)

In 1856 Mr. Gladstone declared his opinion, afterwards often repeated,
that the neutralisation of the Black Sea, popular as it might be in
England at the moment, was far from being a satisfactory arrangement.(221)
Were the time to come, he said, when Russia might resume aggressive
schemes on Turkey, he believed that neutralisation would mean nothing but
a series of pitfalls much deeper than people expected.(222) These pitfalls
now came into full view. On the last day of October Prince Gortchakoff
addressed a circular to the Powers, announcing that his imperial master
could "no longer consider himself bound to the terms of the treaty of
March 1856, in so far as these limit his rights of sovereignty in the
Black Sea." On the merits there was very little real dispute in Europe. As
Lord Granville once wrote to Mr. Gladstone: "There was no doubt about
Germany having at Paris, and subsequently, always taken the Russian view.
France made an intimation to the same effect very soon after the
conclusion of the treaty. And Austria later. Italy did the same, but not
in so decided a manner.... I have frequently said in public that with the
exception of ourselves and the Turks, all the co-signatories of the treaty
of Paris had expressed views in favour of modifying the article, previous
to Prince Gortchakoff's declaration."(223)

(M112) To have a good case on the merits was one thing, and to force it at
the sword's point was something extremely different. As Mr. Gladstone put
it in a memorandum that became Lord Granville's despatch, "the question
was not whether any desire expressed by Russia ought to be carefully
examined in a friendly spirit by the co-signatory powers, but whether they
are to accept from her an announcement that by her own act, without any
consent from them, she has released herself from a solemn covenant."(224)
Mr. Gladstone, not dissenting on the substance of the Russian claim, was
outraged by the form. The only parallel he ever found to Gortchakoff's
proceedings in 1870 was a certain claim, of which we shall soon see
something, made by America in 1872. "I have had half an idea," he wrote to
Lord Granville, "that it might be well I should see Brunnow [the Russian
ambassador] either with you or alone. All know the mischief done by the
Russian idea of Lord Aberdeen, and the opposition are in the habit of
studiously representing me as his double, or his heir in pacific
traditions. This I do not conceive to be t