lysed would have revived
quickly enough, if either Austria or Germany had believed that the Czar
really meant to seize Constantinople. "I have done my best," wrote Mr.
Gladstone to a friend, "against the vote of six millions; a foolish and
mischievous proposition. The liberal leaders have, mistakenly as I think,
shrunk at the last moment from voting. But my opinion is that the liberal
party in general are firmly opposed to the vote as a silly, misleading,
and mischievous measure." He both spoke and voted. The opinion of his
adherents was that his words, notwithstanding his vote, were calculated to
do more to throw oil on the troubled waters, than either the words or the
abstention of the official leader.

The appearance of the British fleet with the nominal object of protecting
life and property at Constantinople, was immediately followed by the
advance of Russian troops thirty miles nearer to Constantinople with the
same laudable object. The London cabinet only grew the wilder in its
Projects, among them being a secret expedition of Indian troops to seize
Cyprus and Alexandretta, with the idea that it would be fairer to the Turk
not to ask his leave. Two ministers resigned in succession, rather than
follow Lord Beaconsfield further in designs of this species.(350)

"It is a bitter disappointment," Mr. Gladstone wrote to Madame Novikoff,
"to find the conclusion of one war, for which there was a weighty cause,
followed by the threat of another, for which there is no adequate cause at
all, and which will be an act of utter wickedness--if it comes to pass,
which God forbid--on one side or on both. That unhappy subject of the bit
of Bessarabia,(351) on which I have given you my mind with great freedom
(for otherwise what is the use of my writing at all?) threatens to be in
part the pretext and in part the cause of enormous mischief, and in my
opinion to mar and taint at a particular point the immense glory which
Russia had acquired, already complete in a military sense, and waiting to
be consummated in a moral sense too."

Public men do not withstand war fevers without discomfort, as Bright had
found in the streets of Manchester when he condemned the Crimean war. One
or two odious and unusual incidents now happened to Mr. Gladstone:--

_Feb. 24._--Between four and six, three parties of the populace
arrived here, the first with cheers, the two others hostile.
Windows were broken and much hooting. The last det