as they have ever been during the 400 years of
their exile from their fertile plains, to sweep down from their
fastnesses and meet the Turks at any odds for the re-establishment
of justice and of peace in those countries. Another portion still,
the 5,000,000 of Bulgarians, cowed and beaten down to the ground,
hardly venturing to look upwards, even to their Father in heaven,
have extended their hands to you; they have sent you their
petition, they have prayed for your help and protection. They have
told you that they do not seek alliance with Russia, or with any
foreign power, but that they seek to be delivered from an
intolerable burden of woe and shame. That burden of woe and
shame--the greatest that exists on God's earth--is one that we
thought united Europe was about to remove; but to removing which,
for the present, you seem to have no efficacious means of offering
even the smallest practical contribution. But, sir, the removal of
that load of woe and shame is a great and noble prize. It is a
prize well worth competing for. It is not yet too late to try to
win it. I believe there are men in the cabinet who would try to
win it, if they were free to act on their own beliefs and
aspirations. It is not yet too late, I say, to become competitors
for that prize; but be assured that whether you mean to claim for
yourselves even a single leaf in that immortal chaplet of renown,
which will be the reward of true labour in that cause, or whether
you turn your backs upon that cause and upon your own duty, I
believe, for one, that the knell of Turkish tyranny in these
provinces has sounded. So far as human eye can judge, it is about
to be destroyed. The destruction may not come in the way or by the
means that we should choose; but come this boon from what hands it
may, it will be a noble boon, and as a noble boon will gladly be
accepted by Christendom and the world.

V

The division, after a debate that lasted five days, resulted in 354 for
ministers, against 223 for Mr. Gladstone.

Of course if you had gone on alone, Lord Granville told him, you
would only have had either more or less than half the liberal
party. If Hartington had moved the first two resolutions, the
government would certainly have had some 160 or 170 majority. All
the malcontents behind the opposition front benches