Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/51

IN THE "WAR AGAINST IIUSSIA. 21 Government a means of eluding it. The torrent chap. had so great a volume that it was worthy to be ' turned against a foreign State. The blaming of The anger of , . ° ^ , o Uie English Ministers and Ambassadors and Admirals, and fi>vcrtea from ttieir the endless conflict which would be engendered ""P '".'s, " and un.iusl ly by the apportionment of censure, all might be I'lougiitto superseded by suggesting, instead, a demand for czar. vengeance against IJussia. The terms of Count Nesselrode's Circular of the 31st of October* had given ground for expecting that, until provoked to a contrary course, the Czar, notwithstanding the Turkish declaration of war, would remain upon the defensive ; and the people in England were now taught, or allowed to suppose, that Eussia had made this attack upon a Turkish squadron in breach of an honourable understand- ing virtually equivalent to a truce, or, at all events, to an arrangement which would confine the theatre of active war to the valley of the Lower Danube. This charge against Paissia was unjust; for after the issue of the Circular, the Government of St Petersburg had received intelli- gence not only that active warfare was going on in the valley of the Lower Danube, but that the Turks had seized the Paissian fort of St Nicholas, on the eastern coast of the Euxine, and were attacking Russia upon her Armenian frontier. After acts of this warlike sort had been done, it was impossible to say, with any fairness, that Piussia was debarred from a right to destroy her enemy's ships ; and it must be acknowledged also, • ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 226.