Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/167

BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 125 if unduly pressed by France upon a question of chap. such vital importance to the Power from which L Turkey had most to apprehend. At Vienna he was to give and elicit fresh declarations of the conservative views entertained by the two Govern- ments. Then, proceeding to Constantinople, the Ambassador was to inform the Sultan that his Embassy was to be regarded as a mark of Her Majesty's friendly feelings towards His Highness, but also as indicating the opinion which Her Majesty entertained of the gravity of the circum- ■ stances in which there was reason to fear the Ottoman Empire was placed. In regard to any part which he might be able to take in conduc- ing to a settlement of the question of the Holy Places, the discretion of the Ambassador was left unfettered. The Ambassador was directed to warn the Porte that the Ottoman Empire was in 'a position of peculiar danger. The accumulated ' grievances of foreign nations,' continued Lord Clarendon, 'which the Porte is unable or unwill- ' ing to redress, the maladministration of its own ' affairs, and the increasing weakness of executive ' power in Turkey, have caused the allies of the ' Porte latterly to assume a tone alike novel and ' alarming, and which, if persevered in, may lead to a general revolt among the Christian subjects ' of the Porte, ami prove fatal to the independ- ' ence and integrity of the Empire — a catastrophe ' that would be deeply deplored by Her Majes- ' ty's Government, but which it is their duty to 4 represent to the Porte is considered probable and