CHAPTER VIII.

VIII.

'influ

WHEN a great country is induced, by virtue or by CHAP. policy, to refrain from using her physical strength against the Sovereign of a weaker State, she often Foreign solaces herself for this painful effort of moderation 'ence.' by showing her neighbour the error of his ways and giving him constant advice; and if it happen that two or more great Powers are thus engaged in tendering their rival counsels to the same State, they will be prone to struggle with one another for the ascendancy, and to do this with a zeal scarcely intelligible to men who have never seen that kind of strife. The prize contended for is commonly known by the name of 'influence;' and although this moral sovereignty over foreign States may be a privilege of small intrinsic worth, the Princes and Statesmen who have once begun combating for the prize, and even the merchants and the travellers who have happened to be on the spot, and to witness with any attention the animating incidents of the conflict, have generally had their zeal kindled. Now the Ottoman Grounds polity is of such a nature as almost to court this kind interferof interference. The practice of suffering the Chris- Turkey.

for foreign

ence in

VIII.

CHAP. tian Churches to live and thrive separate and apart without being subjected to any attempt at amalgamation, has given to these communities so many of the privileges of distinct national existence that they long to make their independence still more complete, and to do this, not by attempting to lay their timid hands upon the government, but rather by becoming more and more separate, and at last dropping off from the Empire. Therefore, instead of harbouring schemes for rising in arms against the Sultan, they have accustomed themselves to seek to form ties of a political and religious kind with foreign States, and to appeal to them for protection against their Ottoman rulers. Here then, of course, a gaping cleft was open to receive the wedge which diplomatists call a 'Protec'torate.' Russia claimed a moral right to protect the ten or fourteen millions of Turkish subjects who constituted the Greek Church, and she availed herself of some loose words which had crept into the old treaty of Kainardji as a ground for maintaining that this moral claim was converted into a distinct right by treaty engagement. Austria, armed with treaties, was empowered to protect the Roman Catholic worship, but France had always been accustomed to busy herself in watching over that portion of the Latin Church which was connected with Palestine and Syria. It is true that the Armenian, the Coptic, and the Black Churches were without any recognised foreign patron, and flourished quite as well as their protected brethren; but the numbers composing these Churches were scanty in comparison with the wor

VIII.

shippers following the Greek ritual; and it may be CHAP. said that the bulk of the Christian population of Turkey had contracted the habit of looking abroad for support.

Again, the Turkish Government was always so sensible of the distinctness of the 'nations' held under its sway, and of the hardship of keeping Christians under the close subjection of the Moslem system, that even in the times when the Sultans were in the pride of their strength they generously allowed humble foreigners, though living in Turkey, to have the protection of their country's flag, and to enjoy immunities which (except in the case of Sovereigns and their embassies) the Governments of Christian countries have never been accustomed to give to any of their foreign guests. These privileges had been granted to the principal States of Europe by treaty engagements which went by the name of capitulations; and they were so extensive that, except in regard to one or two specified descriptions of crime and outrage, a foreigner in Turkey who was a native of any of the States to whom these capitulations had been granted, was exempt from the laws of the country in which he dwelt. And these privileges were not even confined to foreigners, for Ambassadors at the Porte claimed and exercised a right of withdrawing a Turkish subject from the laws of his country by taking him into their service, or even by a mere written grant of protection; and the streets of Pera and Galata were filled with Orientals of various races who had

CHAP. contrived to be turned into 'Russians,' or 'FrenchVIII.

6

6

men,' or 'Englishmen.' Thus it resulted that not

only the great communities forming Churches or nations,' but also a great number of individuals, often clever, stirring, and unscrupulous men, were always labouring to attract the interference of some great Power, furnishing it with ready grounds of dispute, and stimulating its desire for preponderance. But there was a broad difference between the protectorate of Russia and that of the other States of Europe; for whilst the Roman Catholic States could only reckon a few hundred thousand of clients, and whilst the Protestant subjects of the Porte were too few to form a body in the State, the number of Greek Christians who looked to Russia for protection amounted to from ten to fourteen millions. This fact gave great strength and substance to the pretensions of Russia, but, on the other hand, it made her interference in a high degree dangerous; for it was clear that if the guardianship of so vast a number of the Rayahs or Turkish subjects were to be suffered to lapse into the hands of a foreign Sovereign, the empire of the Sultans would pass away. All the great Powers of Europe were accustomed to press upon the Sultan the duty of conferring upon his people, and especially upon his Christian subjects, the blessing of good and equal government; but Russia urged these demands with the not unnatural desire to prepare for herself a firm standing-ground in the midst of her neighbour's territory; whilst Austria and England, being interested in averting the dismem

VIII.

berment of the Sultan's dominions, gave their counsel CHA P. with a real view to make the Sultan do what they deemed to be for his own good.

between

and Sir

Stratford

For ascendancy on this the favourite arena of Rivalry diplomacy two men had long contended. They were Nicholas altogether unequal in station, and yet were not ill Stratford Canning. matched. The first of the combatants was the Emperor Nicholas, the other was Sir Stratford Canning. Sir This kinsman of Mr Canning the Minister had been Canning. bred from early life to the career of diplomacy, and whilst he was so young that he could still perhaps think in smooth Eton Alcäics more easily than in the diction of High Contracting Parties,' it was given him to negotiate a treaty which helped to bring ruin upon the enemy of his country.* How to negotiate with a perfected skill never degenerating into craft, how to form such a scheme of policy that his country might be brought to adopt it without swerving, and how to pursue this always, promoting it steadily abroad, and gradually forcing the Home Government to go all lengths in its support, this he knew; and he was, moreover, so gifted by nature, that whether men studied his despatches, or whether they listened to his spoken words, or whether they were only bystanders caught and fascinated by the grace of his presence, they could scarcely help thinking that if the English nation was to be maintained in peace or drawn into war by the will of a single mortal, there

*The Treaty of Bucharest in 1812. By enabling the Czar to withdraw from the South the forces commanded by Tchitchagoff, this treaty did much to convert the discomfiture of Napoleon's Grand Army' into absolute ruin.