As a consequence of the exaggerated dread inspired by the great Northern Power, the Turks were not allowed to act in their own defence in 1853; they were obstructed by severe diplomatic pressure, and harassed by vexatious interference. At last, after the _fiasco_ at Vienna, they could no longer be restrained by their timid friends, and, in spite of them, they at length declared war, in the autumn of 1853. Now, when the Emperor Nicholas ordered an advance into the Ottoman Empire (viz. the Danubian Principalities), in July, and when the Porte, dissuaded from using force to repel the invasion, was obliged to allow her enemy quietly to consolidate himself therein, Russia, to appease Europe, made an announcement that she intended only to seize a material guarantee, and would engage in no further offensive operations. She would only meet any assault directed against her. England and France had sent their ships to a port near the Dardanelles (September 11th), and, as soon as the Sultan commenced hostilities, they ordered them up to Constantinople, to protect Turkey from Russian aggression (October 22nd). Conscious of the dangers surrounding the small Turkish squadron in the Black Sea, very urgent requests were made, that the friendly fleets should pass through the Bosphorus, to prevent its falling into the power of the enemy. But these applications were all peremptorily refused.[186] To make the matter very much worse, and, indeed, to render the whole course of action unintelligible, _the Turkish fleet itself_, by the strong representations of the Sultan’s Western advisers, was also kept back idly in the Bosphorus, and was prevented from sailing to the support of the exposed squadron![187] Hence the disaster at Sinope became inevitable. When this state of affairs was realized in England,—when it was seen that our diplomatic skill was again at fault, that the assurances of Russia were not to be relied upon, and that our naval demonstrations were held in contempt,—then the natural consequences followed, and the British people, their Government notwithstanding, determined that the disturber of the peace of Europe should be punished. ----- Footnote 186: “Our last information from St. Petersburg, still represents Russia as desirous to treat, and as determined, above all, to assume the offensive in no quarter. This confidence explained why our fleets did not move” (_M. Drouyn de Lhuys to Count Walewski_, Paris, Dec. 15, 1853). Footnote 187: See _Correspondence respecting the Rights and Privileges of the Latin and Greek Churches in Turkey_ , part ii., pp. 248-258. Writing from Therapia, November 5, 1853, to Lord Clarendon, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British Ambassador at Constantinople, says, “I have succeeded in dissuading the Porte from sending a detachment of line-of-battle ships and sailing frigates into the Black Sea at this moment” (_ibid._, p. 250). -----