On Thursday, Sir W. Harcourt asked whether Sir Henry Elliot's
withdrawal from Constantinople after the termination of the Conference was meant as a sign of displeasure, such as Lord Derby, in his despatch of the 5th October, intimated that he would give, in case the Porte refused the armistice then demanded by the British Government. Sir Stafford Northcote, in reply, ap- peared to give the impression that the simultaneous withdrawal of the Ambassadors, and the entrusting the Embassies to Chares d'Affaires, collectively agreed upon, and peremptorily an- nounced at the ninth meeting of the Conference, was not intended to convey any displeasure to the Porte, such as had been intended by the threat of the 5th of October. Sir H. Elliot, says Sir Stafford Northcote, was not "dc- sired to depart from Constantinople in order to show the dis- pleasure of England, in like manner as in the case of the threatened withdrawal of October 6, the circumstances being quite different." If that be so, we must say the protocol of the ninth sitting of the Conference conveys a very false impres- sion. General Ignatieff, in that sitting, stated that the answer of the Porte "places me under the painful necessity of declaring that the grounds of the deliberations of the Conference are exhausted, and that we consider it from this moment as dis- solved. As my colleagues, the representatives of the Great Powers, and myself, have already informed the Ottoman Plenipotentiaries, we have all received instructions to quit Constantinople, leaving Charges d'Affaires to carry on the ordinary current business." Moreover, Musurus Pasha had remonstrated with Lord Derby against this decision, and had been curtly told that "the course to be followed had been settled some time since, and had been formally announced to the Porte." If that concerted action did not mean to threaten and express displeasure, what did it mean ? Probably to convey the nearest thing to displeasure which can be conveyed without Lord Derby's being committed to anything definite,—no doubt a very leading object throughout all these negotiations.
