Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/202

160 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1653 chap. Ministers into a burst of anger. But every hope . of this kind had been baffled. Turks were fan- atical, Turks were fierce, Turks were quick to avenge, and, above all, Turks were liable to panic ; but some spell had come upon the race. The spell had come upon the Sultan, it had como upon the Turkish Ministers, it had come upon the Great Council, it had come even upon the larger mass of the warlike people who bring their feel- ings to bear upon the policy of their Sultan. At every step of his negotiation Prince Mentschikoff encountered an adversary always courteous, al- ways moderate, but cold, steadfast, wary, and seeming as though he looked to the day when perhaps he might wreak cruel vengeance. "Who this was the Prince now knew ; and he perhaps began to understand the nature of the torment inflicted upon his imperial Master by the bare utterance of the one hated name. Prince Ments- chikoff found himself powerless as a negotiator, and it was clear that, unless he could descend to the rude expedient of an ultimatum or a threat, he was a man annulled. Indeed, without some act of violence he could hardly deliver himself from ridicule. He presses Therefore, on the 5th of May, Prince Mentschi- koff forwarded to the Minister for Foreign Affairs the draft of a Sened or Convention, purporting to be made between the Sultan and the Emperor of Ptussia. This proposed Sened confirmed, with the force of a treaty engagement, the arrangements respecting the Holy Places which had been made in a new form.