I have shown how numbers of generously-minded Russians disavowed and repudiated the methods of repression which had been adopted, especially in Lithuania. None the less was all Russia of one mind as to the imperative necessity of putting down the insurrection. Every thinking man knew that it was a matter of life and death to his country; in a despatch from which I shall quote presently Prince Gortchakoff showed that very clearly. If the Poles were to become dominant there would be a repetition in provinces largely inhabited by Russians of the horrors which took place two centuries earlier when they were in possession of Moscow, and of which a foretaste had already been given in the murders and attempts to murder of the last few months. Austrian Poland and Prussian Poland must be drawn into the furnace and a general conflagration ensue. But Lord Russell “cared for none of these things.” Here was a rare opportunity for him to give effect to his favourite policy of “meddle and muddle” (I do not know who invented the phrase in his honour, but how good it was!) and he availed himself of it freely. The state of public feeling in England and France fully justified a friendly intercession by the Governments of both countries, praying the Tsar to exercise his clemency on behalf of the rebellious Poles. But it did not justify Lord Russell in adopting the hectoring language which he used, language not only reading Russia a lesson as to how she should govern in her own dominions, but even conveying threats as to what might happen if his advice were not followed. His conduct of the affair not only infuriated the Russians, but also alienated the French Government, who were greatly displeased at having been brought into a ridiculous position. On the 2nd of March, 1863, Lord Russell wrote a despatch to Lord Napier, of course for presentation to Prince Gortchakoff, in which, on the strength of the fact that “the Kingdom of Poland was constituted and placed in connexion with the Russian Empire by the Treaty of 1815, to which Great Britain was a contracting party,” he claimed the right of Great Britain “to express its opinion upon the events now taking place,” and in rather slipshod language, such as might be adopted by a schoolboy mediating in a football squabble, went on to offer his amiable advice to the Emperor: “Why should not His Imperial Majesty, whose benevolence is generally and cheerfully acknowledged, put an end to this bloody conflict,” etc., etc.