conflagration, the three imperial courts of Russia,
Austria, and Germany agreed upon an instrument imposing on the Turk
certain reforms, to be carried out under European supervision. To this
instrument, known as the Berlin memorandum, England, along with France and
Italy, was invited to adhere (May 13). The two other Powers assented, but
Mr. Disraeli and his cabinet refused,--a proceeding that, along with more
positive acts, was taken by the Turk and other people to assure the moral
support of Great Britain to the Ottoman, and probably to threaten military
support against the Russian.

(M176) This rejection of the Berlin memorandum in May marked the first
decisive moment in British policy. The withdrawal of England from the
concert of Europe, the lurid glare of the atrocities in Bulgaria, and his
abiding sense of the responsibility imposed upon us by the Crimean war and
all its attendant obligations, were the three main elements in the mighty
storm that now agitated Mr. Gladstone's breast. Perhaps his sympathies
with the Eastern church had their share. In a fragment of reminiscence
twenty years after, he says:--

When, in 1876, the eastern question was forced forward by the
disturbances in the Turkish empire, and especially by the cruel
outrages in Bulgaria, I shrank naturally but perhaps unduly from
recognising the claim they made upon me individually. I hoped that
the ministers would recognise the moral obligations to the subject
races of the east, which we had in honour contracted as parties to
the Crimean war and to the peace of Paris in 1856. I was slow to
observe the real leanings of the prime minister, his strong
sympathy with the Turk, and his mastery in his own cabinet. I
suffered others, Forster in particular, to go far ahead of me. At
the close of the session [1876] a debate was raised upon the
subject, and I had at length been compelled to perceive that the
old idol was still to be worshipped at Constantinople, and that,
as the only person surviving in the House of Commons who had been
responsible for the Crimean war and the breaking of the bulwark
raised by the treaty of Kainardji on behalf of the eastern
Christians, I could no longer remain indifferent. Consequently in
that debate Mr. Disraeli had to describe my speech as the only one
that had exhibited a real hostility to the policy of the
government. It was, however, at th