Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/213

BETWEEN THE CZAK AND THE SULTAN. 171 mauds of Russia.* Peshid Pasha became the chap. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ; and this . was not an appointment which disclosed any in- tention on the part of the Sultan to disengage himself from the counsels of the English Am- bassador. If the Sultan had erred in granting an audience without the assent of his Ministers, he had carried his weakness no further. It soon transpired that but fails to x shake the Prince Mentschikoff had failed to wring from the suitun. Sultan any dangerous words. It seems that when the Prince came to press his demands upon the imperial ear, he found the monarch reposing in the calmness of mind which had been given him by the English Ambassador five days before, and in a few moments he had the mortification of hearing that for all answer to his demands lie was referred to the Minister of State.f In the judg- ment of Prince Mentschikoff, to be thus answered was to be remitted back to Lord Stratford. It was hard to bear. Prince Mentschikoff began his intercourse with Mentschi- ° ... k oft' violent- the new Foreign Secretary by insisting upon an iy presses immediate reply to his Note of the 11th of May. Peshid Pasha asked for the delay of a few days, on the ground of the change of Ministry. This reasonable demand was met at first by a refusal, but afterwards by a Note which seems to have been rendered incoherent by the difficulty in which Prince Mentschikoff was placed ; for, on the one hand, a request for a delay of a few days, • ' Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 194. t Ibid. p. 195