The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-14 00:00:00

No. 37.—VoL. 11.

Ot V rtss.

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, Mi.

"PRESS" OFFICE.
Friday Night, Jan. 13.
A SECRET negotiation carried on at Con-
stantinople between Lord STRATFORD, her
Britannic Majesty's Ambassador, and REDS-
CHID PACHA, while the public negotiations
were conducted, at the same time, by the
Ambassadors of the Four Great Powers
with the Porte, terminated in a surrender,
on the part of the Sultan, of all those points
which the Divan, by a large majority, had
previously decided to maintain. The in-
stant the news of this surrender transpired,
MEHEMET ALI, the brother-in-law of the
Sultan, and the head of the Patriotic party,
a man of honour and energy, violently pro-
tested against the course, as he affirmed,
thus surreptitiously obtained. The popular
indignation was considerable. The students,
the most numerous and powerful body in
the city, moved ; REDSCHID PACHA was
charged by MEHEMET Ati with having been I
previously convicted of taking bribes from
Russia ; the people were reminded that
Prince MENSCHIKOFF had insisted, in March,
on the dismissal of the then Minister for
Foreign Affairs, and that. at the dictation
of the Russian Envoy, REDSCHID PACHA
had been appointed in his stead. The ex-
citement became great. REDSCHID PACHA,
panic-struck, resigned, and fled for refuge to
a palace of the Sultan on the Bosphom.
Tranquillity was ultimately only restored by
the menaces of the English and French
admirals, who thus, instead of defending
the Sultan from the Russians, discovered
that their real mission was to defend his
Highness from his own subjects. Much of
what occurred on this occasion has been
concealed and suppressed, but our readers
may rely upon this statement. The whole
facts are before us ; but the intimation that
we are now permitted to give will throw
light upon late events otherwise very ob
save.

Notwithstanding this outbreak, and the
exertions of MEuntrr ALI, the conditions
thus obtained from Turkey by the British
Ambassador through HIS INFLUENCE with
REDSCHID PACHA became and continue the
basis of the propositions since forwarded
through Vienna to St. Petersburg. THEY
ARE NOT, AS HAS BEEN ERRONEOUSLY, THOUOII
AUTHORITATIVELY, STATED, AN ULTIMATUM.

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 1854.

They therefore admit of negotiation ; and,
with only a moderate allowance for the mo-
difications which under such circumstances
occur, the arrangement, even if accepted by
the Czar, will resolve itself, virtually, into
an adoption by the Porte of the spirit of
the Menschikoff treaty. Peace may thus be
preserved by the subjugation of Turkey
being postponed. The ancient treaties are
to be renewed ; and, as regards the Pro-
vinces, the language employed with respect
to their evacuation is merely the language
already gratuitously used by the Czar him-
self.
The circumstances above detailed are the
circumstances referred to by anticipation in
our leading Article of the lith of December,
when we warned our readers that "an
" enormous diplomatic conspiracy was hatch-
" ing," a warning followed up by some de-
tails then for the first time mentioned, and
to which we must again refer.
Notwithstanding this desperate resource
on the part of England, the enterprise may
yet fail ; for our perplexed and, as it will
ultimately prove, ever-blundering Govern-
ment, while a promising negotiation was on
foot, and before they could receive the an-
swer of the Court of St. Petersburg to the
Turkish propositions, which had been pre-
pared in deference to the feelings and
private intimations of Russia, thought tit,
in consequence of the affair of Sinope,
to order the entrance of the fleets into the
Black Sea. To change the circumstances
while a negotiation was proceeding which
you wished to succeed is a capital error.
It will allow the Czar, if H) wishes, to take
new ground.
Lord ABERDEEN mutters " War," in case
the Turkish propositions are not accepted.
One almost begins to fancy that Lord ABER-
DEEN leas been maligned. It really would
seem that he did not understand St. Peters-
burg. The propositions will not meet such
a fate from Russia► diplomacy. They will
be considered, and we shall commence the
new year with a new phase of negotiations.
In the meantime, alas ! poor Turkey !

THE important intelligence to which we have
given prominence above has not only trenched
upon the spare devoted to our ordinal•
leader, but has in a measure anticipated the
substance of its statements and inferences.
Assuming that the concession on the part
of Turkey, which has been compelled by
"foreign conspiracy," procures its immediate
object, the suspension of hostilities, and that
the submission thus obtained by treachery is
not frustrated by maladroitness, what is the
state to which the ABERDEEN CAPITULATION, if
accepted at St. Petersburg, reduces the Eastern

_ .
question
If there was one advantage which Europe
might have derived from the Czar's aggression
it was the abrogation of those treaties by
which the Czar had defined the successive

PRICE SIXPENCE.

stages of his road to Constantinople. Those
treaties were cancelled at the option of the
Chancery of Europe when the tired Russian
detachment crossed the Pruth, and their
renewal is now proff,red as the price of a
Muscovite peace.
As if this were insufficient to destroy the
Ottoman empire, it is bound to the publica-
tion of firtnans relative to the spiritual privi-
leges of all its non-Mussulman subjects, which
are to be communicated, as we understand, to

each of the Powers separately, accompanied
with suitable explanations (assurances eon-
renables) to each. If this view of the proposal
be correct, each of the Powers will thus have a
separate understanding with the Porte, to the
terms of which it alone will he a party, and
of which it will be practically the sole
arbiter. To appreciate the effect of this we
must remember that the Consuls of the dif-
ferent European Powers are at present invested
with the authority of magistrates over the
subjects of their own States within the do-
minions of the Porte ; and while invested with
this attribute, as of right and necessity, their
relations to the subjects of the Porte are in-
definitely extended by the proposal to which
it has been compelled to assent. It is little to
say that this would be a source of inextricable
confusion, or that it must embarrass the Go-
vernment of Turkey in the administration of
its internal affairs. It brings the negotiations
back to the point at which they originated,
enfeebles Turkey as their chief result, and
solves the Eastern question by opening ques-
tions innumerable. At the same time, while
all the treaties with Russia are renewed, it de-
liberately provides excuses for their extension
by other treaties, and for further aggressions,
until Turkey is absorbed.
This is the climax of our policy, unless
intrigue, as appears probable, is thwarted by
its own blunders, and a hoary conspirator is
frustrated by his clumsiness.

SADLEIRISM AND PEELITE PURITY.
THE squeamish affectation of purity exhibited
by the Peelites must have received a dreadful
shock in learning into what a slough " my
" dear Duke of NEWeAtiTI.IO4 " Melia, Mr. SAD-
LEIR, had rolled himself, along with other
promoters of the "Coalition." For these
were the gentlemen whose delicate no-
tions of personal honour were so exqui-
sitely sensitive to official scandals ! Your
prudes have always the most reason for hiding
their peccadilloes demurely committed. " Not
" that," like Fay in The Rivals, " they mind the
" thing itself, but it hurts their conscience to
" be found out."
We really should like to have seen the faces
of the Poelites when they found that " our Mr.
".lona SADLILIE" was so exposed. These were
the folk that looked so lionified at reputed
election irregularities ! And now one of their
own special followers is caught chin-deep in
the very vilest transactions that stain elec-
tioneering annals l It reminds us of the dif-
ference between the Shepherd at the temperance
meeting and the same reverend gentleman im
bibing his pineapple rum in the bar of the Mar-
quis of Granby. Or, to take a metaphor from
" monastic institutions," these reelite aii4
•