Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/178

118 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND CHAP, faii'lv imagined by those who have heard of the XI . ^ . ' ability and the varied experience of the mem- bers of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet ; but hither- to, so far as I know, these grounds have not been disclosed. Apart from the general policy of quitting the concord of the Four Powers for the sake of a war- like alliance with Louis Napoleon, blame attaches in a more special form upon Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet for yielding up its own better judgment under pressure from the French Government, and consenting to those hostile movements of the Allied fleets which baffled the patient labours of diplomacy, and twice rekindled the strife. "When the warlike spirit in England had once arisen, the French Emperor knew that he could at any moment subject Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet to an access of popular disfavour by causing or alloM'- ing it to appear in England that the Government of the Queen was less eager than himself in the defence of the Sultan ; and it is true, therefore, that although the hand which touched the lever was foreign, the instrument of pressure was Eng- lish. It is probably true, also, that the pressure was never inflicted without the consent of at least one great English Statesman. Still, because tliis facile yielding to the Frencli Emperor in the use of naval forces was popular, or rather was a means of avoiding unpopularity, the propriety of it is not the less in question. It is possible, however, that the hitlicrlo unknown grounds on which the separate understanding with France