This catastrophe, of course, brought England nearer to war. A fierce cry of wrath went up from the English people. Their fleet had been sent to defend Turkey against Russia, yet it had tamely allowed Russia to perpetrate “the massacre of Sinope.” Russia knew that England stood pledged to protect Turkey from attack in the Euxine. Sinope was, therefore, a direct challenge to England, and it must be promptly taken up. The foresight of Prince Albert was thus amply justified. The Government had stupidly sent to the Black Sea a fleet strong enough to provoke Russia, but not strong enough to protect Turkey, and insinuations of treason were freely made. “The defeat of Sinope,” wrote the Prince, “upon our own element--the sea--has made the people furious; it is ascribed to Aberdeen having been bought over by Russia.” Nor was Aberdeen the only one who suffered. Prince Albert was scurrilously attacked by Tories and Radicals of the baser sort, and, almost in as many words, accused of being a Russian spy, whose influence with the Queen was paralysing her Government. But if the English Government blundered foolishly in sending the British fleet to the Black Sea with orders to protect Turkey, without first making sure that Turkey would not provoke attack, or that our fleet was strong enough to defend her, Russia blundered, not foolishly, but criminally, in attacking the Turks at Sinope. Mr. Spencer Walpole says:--“Though the attack on Sinope may be justified, its imprudence cannot be excused.”[125] But surely if it cannot be excused it is idle to “justify” it. The Czar was warned that England and France would defend Turkey if the latter was assailed in the Euxine. An attack on Turkey at Sinope, in spite of that warning, he must have known would be taken by the English and French people as a defiance, which would so madden them, that the war party in France and England must forthwith control the situation. Therefore, to say it was an “imprudence” is to say that, in the circumstances, it was a crime against civilisation. As will be seen later on, it provoked France and England to order their fleets to patrol the Black Sea, and require every Russian ship they met to put back into Sebastopol, so that a second Sinope might be prevented.