d Francis Leveson holds out the apprehension of a long religious contest
in Ireland. [Footnote: Unhappily, like other pessimists, he seems to have
judged Ireland correctly.] I believe he looks only at the surface and
judges from first appearances.

_August 12._

A victory gained by Paskewitz over the Seraskier, whom he has taken
prisoner, with thirty-one pieces of cannon, &c., near Erzeroum--that is,
three days after the battle, Paskewitz, still in pursuit, was within forty
miles of Erzeroum.

Wrote two letters to the Duke--one on the subject of Sir J. P. Grant, who
has closed the Courts at Bombay because the Government would not execute an
unlawful process, and the other respecting Persian affairs, giving the
substance of the despatches which I enclosed.

We have a Cabinet to-morrow at 12 on Turkish affairs. I would not allow the
Russians to advance any further. I would send one from our own body,
_incognito,_ to Paris to talk to Polignac and endeavour to get him to join
us in an act of vigorous intervention which would give character to his
Government and save Constantinople. I would pass the English and French
fleets through the Dardanelles, and give Russia a leaf out of the Greek
Treaty. But I do not expect that this will be Aberdeen's course.

Drummond, whom I saw, said the Duke was delighted with the account of the
Jaghirdars of the Kistna. Granville is gone to Ireland.

The Duke was gone to Windsor. It is the King's birthday.

_August 13._

When the Cabinet was assembled the Duke said we were not to consider the
state of things at Constantinople, and what we should do. He thought the
Russians would get to Constantinople, and into it. If they did he thought
there was an end of the Ottoman Empire. He was doubtful whether, after the
innovations introduced, the Turks would cordially support Mahmoud,
[Footnote: Sultan Mahmoud, as is well known, remodelled the whole internal
organisation of the Turkish Empire. He was denounced as the Giaour Sultan
by old-fashioned Turks.] and already there were insurrections of the
Greeks. It was just what he predicted in his letter to La Ferronays, and
what Lord Dudley afterwards said in a letter to Lieven; the success of the
Russians was the dissolution of an Empire which could not be reconstituted.
It was too late to interfere by force, even if we had been disposed to do
so alone.

He thought France, if we did nothing, would be quiet--if we did anything,
she would take