from her people, to keep the Russians out of Constantinople, and prevent the balance of power from being upset to the detriment of England. That was an intelligible war [Illustration: SPITHEAD.] for the tangible interest of England and the civilised Powers. But such a war was a very different affair from the kind of war for which Palmerston clamoured--a war for the maintenance of the complete integrity of the Ottoman Empire. If waged, it must surely not be so waged that it would end by putting the oppressed Christians in Turkey once again in the absolute power of such a cruel dominion as that of the Porte. To this conclusion her Majesty had been forced by her close study of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe’s own despatches, describing the brutal treatment to which the Christians in Turkey were even at that time subjected. But then, of what use was it to suggest these ideas to the Cabinet, even though Lord Aberdeen supported them? When Prince Albert, at the Queen’s request, put them into the form of a Memorandum, Palmerston wrote a flippant reply to it only too closely in harmony with the popular frenzy of the time, the gist of the answer being that it was the duty of England to make war for Turkey and for Turkey alone, quite irrespective of any considerations affecting her treatment of her Christian subjects. To ask Turkey for concessions to civilisation, he argued, somewhat inconclusively, meant that we must connive at her expulsion from Europe. As for all the stories of Turkish fanaticism that had frightened the Queen, Lord Palmerston scoffingly described them as “fables invented at Vienna and St. Petersburg.”[133] [Illustration: BALMORAL CASTLE FROM THE ROAD.] The Czar’s Manifesto of the 1st of November still further excited the War Party, and it was followed by a letter to the Queen, written by his own hand, begging her Majesty to decide between him and her Government in the dispute which had arisen from his attempt to apply the principles of the Treaty of Kainardji to the new situation which French pretensions in Syria had created in Turkey. To this the Queen replied with dignified courtesy, saying that, after repeatedly reading and studying the 7th Article of that Treaty, she could not fairly say that the Czar’s interpretation of it was correct, and adding that the continued occupation of the Principalities must lead to events “which I should deplore, in common with your Majesty.”[134] The year closed with the ferocious attacks of a certain portion of the Press on Prince Albert, and as for the future, it was dark with the signs and omens of impending war. CHAPTER XXX. WAR.