BETWEEN THE GZAK AND THE SULTAN. 135 ' which might have proved irritating upon this CHAP. ' question.' * Prince Mentschikoff, however, com- .**• mitted the diplomatic error of intimating 'that, ' notwithstanding the great importance attached ' to it by his Government, there was no danger ' of any hostile aggression as the result of its ' failure, but at most an estrangement between ' the two Courts, and perhaps, though it was not so ' said, an interruption of diplomatic relations.'* That in these circumstances, and until he had succeeded in separating the question of the Holy- Places, it was right for the English Ambassador to deal very temperately with the ulterior de- mands of the Czar, no diplomatist would doubt ; and Lord Stratford acknowledges "j* that he care- fully refrained from discussing the subject in a way tending to irritate, but the Russians imagine that he did more than abstain. They say that, having been supplied with a copy of Prince Mentschikoff's draft of the convention embodying his demands in respect to the Greek Church and Clergy, Lord Stratford struck out as inadmissible the clauses relating to the Greek Patriarch's tenure of office, and sending back the draft with that and with no other alteration, induced the Turkish Ministers (and through them induced the Kussian Embassy) to suppose that he en- tertained no objection to the proposed conven- tion except that which he had indicated by his erasure ; and that Prince Mentschikoff, being in this belief, and being prepared to give way upon
- ' Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 139. t Ibid, p. 134.
