APPENDIX. 405 Government must consider the refusal or the silence of the Cabinet of St Petersburg as ecj^uivalent to a declaration of war, and will take its measures accordingly. The messenger who is the bearer of this letter to your Excellency is directed not to wait more than six days at St Petersburg for your reply; and I earnestly trust that he may convey to me an announcement on the part of the Russian Government that by the 30th of April next the Principalities will cease to be occupied by Russian forces, — I have, &c., (Signed) CLARENDON. NOTE III. Correspondence between Lord Eaolan and the Sec- retary OF State on the subject of 'Atrocities com- ' JUTTED BY Turks in Bulgaria.' * Lord Raglan to the Seci:etahy of Siate ecu "Wak. [From Varna], 8th August 1854. My Lord Duke, — The way in which the Christian population is treated by the Turks in Bulgaria has come so prominently under the notice of Her Majesty's officers since the army has been stationed in this neighbourhood, that I think it my duty to bring the subject under the official notice of your Grace ; and with this view, I beg to lay before you copies of three despatches which I have found it necessary to write to the Ambassador : the two
- Tbis heaJiug looks as if it belonged to the present day — January
1877 — or to the summer or autumn of last year ; but it is couched in the exact words which were used by Colonel Steele (the Military Secretary) when he docketed and labelled the answer to the above despatch in tha year 1854.
