350 ORIGIN OF THE WAR OF 1853 CHAP. Perhaps it will be thought that the practice of . hiding away momentous engagements between States in the folds of private notes may now and then justify an endeavour to infer the nature of an agreement secretly made between two Govern- ments from the tenor of their subsequent actions, and from a knowledge of surrounding facts. If this licence were to be granted, and if also it were to be assumed that the English as well as the French Government was negotiating with open eyes, it might perhaps be laid down that the com- pact of Midsummer 1853 was virtually of this sort : — ' The Emperor of the French shall set aside ' the old views of the French Foreign Office, and ' shall oblige France with all her forces to uphold ' the Eastern policy of England. In considera- ' tion of this sacrifice of French interests by the ' French Emperor, England promises to give her ' moral sanction (in the way hereinafter pre-
- scribed) to the arrangements of December 1851,
' and to take the following means for strengthen- ' ins the throne and endeavouring to establish ' the dynasty of the Emperor of the French : 1st,
- England shall give up the system of peaceful
' coercion which is involved in the concerted ' action of the four Powers, and shall adopt, in ' lieu of it, a separate understanding with France, ' of such a kind as to place the two Powers con- ' spicuously in advance of the others, and in a
- state of more immediate antagonism to Eussia
' with a prospect of eventual war. 2d, Even ' before any treaty of alliance is agreed upon, the
