I tell the noble Lord, that if he be ready honestly and frankly to endeavour, if possible, by the negotiations to be opened at Vienna, to put an end to this war, no word of mine, no vote of mine, will be given to shake his power for one single moment, or to change his position in this House. I am sure that the noble Lord is not inaccessible to appeals made to him from honest motives and with the deferential feeling that he has been for more than forty years a member of this House. The noble Lord, before I was born, sat upon the Treasury Bench, and he has devoted his life to the service of his country. He is no longer young, and his life has extended almost to the term allotted to man. I would ask, I would entreat the noble Lord to take a course which, when he looks back upon his whole political career—whatever he may therein find to be pleased with, whatever to regret—cannot but be a source of gratification. By adopting that course he would have the satisfaction of reflecting that, having obtained the laudable object of his ambition, having become the foremost subject of the Crown, the dispenser of, it may be, the destinies of his country, and the presiding genius in her councils—he had achieved a still higher and nobler ambition: that he had returned the sword to the scabbard—that at his word torrents of blood had ceased to flow—that he had restored tranquillity to Europe, and saved this country from the indescribable calamities of war. [6] The four points were: (1) The protectorate of Russia over the five principalities was to be replaced by a collective guarantee; (2) the navigation of the mouths of the Danube was to be free; (3) the treaty of 1841, concerning Russia’s position in the Black Sea, was to be revised; (4) Russia was to renounce all official protectorate over any of the Sultan’s subjects. WHY PEACE NEGOTIATIONS FAILED (1855). =Source.=—_Life of Lord John Russell_, by Spencer Walpole, vol. ii., p. 263. (London: 1889.) I was ready to incur the responsibility of advising the acceptance of the terms proposed in conjunction with the French Government. But I was not prepared to advise that we should depart from or even hazard our alliance with France for the chance of a peace on terms which I could not consider entirely satisfactory. Moreover, it was impossible for me to know the full weight of the motives which might have swayed the Emperor. The immediate result of our acceptance of the Austrian terms might have been the instant acquiescence of Russia, and the consequent evacuation of the Crimea. How would the French army have borne a retreat from before Sebastopol, relinquishing a siege which had cost so much blood and so much suffering? Might not the discontent of the army have disturbed the internal tranquillity of France, and even menaced the throne of the Emperor? BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD Transcriber's Notes: