te satisfied.

By the middle of February war was certain. Mr. Gladstone wrote an
account of a conversation that he had at this time with Lord Aberdeen:--

_Feb. 22._--Lord Aberdeen sent for me to-day and informed me that
Lord Palmerston had been with him to say that he had made up his
mind to vote for putting off (without entering into the question of
its merits) the consideration of the Reform bill for the present
year. [Conversation on Reform.][308]

He then asked me whether I did not think that he might himself
withdraw from office when we came to the declaration of war. All
along he had been acting against his feelings, but still
defensively. He did not think that he could regard the offensive in
the same light, and was disposed to retire. I said that a
defensive war might involve offensive operations, and that a
declaration of war placed the case on no new ground of principle.
It did not make the quarrel, but merely announced it, notifying to
the world (of itself justifiable) a certain state of facts which
would have arrived. He said all wars were called or pretended to be
defensive. I said that if the war was untruly so called, then our
position was false; but that the war did not become less defensive
from our declaring it, or from our entering upon offensive
operations. To retire therefore upon such a declaration, would be
to retire upon no ground warrantable and conceivable by reason. It
would not be standing on a principle, whereas any man would require
a distinct principle to justify him in giving up at this moment the
service of the crown. He asked: How could he bring himself to fight
for the Turks? I said we were not fighting for the Turks, but we
were warning Russia off the forbidden ground. That if, indeed, we
undertook to put down the Christians under Turkish rule by force,
then we should be fighting for the Turks; but to this I for one
could be no party. He said if I saw a way for him to get out, he
hoped I would mention it to him. I replied that my own views of war
so much agreed with his, and I felt such a horror of bloodshed,
that I had thought the matter over incessantly for myself. We
stand, I said, upon the ground that the Emperor has invaded
countries not his own, inflicted wrong on Turkey, and what I feel
much more, most cruel