onveyed
to Russia, (as in the joint nomination with the Porte of the hospodars
of the Trans-Danubian principalities,) and the only ground on which such
interference could rest, was that enunciated by Baron Lieven, with
somewhat remarkable frankness in a Russ diplomatist, to Mr Paton, that
"Servia owed her political existence solely to Russia, which gave the
latter a moral right of intervention over and above the stipulations of
treaties, to which no other power could pretend"--a statement false both
in fact and inference, since it was by their own good swords, unaided by
Russia or any other European power with either men or money,[8] that the
Servians won their freedom; and the nugatory stipulation in the treaty
of Bukarest, had been all along left a dead letter.] "Russia, neglecting
all international law, sent an agent of her own into Servia, to
investigate the internal proceedings of an independent state, and, on
receiving his report, directed that agent to state his complaints,
without consulting any other power, to the Divan. Now, he would venture
to say, that a greater or more direct insult than this, was never
offered to an independent state, and he could not conceive any act that
could be a more gross and positive violation of the treaties of
Bukarest, Akerman, and Adrianople, under which alone she could set up a
right to be informed of what passed in Servia. Though Georgevich was
elected by the people, according to the constitution of the province,
and though the validity of his election was acknowledged by the Divan,
and confirmed by the Porte, Russia demanded that the election should be
set aside; and this demand was made by that power in such an overbearing
manner, as to show to the world that Turkey was under the control of
Russia, and must act in conformity with the dictates of the Czar."

In this extremity, the Porte appealed for support to Great Britain and
Austria, two of the powers who were parties to the quintuple treaty
signed at London, July 15, 1840, for the express object of ensuring the
integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire; and the appeal was
backed by strong representations from Sir Stratford Canning, the British
ambassador at Constantinople, to his home government. But the British
government was (as Lord Palmerston observed, with much sarcastic truth,
in the House of Commons on August 15) "in the same condition in which
they had too often of late been found in foreign affairs, without