereign of a haughty State that, even although he miglit be bent on uo warlike errand, still, upon the very sea which washed his coast — upon the very sea which filled his harbours — he was forbidden to show liis Hag. On the 12t]i of January 1854, the Emperor Nicholas was forced to hear — to endure to hear — that, upon peril of an unequal conflict with the combined fleets of the Western Powers, every ship that he had in the Euxine must either be kept from going to sea, or else must sail by stealth, and be liable to be ignominiously driven back into port. The negotiation, which had seemed to The nego-tiations are ruined. be almost ripe tor a settlement, was then rumed. The Emperor Nicholas did not declare war against the Western Powers ; but, as soon as he received the hostile announcement in a form which he deemed to be official, he withdrew his represen- tatives from Paris and London. The Governments Rupture of of France and England followed his example ; and reiatiouu. on the 21st of February 185-i, the diplomatic ending the then existing war between Turkey and Russia, to a very close prospect of a new war— a war involving England and France; and the three days' interval in which this mo- mentous change took place was marked by but one event— by the determination of the Cabinet (on Thursday the 22d) to adopt the French proposals.— .Vo^e to ilh Edition, 1863.