"Let us look back upon all these transactions as a whole, and try to form some estimate of the position of responsibility in which they have placed us towards the Christian populations subject to the Ottoman dominion. In 1854-56 we had saved that dominion from destruction by defeating, and locally disarming, its great natural enemy. We had set up that dominion with new immunities from attack, and we had choked off from any protectorate over the Christians the only Power which would or could exert any such influence with effect. We had done this without providing any substitute of our own, except a recorded promise from the Turks. We had provided no machinery whereby bad faith on the part of Turkey could be proved and punished. Then, twenty years later, in 1876, we had obstinately refused to join the other Powers of Europe in remedying this great defect, by putting a combined pressure on Turkey to compel her to establish effective guarantee for the future. In 1878 we had denounced the treaty in which Russia, by her own expenditure of blood and treasure, had imposed on Turkey the obligations which we had admitted to be needful, but which we had ourselves declined to do anything to enforce. Then, in the same year, at Berlin, we had again done all we could to choke off the only Power which had the means and the disposition to secure the fulfilment of any promises at all. _Particularly in Armenia we had substituted for a promise to Russia which her power, her geographical position, and her pride might have really led her to enforce, another promise to all the Powers which, on the face of it, was absurd--namely, a promise to let all the Powers 'superintend the execution' of domestic reforms in a remote and very inaccessible country._ Lastly, in the same year, as we had already choked off Russia, we now proceeded by a separate Convention to choke off also all the other Powers collectively, by inducing Turkey to give a special promise to ourselves, apart from them altogether. For the performance of this special promise we provided no security whatever, but trusted entirely, as we had done in 1856, to the good faith of a Power which we knew had none. _With Russia deeply offended and estranged, and the rest of Europe set aside or superseded--such were the conditions under which we abandoned the Christian subjects of the Porte in Asia to a Government incurably barbarous and corrupt._