Now the English Ambassador had received instructions to bring his whole influence to bear upon the Turks, "and to impress them with the strong and earnest manner in which the Vienna Note was recommended to the acceptance of the Porte, not only by Her Majesty's government, but also by the Cabinets of Austria, France and Prussia." Before the presentation of the "Vienna Note" Lord Stratford had informed the Porte with much circumstance and in his most impressive manner that the British fleet in Besika Bay was at his disposal; while therefore he read his instructions with most perfunctory obedience to the Ottoman Cabinet, his whole demeanor was urging them to disregard the note. The duplicity of the French Emperor was more culpable as before the rejection of the Vienna Note and while the powers were still deliberating in concert he craftily succeeded in drawing England into a special alliance with France: and on receipt of some hysterical despatch from his Ambassador he insisted with the English cabinet that it was "indispensably necessary" that their combined fleets should, in violation of the convention of 1841 enter the straits before there had been a declaration of war on any side. That very day without asking any information from the English Ambassador Lord Clarendon telegraphed to Lord Stratford: "Your Excellency is instructed to send for the British fleet to Constantinople." The Sultan now amended the "Vienna Note" by inserting the words, "by the Sublime Porte," which completely destroyed the power of the existing treaty, making it read: "The government of His Majesty the Sultan, will remain faithful to the stipulations of the treaty of Kainardji, confirmed by that of Adrianople regarding the protection, 'by the Sublime Porte' of the Christian religion." In other words, the wolf solemnly engaged to protect the lambs for himself, and all the world knows what that means: and we know it now in 1896 by forty years more of broken promises and horrible atrocities. What insane folly to believe the Turk. The Czar did not, and rejected the amended note. Seven days after his rejection of the Sultan's proposal in obedience to the telegram from Lord Clarendon two English and two French ships entered the Dardanelles on September 14th, and on the strength of their presence and implied support, the Sultan declared war against Russia on the fifth of October, 1853. Thus did Louis Napoleon III. precipitate England into what Count Nesselrode declared to be the most unjustifiable and the most unintelligible of wars. Czar Nicholas replied to this, by a counter declaration of war on November 1st, 1853, solemnly declaring to the Powers of Europe "that the sole aim of his endeavors was to assure the rights of his co-religionists, and to protect them from every form of oppression."