A few days after the break-up of the Conference, Midhat Pasha was ignominiously dismissed from office. The new Constitution did not long survive its author. In May, 1877, Abdul Hamid suspended it and dismissed the National Assembly which had been convoked. During the two months of its existence its members had shown a determination to expose the scandalous abuses of the Hamidian system. Later Abdul Hamid trumped up a charge against Midhat of having been responsible for the murder of Sultan Aziz. Two men employed by that Sultan, a wrestler and a gardener, were suborned to confess that they strangled Aziz at the instance of Midhat. Midhat was tried by corrupt judges and was not allowed to cross-examine these men. He was found guilty and condemned to death. At the instance mainly of the British Government the sentence was commuted to banishment to Arabia. Midhat was there strangled by order of Abdul Hamid in 1882, and his embalmed head was sent to Constantinople, in order that the Sultan might be assured of his death. The two men who had confessed to the murder of Aziz were released and were pensioned by the Sultan. Sir Henry Elliot, who was British Ambassador at Constantinople at the time of the death of Sultan Aziz, put on record his conviction that it was a case of suicide, that the charge against Midhat was trumped up, and that the whole proceedings are an indelible stain on Abdul Hamid. Meanwhile, in 1877, another attempt was made by the Great Powers to effect a settlement of the Eastern question. Count Schouvaloff was sent to London by the Emperor of Russia on a special mission for the purpose. Agreement was arrived at between the Powers. It was embodied in a protocol, and was presented to the Porte. It was promptly rejected on April 10th by the Sultan as inconsistent with the treaty of Paris by interfering with the independence of the Ottoman Empire. Russia thereupon declared war against Turkey, justifying it in a dignified manifesto, on the ground that the Sultan, by rejecting the protocol, had defied Europe. Russia, therefore, held the strong position of acting on behalf of Europe. England was the only Power to take exception to this. Lord Derby, in a despatch to the Russian Government, said that he and his colleagues regarded the action of Russia as an obstacle to reform in Turkey, and held that the plight of the Christian population could not be improved by war—a most unfortunate prediction, as the result proved. More fortunate was the prediction of Mr. Gladstone at the close of a speech which he made in the House of Commons, on April 24, 1877, immediately after the declaration of war by Russia, when moving a resolution intended to prevent the Government from taking up a hostile attitude to Russia in the coming war.