also. It was, perhaps, slightly emphasised by the taunt of the Czar in his Manifesto of the 9th of February to the effect that England and France were fighting for Islam against Russia, who was striving to protect Christianity. The War Party feared that there might be a reaction against them, and accordingly they very cleverly induced Lord Shaftesbury, on the 10th of March, to answer this portion of the Manifesto, and not only to prove that the Grand Turk did more than the Czar to advance the progress of Christianity, but also to defend the righteousness of making an alliance with any Power, heathen though it might be, to maintain “the cause of right, justice, and order, against the aggressions even of professing Christians.” Of this speech Lord Shaftesbury says in his Diary that nothing pleased him more than the statement of Lord Clarendon that the debate which he originated “was most opportune.”[157] From a Ministerial point of view it was opportune. Mr. Morley complains that the Nonconformists, who “have so seldom been found fighting on the wrong side,” were now so seriously divided that they did nothing to help Mr. Cobden to resist the warlike policy of the Government.[158] Their neutrality explains why Clarendon was so effusive in his congratulation to the Peer whose influence over this section of the community was supreme. But the whole question soon passed out of the region of debate. On the 27th of March, the Queen’s message proclaiming war--though oddly enough the word war is not mentioned in it--was read to both Houses of Parliament; and on the 31st a loyal address agreeing to it was duly moved and carried, after a debate which was worthier of such an occasion than many others that had preceded it. The Opposition leaders seem to have been sobered by the solemnity of the moment, and all parties practically supported the Government with the helpless unanimity of despair. In the Upper House, Lord Grey alone uttered a strong protest against the war. In the House of Commons, Mr. Bright and the Marquis of Granby were the only speakers who were for peace. The violent Russophobists found in Mr. Layard an energetic champion. He condemned the Government, first, because it had not coerced Russia immediately after the massacre of Sinope, and secondly, because even now Ministers did not specifically declare that the object of the war was to lock up Russia within well-defined limits, so as to cripple her for ever. The Tory leaders were more cautious. They naturally made capital out of the Secret Correspondence,[159] already referred to (pp. 546-7). They had little difficulty in convicting the Government of misleading the Czar as to their rooted objection to his Turkish policy. Lord John Russell had not rejected the Russian proposals with the sternness of one who had serious hostility to them. He had, indeed, admitted the very claim which he and his colleagues were now about to rebut by war.[160] A “hybrid