It may here be proper to describe in more detail the Vienna Note, on the terms of which, and on its modification, and the circumstances attending and following both, the preservation of peace depended. This note began by setting forth the desire of the Sultan to re-establish friendly relations between himself and the Czar; and then went on to state the terms of the proposed compromise. A difference arose on the first practical clause. As worded at Vienna, the note implied that immunities and privileges of the Orthodox Church existed as something independent of the Sultan's will, and declared that the Sultans had never refused to confirm them by solemn acts. The Turks could not subscribe to this. It was not historically true. It impeached the sovereign power of the Sultan. It implied that the Czar was protector by right of the Greek Church. Accordingly, the Porte, in modifying the note, took care to use words showing that these immunities and privileges had been "granted spontaneously," and confirmed spontaneously from time to time by the Sultans. This was the first amendment. The second practical clause, the origin of which was referred to the complaints of Prince Menschikoff, needed other corrections. The Vienna Note made the Sultan say that he would remain faithful "to the letter and spirit of the Treaties of Kainardji and Adrianople, relative to the protection of the Christian religion." Here was established an active protectorate. Now the Treaty of Kainardji applied only to one church in existence, and to one that was to be built, and gave Russia no rights to protect the Christian religion. This clause in the note would then have actually given an extension to that treaty. The Porte demurred, and rightly, modifying the clause by undertaking to remain faithful "to the stipulations of the Treaty of Kainardji, confirmed by that of Adrianople, relative to the protection by the Sublime Porte of the Christian religion." No one who knows the meaning of words can fail to see the practical distinction existing between the two forms of expression. In the Vienna Note the Sultan was made to declare that he would cause the Greek rite to share in the advantages granted to other Christian rites by convention or special arrangement. The Porte substituted the words, "granted or which might be granted to the other communities, Ottoman subjects," for the last words of the note. This was also an important and a needful change. Under various treaties Austria enjoyed large rights of interference respecting the Roman Catholic subjects of the Sultan. The terms of the original note would have conferred similar rights on Russia. "Such a concession," wrote Lord Stratford de Redcliffe on the 20th of August, "when practically claimed by Russia, would leave her nothing to desire as to the means of exercising a powerful influence on all the concerns of the Greek clergy, and interfering even on behalf of the Greek laity, subjects of the Porte....