Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/93

 IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 63 by the Peace of Paris.* In an early sta^re of the CHAP. dispute, he resolved that he would not remain L_ at the head of the Government unless he could maintain peace; and he anxiously sought to choose a moment for making his stand against the further progress towards war. Far from wishing to pro- long his hold of power, he was always labouring to make out when, and on what ground, he could lay down the burthen which oppressed him. Every day he passed his sure hour and a half in the Foreign OflSce, and came away more and more anxious perhaps, but without growing more clear- sighted. If he could ever have found the point where the road to peace diverged from the road to war, he would instantly have declared for peace ; and, failing to carry the Government with him, Aberdeen was also biassed by the feelings of ' mutual ' esteem existing between the Emperor Nicholas and himself ; but this was an error; for, although it is true that the Emperor Nicho- las was accustomed to be loud and constant in his expressions of regard for T>ord Aberdeen, the imperial esteem was not recip- rocated. In his anger at the terms which Russia extorted from the Porte at the conclusion of the war, Lord Aberdeen, on the 13th of December 1829, wrote a private letter to Lord Heytes- bun,', at St Petersburg, which contained this passage : — ' Not- ' ■('ithstanding our opinion of the falsehood and ambition of the ' Emperor Nicholas and of liis Government, our desire to avoid ' any misunderstanding is as sincere as if we believed them to ' be possessed of honesty and principle.' And more than twenty years afterwards, when out of oflice, Lord Aberdeen wrote thus : — ' I have never been an admirer of the Russian ' Government and policy, and although the Emperor has been ' personally very gracious to me of late years, I believe he has ' always thought me an enemy at lieart, as indeed from former ' experience he had some right to do.' ,
 * I believed — and so wrote in former editions — that Loi-d