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404 APPENDIX. NOTE 11. Lord Clarendon's Despatch demanding the Evacua- tion OF THE Principalities. The Eakl of Clat.endon to Count Nesselrode. Foreign Office, February 27, 1854. M. leComte, — As the ordinary channels of communica- tion between England and Enssia have been closed by the recent interruption of diplomatic relations between the two Courts, I am under the necessity of addressing myself directly to your Excellency on a m<atter of the deepest im- portance to our respective Governments and to Europe. The British Government has for many months anxiously laboured, in conjunction with its allies, to efiect a reconci- liation of differences between Eiissia and the Sublime Porte, and it is with the utmost pain that the British Government has come to the conclusion that one last hope alone remains of averting the calamity which has so long impended over Europe. It rests with the Government of Eussia to determine whether that hope shall be realised or extinguished ; for the British Government, having exhausted all the efforts of negotiation, is compelled to declare to the Cabinet of St Petersburg, that if Russia should decline to restrict within jnirely diplomatic limits the discussion in which she has for some time past been engaged -with the Sublime Porte, and does not, by return of the messenger who is the bearer of my present letter, announce her intention of causing the Russian troops under the orders of Prince Gortschakoff to commence their march with a view to recross the Pruth, so that the Provinces of Moldavia and "Wallachia shall be completely evacuated on the 30th April next, the British