352 DROUTN DE LHUYS AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL. chap, de Lhuys and Lord John, had had laid upon them
- the task of negotiating a peace, without either
awaiting the fall of .Sebastopol, or insisting on its surrender by Kussia as one of the terms to be dictated. Men plainly forbidden by Duty from acting on Vaillant's principle, and obliged to observe what I have called a 'humbler' sort of 'expediency,' could not well fail to see the advantages of that ' Third Austrian plan ' which would either have forced on the Czar a better peace than the one for which France and England had toiled in the Conference-room at Vienna, or else would have brought against him — brought against him in arms on his frontier — a new and powerful enemy ; what they but obeying the letter of their instructions which pointed exclusively to ' Limitation ' in exclusion of the ' Counterpoise ' principle, M. Drouyn de Lhuys and Lord John took care to keep them- selves free from any approach to entanglement with the Austrian Government ; and did no more, after all, than impart and recommend the pro- posal to their respective Governments.* In what did they err ? The mistake of that countless multitude which long afterwards brought down storms of wrath on the head of Lord John was caused, it would seem, in great part by the oddly refracting way, and wrong, inverted order in which events became known ; for the rupture of the direct negotiations with Eussia was soon
- Lord John even, it seems, abstained from telling the Au&-
trian Government that he would take that last step.
