Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/143

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IN TIIH WAIl AGAINST RUSSIA. 113 quished by the Czar ; but, before she could take chap. the final step, it was necessary for her to come ' to an understanding with Prussia. This she sue- of'rvoWin" ceeded in doing within twenty-four hours from the *'*®*^' period of the final rupture between Eussia and the Western Powers ; but Prance and England could not bear to wait. The French Emperor, rebuffed by the Czar in his endeavour to appear as the pacificator of Europe, was driven to the opposite method of diverting France from herself; and, although the crisis was one in which a little delay and a little calmness would have substituted the coercive action of the four Powers for an adventurous war by the two, he once more goaded our Government on, and pressed it to concur with him in sending forthwith to Eussia a hostile, im- perative summons. M. Drouyn de Lhuys declared pressure of tliat, in his opinion, the sending of the proposed Emperor, summons was a business which ' should be done ' immediately, and that the two Governments ' should write to Count Nesselrode to demand ' the immediate' withdrawal of the Eussian troops from the Principalities — 'the whole to ' be concluded by a given time, say the end of ' March.' * It must be owned, however, that the English Kaeemess people were pressing their Government in the in England same direction. Inflamed with a longing for naval glory in the Baltic, they had become tormented with a fear lest their Admiral should be hindered from great achievements for want of the mere legal

  • ' Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 53.

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