Meanwhile a critical moment had arisen in the affairs of Europe. Our own Premier, Lord Aberdeen, had long been regarded as the very head and front of the Peace Movement in England, and when he succeeded the wary Lord Palmerston, it is said that Nicholas, the Czar of Russia, made no secret of his pleasure in the event, for he saw tokens in England of what might at least leave him a chance of pulling Turkey to pieces. He seems also to have had a great personal liking for our ambassador, Sir Hamilton Seymour, who was fortunately a man of honour as well as a man of discretion and ready wit. The account given by Kinglake of the conversations in which the Emperor Nicholas disclosed his views, and was not permitted to hint them merely, makes very dramatic reading. The Czar persisted in speaking of Turkey as a very sick man, whose affairs had better be taken out of his hands by his friends before his final dissolution. Sir Hamilton courteously intimated that England did not treat her allies in that manner; but Nicholas was not to be put off, and at a party given by the Grand Duchess Hereditary on February 20, 1853, he again took Sir Hamilton apart, and in a very gracious and confidential manner closed his conversation with the words, “I repeat to you that the sick man is dying, and we can never allow such an event to take us by surprise. We must come to some understanding.” The next day he explained how the partition should in his opinion be made. Servia and Bulgaria should be independent states under his protection. England should have Egypt and Candia. He had already made it clear that he should expect us to pledge ourselves not to occupy Constantinople, though he could not himself give us a like undertaking. “As I did not wish,” writes Sir Hamilton Seymour, “that the Emperor should imagine that an English public servant was caught by this sort of overture, I simply answered that I had always understood that the English views upon Egypt did not go beyond the point of securing a safe and ready communication between British India and the mother country. ‘Well,’ said the Emperor, ‘induce your Government to write again upon these subjects, to write more fully, and to do so without hesitation. I have confidence in the English Government. It is not an engagement, a convention, which I ask of them; it is a free interchange of ideas, and in case of need the word of a “gentleman”—that is enough between us.’” In reply, our Government disclaimed all idea of aiming at any of the Sultan’s possessions, or considering the Ottoman Empire ready to fall to bits; and while accepting the Emperor’s word that he would not himself grab any part of it, refused most decisively to enter on any secret understanding.