he only surprise. Besides the secret
agreement with Russia, the British government had made a secret convention
with Turkey. By this convention England undertook to defend Turkey against
Russian aggression in Asia, though concessions were made to Russia that
rendered Asiatic Turkey indefensible; and Turkey was to carry out reforms
which all sensible men knew to be wholly beyond her power. In payment for
this bargain, the Sultan allowed England to occupy and administer Cyprus.

At the end of the session Mr. Gladstone wound up his labours in parliament
with an extraordinarily powerful survey of all these great transactions.
Its range, compass, and grasp are only matched by the simplicity and
lucidity of his penetrating examination. It was on July 30:--

Finished the protocols and worked up the whole subject. It loomed
very large and disturbed my sleep unusually. H. of C. Spoke 2-1/2
hours. I was in body much below par, but put on the steam
perforce. It ought to have been far better. The speech exhausted
me a good deal, as I was and am below par.

He sketched, in terse outline, the results of the treaty--the independence
of Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro; the virtual independence of northern
Bulgaria; the creation in southern Bulgaria (under the name of Eastern
Roumelia) of local autonomy, which must soon grow into something more.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, though Mr. Gladstone would have hoped for their
freedom from external control, had been handed over to Austria, but they
were at any rate free from the Ottoman. The cardinal fact was that eleven
millions of people formerly under Turkish rule, absolute or modified, were
entirely exempted from the yoke. "Taking the whole of the provisions of
the treaty of Berlin together, I most thankfully and joyfully acknowledge
that great results have been achieved in the diminution of human misery
and towards the establishment of human happiness and prosperity in the
East." A great work of emancipation had been achieved for the Slavs of the
Turkish empire. He deplored that equal regard had not been paid to the
case of the Hellenes in Thessaly and Epirus, though even in 1862,
Palmerston and Russell were in favour of procuring the cession of Thessaly
and Epirus to Greece. As for the baffling of Russian intrigue, it was true
that the Bulgaria of Berlin was reduced from the Bulgaria of San Stefano,
but this only furnished new incentives and new occasions for
intrig