Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon thereupon resigned. The order to the Fleet was countermanded, and Hornby was instructed to anchor in Besika Bay, whereupon Lord Derby returned to the Cabinet, but without Lord Carnarvon. Lord Derby afterwards admitted that neither he nor his colleagues had altered their opinions about the propriety of sending the order to the Fleet, so that the Ministry and its Foreign Secretary were now avowedly at variance as to a vital point of principle in Foreign policy. If the Cabinet was trustworthy Lord Derby should not have left it. If it was not trustworthy he was right to leave it, but wrong to go back. As for Lord Beaconsfield, that he should have permitted Lord Derby to return in such circumstances was, it need hardly be said, discreditable to him as a man of honour. On January 24th Sir Stafford Northcote gave notice that on the 28th he would move “a supplementary estimate for the military and naval services,” and the Ministerial press immediately circulated the most startling accounts of the oppressive conditions which Russia sought to impose on Turkey, then negotiating for an armistice. The Liberal press, on the other hand, accused Sir Stafford Northcote of breaking his promise, passed on the opening day of the Session, that he would not ask for a Vote till he knew what the Russian terms of peace were, and saw that they plainly put British interests in peril. As for the public, it had not the faintest idea that Ministers had received assurances from Prince Gortschakoff which they had dealt with as satisfactory. The official excuse for the War Vote now was that Russia, by delaying to communicate the terms of peace which were the basis of the armistice, rendered precautionary measures necessary. On the 25th, Count Schouvaloff communicated these terms to the Foreign Office, and they were found to be simply those which Russia had, with unusual frankness, forewarned England and the Powers at various stages of the war, she would exact from Turkey. On the evening of the 25th, Lord Beaconsfield alluded to these terms as a possible basis for an armistice. He must have regarded them as eminently moderate, for he said that they had induced him to cancel the order to the Fleet to proceed to Constantinople.[124] But the Ministry still persisted in going on with the War Vote, and on the 28th of January Sir Stafford Northcote denounced the terms of peace, in language which would have induced Turkey to reject them had Russia not astutely kept them secret till Turkey had accepted them. On the same day Lord Carnarvon, in the House of Lords, explained his reasons for quitting the Cabinet.[125] [Illustration: PRINCE GORTSCHAKOFF.]