[Illustration: DESTRUCTION OF THE TURKISH FLEET AT SINOPE. (_See_ p. 562.)] every act of the Cabinet from the day on which Menschikoff arrived at Constantinople, to the same kind of pitiless logical analysis, even the Coalition Cabinet would have found it difficult to blunder into war. There was also another calm but acute observer of events who could not be diverted from his devotion to tangible British interests by passionate outbursts of popular _chauvinism_, and who saw at a glance the risks the Government were running. In a letter to Baron Stockmar, dated the 27th of November, Prince Albert says:-- “Six weeks ago Palmerston and Lord John carried a resolution that we should give notice that an attack on the Turkish fleet by that of Russia would be met by the fleets of England and France. Now the Turkish steam-ships are to cross over from the Asiatic coast to the Crimea, and to pass before Sebastopol! This can only be meant to insult the Russian fleet and entice it to come out, in order to make it possible for Lord Stratford to bring our fleet into collision with that of Russia, according to his former instructions, and so make an European war certain.”[124] Just before the allied fleets were sent to defend Turkey in the Black Sea the Porte ordered Omar Pasha to demand the evacuation of Moldavia within fifteen days, and, failing compliance, to attack the Russians at once. The Russians held their ground, standing on the defensive, and the Turks crossed the Danube, inflicting on them defeats that, of course, deeply wounded the pride of the Czar. He therefore ordered the Russian squadron at Sebastopol to retaliate in the Euxine. On the 30th of November it discovered a Turkish fleet at Sinope, which, the Turks declared, was bound for Batoum. The Russian admiral, however, believed it was on its way to the Circassian coast, for the purpose of stirring up an insurrection against Russia in the Caucasus. Instead of watching it or blockading it, as he might have done, he attacked and destroyed it.