Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/36

6 CAUSKS INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND CUAP. in consenting to measures which have no other ^' excuse than that they were adopted for the sake of maintaining close union with an ally. England had contracted a virtual alliance ; and when once she had taken this step, it was needful and right tliat she should do and suffer many things rather than allow the new friendship to be chilled. But tliis yoke was pressed hard against lier. It was not the wont of England to be causelessly led into an action which was violent, and provoking of violence. It was not her wont to rush forward without need, and so to drive through a treaty that many might say she broke it. It was not her wont to be governed in the use of her fleets by the will of a foreign Sovereign. It was not her wont to hear from a Ercnch Ambassador that a given movement of her ]Iediterranean squadron was 'indispensably necessary,' nor to be requested to go to such a conclusion by ' an immediate de- ' cision.' It was not her wont to act with impas- sioned haste, where haste was dangerous and needless. It was not her wont to found a breach with one of the foremost Powers of Europe upon a mere hysterical message addressed by one French- man to another. But the French Emperor had a great ascendant over the English Government ; for the power which he had gained by entangling it in a virtual alliance was augmented by the growing desire for action now evinced by the English people. He knew that at any moment he could expose Lord Aberdeen and his colleagues to a gust of popular disfavour, by causing it to be