Some hon. Gentlemen talk as if Russia were a Power which you could take
to Bow Street, and bind over before some stipendiary magistrate to keep
the peace for six months. Russia is a great Power, as England is, and in
treating with her you must consider that the Russian Government has to
consult its own dignity, its own interests, and public opinion, just as
much at least as the Government of this country. Now, what was the
proposition of this third article? The proposal was, that Russia should
have eight ships; but what was the proposition with regard to her
present antagonists? That Turkey should also have eight ships, that
France should have four, and that England should have four; and I
believe that in a preceding protocol, which has not been alluded to in
this debate, it is proposed that the contracting Powers should have two
ships each at the mouth of the Danube, so that if these terms had been
agreed upon, Russia would have had eight ships in the Black Sea, while
Turkey, France, and England would have had twenty. Now, that is not a
mere cessation of a preponderance; it is not the establishment of an
equilibrium; it is a transfer of the supremacy of the Black Sea from
that country which, if any country should be supreme there, has the best
claim--namely, Russia.
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