A Steam Voyage down the Danube, Vol. 2 of 2 by Michael J. Quin

Dictation -- Signal of war -- Civilization -- Barbarism -- Russian court -- Turkish Civilization -- Duties of England -- Extent of her empire -- Africa -- Asia -- India -- Australia -- English influence -- Northern powers -- Free institutions -- Turkish aspirations -- Commercial views -- Mediterranean trade -- Steam-boats -- Dardanelles -- Nullification -- Government measures -- Nesselrode's answer -- Russian magnanimity -- Treaty of 1809 -- Strait of the Euxine -- Russian advantages -- Key of Turkey.

It was comparatively an unimportant prerogative of the Sultan to hold in his own hands the key of the Dardanelles. We acquiesced in his exercise of that principle, because he was an old ally of ours, and not possessed of any formidable power. But the same prerogative usurped by the Emperor, becomes a privilege of a very different character. We have not been consulted about the transfer. From weak hands it has been grasped by those of a giant, with whom we shall, sooner or later, have to contend for the liberties and the peace of Europe. If we had been solicited to consent to such an arrangement, we should certainly have opposed it; if insisted upon, we should have negotiated further only by ordering our fleet to the Bosphorus. Are we to be constrained into acquiescence by the force of a treaty concluded behind our back -- a treaty signed by the Sultan under duresse -- a surreptitious, and in every respect an illegal instrument?