n Governments, as representing these Churches, an
indecisive judgment was pronounced by the Porte, which, however, so
incensed Russia that she began to make warlike demonstrations,
and sent Prince Menschikoff to Constantinople to make peremptory
requisitions as to the Holy Places.

In the meanwhile, the Czar had made confidential overtures to
Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British Ambassador at St Petersburg,
representing the Sultan as a very "sick man," and suggesting that,
on the dissolution of his Empire, a concerted disposal of the Turkish
dominions should be made by England and Russia; these conversations
were reported at once to the British Government. Lord Stratford
de Redcliffe, who had been sent to represent British interests
at Constantinople, arrived there after Prince Menschikoff, and a
settlement of the disputes as to the Holy Places was then easily
effected, Lord Stratford insisting on this question being kept
independent of any other issue. But Prince Menschikoff had come to
the conference with instructions to keep an ulterior object in view,
namely, to advance a claim, by means of a strained interpretation of
the Treaty of Kainardji of 1774, of a Russian protectorate over the
Christian subjects of the Sultan. Influenced by Lord Stratford, the
Porte rejected the claim, and, in retaliation, the Czar occupied the
Danubian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, characterising the
step not as an act of war, but a material guarantee of Russia's just
rights. The French Emperor, anxious to divert the attention of his
subjects from domestic politics, was making preparations for war; and
similar preparations were also being made in England.

Negotiations took place between the Powers with a view of averting
war, and a document known as the Vienna Note, to which Great Britain
and France were parties, and which Russia accepted, was proffered to
the Sultan: again Lord Stratford interposed to prevent its acceptance,
and, when the Russian Government subsequently announced its own
interpretation of the Note, it was apparent that the Western Powers
had been mistaken as to its purport.

An Ultimatum, requiring the evacuation of the Principalities, was
sent by the Porte to Russia and rejected: war broke out, and the first
encounter at Oltenitza, on the 4th of November, resulted in favour of
Turkey. Meanwhile both the British and French fleets had been sent
to the East, and, on the declaration of war, the British Admiral