nna Note was badly worded, and it failed as a scheme of
compromise between the Porte and Russia. When it was sent in a draft
form to St. Petersburg the Czar accepted it, doubtless because he saw
that its statements were vague in a sense which might be interpreted to
his advantage. At Constantinople the document swiftly evoked protest,
and the Divan refused to sanction it without alteration. England,
France, and Austria recognised the force of the amendments of Turkey,
and united in urging Russia to adopt them. The Emperor Nicholas,
however, was too proud a man to submit to dictation, especially from the
Sultan, with Lord Stratford at his elbow, and declined to accede to the
altered proposals. Lord John deemed that Turkey had a just cause of
complaint, not in the mere fact of the rejection of her alterations to
the Vienna Note, but because they were rejected after they had been
submitted to the Czar. He told Lord Aberdeen that he hoped that Turkey
would reject the new proposals, but he added that that would not wipe
away the shame of their having been made. In a speech at Greenock, on
September 19, Lord John said: 'While we endeavour to maintain peace, I
certainly should be the last to forget that if peace cannot be
maintained with honour, it is no longer peace. It becomes then but a
truce--a precarious truce, to be denounced by others whenever they may
think fit--whenever they may think that an opportunity has occurred to
enforce by arms their unjust demands either upon us or upon our allies.'

England and France refused to press the original Vienna Note on Turkey;
but as Austria and Prussia thought that their reasons for abandoning
negotiations were scarcely of sufficient force, they in turn declined to
adopt the same policy. The concert of Europe was, in fact, broken by
the failure of the Vienna Note, and the chances of peace grew suddenly
remote. There is a saying that a man likes to believe what he wishes to
be the fact, and its truth was illustrated at this juncture by both
parties to the quarrel. The Czar persuaded himself that Austria and
Prussia would give him their aid, and that England, under Aberdeen, was
hardly likely to proceed to the extremity of war. The Sultan, on the
other hand, emboldened by the movements of the French and English
fleets, and still more by the presence and counsels of Lord Stratford,
who was, to all intents and purposes, the master spirit at
Constantinople, trusted--and with good reason