The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-22 00:00:00

and avoided all that could hinler the intimate union of Om

powers ? Oa the contrary, we should have sought to per
petuate their discord. We should have left the European
governments to light out their affairs, and, profiting by
their embarrassment, should have advanced without ob-

stacle to the object pointed out as the ;aim of our aggressive
policy. But now that social order is happily everywhere
re-established, and states reassured on their foundations,
are able freely to dispose of their forces, the moment would
be strangely chosen for such a design.
Once more, in priociple as in face, a convention with the
Porte on behalf of our co-religionariis bas no novelty. It
would offer us uo advantage which we have not a long time
posasseed, and of which we might.nut long since have made
ase had we been so inclined. If we are strong we have no
need of it. If we are weak such en act would not render us
formidable. This is so true that we never should have
thought of making the proposition apropos of the Holy
Places, if the Porte bad not compelled us by forgetting its
solemn promises to attempt to bind it more narrowly
to the maintenance of the status qaso of the sanctuaries in
Palestine ; if, when we complained of the concessions made
to our detriment it had not replied to us by way of excuse

that as to the Holy Places, France had a treaty right In
them and Russia bad not.
Fur the rest, messieurs, we have never made a convention
properly so called, a sins quo non of our accommodation
with the Porte. Although the draft of a convention
was remitted to Prince Menchikoff when he was sent
to Constantinople full power was given to hiss not only to ,
modify its terms, but also to obtain the required stipula-
tions in any form which might be least repugnant to the
susceptibilities of the Porte or the ministers of other courts.
It was upon this authorisation that Prince Menchikoff,
having convinced himself of the obstacles which opposed
our project of a convention, confined himself to demanding,
under the name of a Sened, an act more in accordance with
Eastern ussgss and less conformed to the solemn ideas
which the word convention ordinarily implies in European
public law. Two clauses of the first project of a seised, in
which we demanded, not as ha. been pretended, the right
to confirm the election of the Patriarch of Constan-
tinople, but only the maintenance of the ecclesie
astieal and temporal advantages accorded, oh an-
ii/110, to the four patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch,
Alexandria, and Jerusalem, as well as to the metro•
politans, bishors, and other chiefs of the Oriental church,
having given rise to very grave objections Prince Malachi-
koff did not hesitate to suppress them entirely. A second
project of a Seised resulted upon the acceptance of which
he long persisted. At the lest moment, the Porte being
determined to resent every kind of engagement which
bete a bilateral and svotallagmatic form, our ambassador,
acting in the spirit of his instructions went so far as to declare
that if the I'orte would immediately accept and sign a note,
such as you find subjoined to this despatch, he would con-
sent to he content with such a document, and consider it
as a sufft ient reparation and guarantee.
See then what, at the moment when,Prineeklenchikoff left
Constantinople, was the real ultimatum proposed by the Inc.
perial C4binet, and it was on the delay of the Porte to accept
, the project in question, that our negotiator at length weighed
r anchor and interrupted our relations with the Ottoman
government.

That which be conceded successively as to the form and
substance of the propositions he also ceded as to the time in
which they shinid be accepted, and although the response
to his demands was to have been given on the Bth of May,
it was not until the 21st that he left Constantinople. After
three months of lebourious negotiation, having
thus carried concession to its utmost limits, the
Emperor finds hims If at last compelled to insist peremp-
torily upon the acceptance pure et simple of the project of
note. Still, being moved, notwithstanding all, by the eon-
aiderations of patience and long animity which have hitherto
guided him, he has given the Porte anew cpace of eight days
to decide. If in vain, then, whatever effort it may cost his
conciliatory disposition, he will see himself driven to find
means to procure, by as attitude more pronounced, that satis-
faction which he has hitherto failed to obtain by pacific means.
It will not be without lively and profound regret that he
will adopt this attitude. But the blindness and obstinacy
of some have led them to thrust him into a situation in
which he cannot give way without the loss of his politica
consideration.
We beg of you, sir, to communicate these facts to the
government to which you are accredited, bringing to its
knowledge the important document annexed to the dispatch.
We beg of you to give to it the greatest attention ; it is the
Gordian knot of the question at this moment ; the knot
which it is still our wish to loosen pacifically, but which it
appears to have been endeavoured to make us cut through.
By submitting our ultimatum to the imperial judgments of
the cabinets, we leave it to them to decide if, after the serious
wrongs of which the Ports has become culpable towards us—
after it has given us No many causes of legitimate resent-
ment—it were possible to put up with a lesser satisfaction.
The conscientious examination of our project of note will
prove that, shorn of all form of treaty, or even of synal-
lagmatic contract, it contains nothing contrary to the rights
of sovereignty of the Sultan, nothing which impasses nor
part exaggerated pretensions attributed to us by &distrust
as insulting to uses it is little justified by our anterior ESL.
This examination will suffice, we hope, to dispel the hiss
reports circulated on our haughty exactions, and ss penes
that if the rejection of the hat means of conciliation whisk
we propose to solve the difficulties which have bees par-
peaty throws in oar way, in the affair of the Holy Pb.,.,
should bring abost complications ifs Nature to impish,
pesos, it is sot ea us that the rapsolhalty must rest b the
eyes of the world. " HISSILILODII."

PROJECT OF NOTE.
This document, the text of which is referred to in
the foregoing circular, is in the form of a declaration
to be made by the Porte to the Emperor. The fol-
lowing is the essential passage of the proposed note,
which it will be seen whatever Count Nesselrode
may write, contains all that was most entangling and
objectionable in the Sened:—
erthodoz Oriental worship, its clergy, churches, and
essorosioss, as well as its religious establishments, shall in
future enjoy, without any abatement, sad under the icgis
of the Sultan, the privileges and immunities which have
been assured to it at* waif's°, or which have been awarded
to it by imperial favour ; sad on a principle of exalted
equity shall participate in the advantages awarded to other
Christian rites, as well as to the foreign legations accre-
dited to the Sublime Porte by convention or special arrange-
ment.
The other clauses relate to the Holy Places, but
also repeat the stipulation that all the rights and
immunities, secular dignities and functions, shall be
secured to the Greek clergy for ever.