66' Petersburg. IX THE WAIJ AGAIXST IJUSSIA. 27 ' portaucG not alone to the luiiied action of the chap.
- two Governments, but to the instructions ad- ^
' dressed to their respective agents being precisely ' the same, that they are prepared to adopt the ' specific mode of action now proposed by llie ' Government of the Emperor.' * With the addi- orders to tion of a proviso that for the present the Sultan .schemrana should be engaged to abstain from aggressive HaTst"" operations on the Euxine, instructions exactly in accord with the Erench Emperor's proposal were forthwith sent out to the Bosphorus, and at the same time the Erencli and English represen- tatives at St Petersburg were ordered to com- municate tliis resolution to Count Nesselrode. But who was the statesman removed by some Lord Pai. cause from our Cabinet before the critical day, cxXsion and who again was the statesman then seen to be atTie^time so clothed with power that the very apprehension decision* of having him for an adversary weiglied heavily on °° ^ '"'*' the decision of that Thursday (the 22d of Decem- ber) ? The two were one. Only a few days before, Lord Palmerston had been a member of the Gov- ernment. Tliinking fit, and intending to meet the desire of the Tuileries for a close and con- certed action between France and England, he in those days had power, great power over Louis Napoleon ; and, unless for some reason of Jiis own, he would hardly, I think, have allowed the French Emperor to press indecorously upon any Cabinet to which he himself belonged, still less to apply such a pressure with the object of making it
- ' EusterD Papers,' part ii. p. 321.
