The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-12 00:00:00

THE WENSLEYDALE PEERAGE.

The LORD CHANCELLOR said, seeing his noble
friend (Lord Lyndhurst) in his place, he begged to ask
him what course be intended to pursue to-morrow, as
the committee of privileges was to meet tbat day at two
o'clock. lie thought it ought to be known what course
was to be adopted when the committee met.
Lord LYNDHURST said that when the committee
met ho would state the course he intended to pursue, and
he had no doubt the noble earl (Granville) opposite
would also have a course to propose, and that other
noble lords would likewise offer suggestions. The
course he proposed to adopt was this,—that when all
these suggestions were before the Committee of Privi-
leges, to leave that committee to adopt the course they
thought best.

A conversation here took place, in which the Earl of
Derby, Lord Brougham, and Lord Campbell took
part, and the matter then dropped.
DIPLOMATIC DESPATCHES.
Earl GREY rose to ask the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs the question of which he bad given
notice, namely, whether he could give any explanation
of the apparent contradiction between Colonel Rose's
despatch of the 25th of Ararch, 1853, and that
of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe of the 27th of
May following ; the first of these despatches
contained a memorandum of Mr. Pisani of the
account given to him by Rifaat Pacha and the Grand
Vizier of the substance of the note verbale presented by
Prince /vlenschikoff to the Porte on the 16th of March,
while Lord Stratford de Radcliffe states in his despatch
of the 27th of May that Mr. Pisani had assured him
that Rifaat Pacha would never be brought to admit the
existence of his note. Your lordships will, lam satis-
fied, always concur with me in considering that it is a
matter of the greatest importance that the accuracy of
information transmitted to her Majesty's Government
by the diplomatic agents of the Crown, and especially of
information which is to be laid before Parliament, in
order to jnstify the policy of the Government, should be
unimpeachable. If, therefore, circumstances should
ever arise of a nature to throw doubt upon that accu-
racy, and those circumstances remain unexplained, the
consequence must be that suspicions will be entertained
as to the trustworthiness of the diplomatic servants of
the Crown, of • whatever rank they may be. I say,
therefore, that if such circumstances should arise, it is
the duty of a member of either House of Parliament to
ask for some explanation with regard to them. This
being so, I feel bound to ask for some explanation with
regar& to circumstances to which I have already on a
previous occasion called your lordship' attention. Last
year, in discussing the policy of the war, I endeavoured
to show that there existed no ground whatever for an
allegation which had been made that Prince Menschi-
keit', the Russian ambassador, had used threats in order
to induee the Turkish Minister to conceal from the
British Government the real nature of the Russian de.
mands. I at that time argued that the Turkish Ministry
desired for their own purposes to create that impres-
sion, and had made a dupe of Colonel Rose in the
first instance, and afterwards of Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe, and that they had been induced to transmit
to her Majesty's Government an erroneous intima-
tion, which produced at the time a most unfortunate
effect upon the minds of the Government and of
the people of this country. I wish now, my lords, to
recall to your recollection one or two of the grounds
upon which I relied in support of that opinion. In the
month of March, 1853, Prince 31.enschikoff presented
an important paper to the Turkish Government, and in
the same month Colonel Ropseistarna:smanitatedstatoting
the
that
ttiistbs
iGno;teirlennsieignntaatudreespoaftemh ern. closing. a memorandum bear-
purport was founded upon what had-been told to him by
the Grand Vizier. Colonel Rose said :
" Your lordship will see that, in spite of Prince Men-
scliikotl's denunciations against the Turkish authorities
should they reveal hie secret demands, they, in considera-
tion of the danger which would ensue from a compliance
with them, determined to mike them known to her Ma-
jesty's Government."
Shortly afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe addressed
a despatch to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, of which
a short but important extract appears in the papers
which have been laid on your lordships' table. Lord
Stratford de Radcliffe said :
"I think it my duty to record that the note verbale pre-
sented to the Porte by Princelleuschikoff on the 4th (16th)
of March, and enclosed with Count Nesselrode's despatch
to Baron Bruuow on the 9th (21st) ultimo, was never cons.