Sir Charles returned from Toulon, 'breakfasting with Gambetta on the 14th January,' and on the 15th delivered to his constituents the speech already quoted, which gave a summary of the events leading up to the war, his judgment of the facts as they existed at the time of his speaking being that the Government's whole policy was "isolated, undignified, inconsistent, unsafe." [Footnote: See p. 205] "We stand alone, absolutely alone, in face of terms of peace which we dislike, but can't resist. Turkey is crushed, about whose integrity the Tory party raved. Russian influence will have risen and English influence fallen in the East. Greece, the anti-Russian friend of England, is not to gain. Servia and Montenegro, the tools of Russia, are to be rewarded. Bulgaria is to owe its freedom, not to Europe, but to Russia." So much was accomplished fact. It had still to be decided how much farther Russia should be allowed to push her advantage. Upon this he said, speaking "as a European Liberal," 'I agree with what the first Napoleon said, in those St. Helena days when he was acting Liberalism for the benefit of his historic character and of his line, that "it is necessary to set up a guaranteed kingdom, formed of Constantinople and its provinces, to serve as a barrier against Russia." The open question for discussion is whether the present Turkey serves the purpose.... 'Were the choice between Russia at Constantinople and Turkey at Constantinople, I should prefer the latter. The Turkish is in ordinary times a less stifling despotism than the Russian.... 'The Turks let any man go to any church and read any book, the Russians do not, and in such a position of power as Constantinople I should prefer the Turk if, as I do not think, the choice lay only there.' Where else, then, did the choice lie? The answer is that Dilke, in his own words, "dreamed of a new Greece." He spoke of the lands then blighted by the Sultan's Government--of "rose-clad Roumelia and glorious Crete"--of countries held back by Turkish incompetence, that were by Nature incredibly rich--"the choicest parts of Europe, perhaps of the world."