IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 35 to assume the command of the Black Sea, the chap. Count ' expressed his belief that the Kussian fleet ' ' would, in consequence of the advanced season, ' be little likely to leave Sebastopol ; ' and he then went on to suggest that, if the Eussians were to be hindered from attacking the Turks, it would be fair that the Turks should be restrained from molesting the coast of Kussia. The rest of the conversation related to the pending negotiations ; and, upon the whole, it was plain that the first decision of the English Cabinet was looked upon as the natural result of the engagement at Sinope, that it would certainly not lead to a rupture,* and that at length the Eussian Government was in a fit temper to receive the proposals for peace which the four Powers (with the concurrence, this time, of Lord Stratford, and with the extorted assent of the Turks) were now again bringing to St Peters- burg. But whilst this fair prospect was opened AnnouncA- ° i r 1 mental St by the unceasing toil of the negotiators, there Petersburg o G ' of the were messengers then iourneving from Paris and ^ciieme o J V o finally from London to the Court of St Petersburg ; and fjl^'^estera they carried an announcement that the Western Powers. Powers were resolved to execute the harsh and insulting scheme of action which (in the absence of Lord Palmerston, and during the period of his exclusion from office) had been forced upon the acceptance of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet by the Emperor of the French.f Of course it was not to
- 'Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 359.
+ Commentators have denied that Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet waa pushed from the paths of peace by the urgency of the
