Reviewing the general policy of Nicholas the reader cannot help being struck with the skilful manner and clever system by which the Czar carried out his plans. Before his reign the Russian attacks were all made particularly in the south-west and south-east direction, viz., the Danubian territory, and Armenia; but on his accession he began to attack from a more southerly direction even than Turkey, viz., Greece, whom he assisted in rebellion against her Turkish oppressors. From 1826–1828 he attacked in a south-easterly quarter, viz., Armenia and Persia, at the same time occupying Adrianople and threatening Constantinople. Finally, to complete his plans, he struck a fatal blow at the heart of Turkey, viz., its capital, Constantinople, in 1833, with the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, by which Turkey was practically made a vassal of Russia. This treaty exercised a great influence upon foreign powers. For Russia by it would have obtained actual possession not only of the Black Sea but also of its only entrance, the Dardanelles, which thus would have become a fortified Russian outpost. Turkey now was in a very precarious state. She was almost past the aid of any earthly powers. But luckily two doctors stepped into the breach, namely, England and France, and, after a course of treatment, the following protocol was indited by the Pentarchy of Powers: “That ships of war have at all times been prohibited from entering the Channel of Constantinople, viz., by the Straits of the Dardanelles and of the Black Sea.” Reshid Pacha had performed for Turkey great internal reforms, but, unfortunately, he was exiled through a Court intrigue. This proved a great blow to Turkish politics. Thus Turkey began to decline again; and, as John Bright said in an able speech at Manchester (1854), “Turkey is a decaying nation;” and Cobden on the same occasion said, “Turkey is a decaying country, and the Turks cannot be permanently maintained as a ruling Power in Europe.” The Czar himself said that “a sick man is dying,” referring to Turkey, in his remarkable conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour on January 28, 1853. When Turkey appeared at her last gasp she had been saved by England and France. Now, for the second time, the same Powers rescued her from annihilation. England a short time previously had been in a feeble state owing to her severe war with Napoleon the Great. This had exhausted her financially to a great extent.[54] However, Huskisson’s commercial policy (1823), Wellingtons Catholic Emancipation (1829), Russell’s great Reform Bill (1832), and the Repeal of the Corn Laws by Sir Robert Peel (1846), had exercised a refreshing influence upon her general prosperity. Here Lord Palmerston, a disciple[55] of Canning, appeared on the scene to play his part in “the European concert.” V. THE CRIMEAN WAR.