Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/37

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IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA.
7

known or imagined that France was keen, and that England was lagging behind.

When M. de la Cour's account of his sensations reached Paris, it produced so deep an impression that the French Emperor, either feeling genuine alarm, or else seeing in his Ambassador's narrative an opportunity for the furtherance of his designs, determined to insist, in cogent terms, Violent urgency of the French Emperor for an advance of the fleets to Constaniople. that the English Government should join him in the overstepping the treaty of 1841, and ordering the Allied squadrons to pass the Dardanelles and anchor in the Bosphorus. On the 23d of September, Count Walewski had an interview with Lord Aberdeen and Lord Clarendon at the same time and then, after speaking of the crisis at Constantinople which M. de la Cour's despatch had led the French Government to expect, he said that his Government thought it 'indispensably necessary that both fleets should be ordered up to Constantinople;' and his Excellency added ' that he was directed to ask for the immediate decision of Her Majesty's Government, in order that no time might be lost in sending instructions to the Ambassadors and Admirals.'[1]

Needlessness of the measure. Now, at the time of listening to these peremptory words, the English Government had received no account from their own Ambassador of the apprehended disturbances; but they knew that the fleets at the mouth of the Dardanelles, being already under orders to obey the requisitions of

  1. ↑ Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 114.
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