If that had been agreed to, all nations would have been
entitled to the passage of the Straits, and I believe that all nations
would equally have respected the privilege thus granted to them. Now,
suppose these Straits, instead of being one mile wide, had been ten
miles wide, what difference would it make to Turkey? If the Straits were
ten miles wide they would be open. Turkey would have no right to close
them, and European nations would not permit her to pretend to, or to
exercise, any such power; but Constantinople would be no more secure
then than it would be now with the Straits open, whether they were ten
miles wide or one mile wide. If the Straits were open, the consequences
to Constantinople and to Turkey appear to me to be precisely the same.
Turkey would be equally safe; Turkey would be equally menaced. Our
fleets would visit the Black Sea in the course of the season, and the
Russian Black Sea fleet, if it chose, would visit the Mediterranean.
There would be no sort of pretence for wrangling about the Straits; and
the balance of power--if I may use the term--between the fleets of
Russia, France, and England, would be probably the best guarantee that
could be offered for the security of Constantinople and Turkey, so far
as they are in danger of aggression either from the Black Sea or the
Mediterranean.
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