ent and
imperative than, the causes which have commonly led us to extend, in
a far more important manner, our frontier in India; and I think it,
gentlemen, much to the credit of the late Government, much to the
honour of Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville, that, when we were in
office, we made a covenant with Russia, in which Russia bound herself
to exercise no influence or interference whatever in Afghanistan; we,
on the other hand, making known our desire that Afghanistan should
continue free and independent. Both the Powers acted with uniform
strictness and fidelity upon this engagement until the day when
we were removed from office. But Russia, gentlemen, has another
position--her position in respect to Turkey; and here it is that
I have complained of the Government for aggrandizing the power of
Russia; it is on this point that I most complain.

The policy of Her Majesty's Government was a policy of repelling and
repudiating the Slavonic populations of Turkey in Europe, and of
declining to make England the advocate for their interests. Nay, more,
she became in their view the advocate of the interests opposed to
theirs. Indeed, she was rather the decided advocate of Turkey; and now
Turkey is full of loud complaints--and complaints, I must say, not
unjust--that we allured her on to her ruin; that we gave the Turks a
right to believe that we should support them; that our ambassadors,
Sir Henry Elliot and Sir Austin Layard, both of them said we had most
vital interests in maintaining Turkey as it was, and consequently the
Turks thought if we had vital interests, we should certainly defend
them; and they were thereby lured on into that ruinous, cruel, and
destructive war with Russia. But by our conduct to the Slavonic
populations we alienated those populations from us. We made our name
odious among them. They had every disposition to sympathize with us,
every disposition to confide in us. They are, as a people, desirous of
freedom, desirous of self-government, with no aggressive views, but
hating the idea of being absorbed in a huge despotic empire like
Russia. But when they found that we, and the other Powers of Europe
under our unfortunate guidance, declined to become in any manner their
champions in defence of the rights of life, of property, and of female
honour--when they found that there was no call which could find its
way to the heart of England through its Government, or to the hearts
of the other Powers, and th