eceived a rude awakening. It became
plain in the light of accomplished events that the wisdom which is
profitable to direct had deserted her Majesty's chief advisers.

[Sidenote: MAKING HASTE SLOWLY]

Lord Aberdeen always made haste slowly, and when other statesmen had
abandoned hope he continued to lay stress on the resources of diplomacy.
He admitted that he had long regarded the possibility of war between
England and Russia with the 'utmost incredulity;' but even before Sinope
his confidence in a peaceful solution of the difficulty was beginning to
waver. He distrusted Lord Stratford, and yet he refused to recall him;
he talked about the 'indignity' which Omar Pacha had inflicted on the
Czar by his summons to evacuate the Principalities, although nothing
could justify the presence of the Russian troops in Moldavia and
Wallachia, and they had held their ground there for the space of three
months. Even Lord Clarendon admitted that the Turks had displayed no
lack of patience under the far greater insult of invasion. The
'indignity' of notice to quit was, in fact, inevitable if the Sultan was
to preserve a vestige of self-respect. Lord Aberdeen was calmly drafting
fresh plans of pacification, requiring the Porte to abstain from
hostilities 'during the progress of the negotiations undertaken on its
behalf'[33] a fortnight after Turkey had actually sent her ultimatum to
Russia; and the battle of Oltenitza was an affair of history before the
despatch reached Constantinople. Lord Stanmore is inclined to blame Lord
John Russell for giving the Turks a loophole of escape by inserting in
the document the qualifying words 'for a reasonable time;' but his
argument falls to the ground when it is remembered that this despatch
was written on October 24, whilst the Turkish ultimatum had been sent to
Russia on October 10. Sinope was a bitter surprise to Lord Aberdeen, and
the 'furious passion' which Lord Stanmore declares it aroused in England
went far to discredit the Coalition Ministry.

Unfortunately, all through the crisis Lord Aberdeen appears to have
attached unmerited weight to the advice of the weak members of his own
Cabinet--men who, to borrow a phrase of Lord Palmerston's, were
'inconvenient entities in council,' though hardly conspicuous either in
their powers of debate or in their influence in the country. Politicians
of the stamp of the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Sir James
Graham played a great part in