START ON A MISSION TO THE EAST—VISIT GALLIPOLI, AND REPORT UPON IT TO LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE—REPORT ON THE ENTIRE SEABOARD OF THE DARDANELLES—VISIT THE TURKISH ARMY ON THE DANUBE, AND REPORT ON ITS CONDITION—WINTER TRAVELLING IN BALL-ROOM DRESS—RETURN TO CONSTANTINOPLE—THE EMBASSY THERE—THE WAR MINISTRY AT HOME—ITS INCAPACITY—AM OFFERED A KNIGHTHOOD, BUT DECLINE THE HONOUR—THE EASTERN QUESTION—THE DIFFICULTY OF REGENERATING THE TURKS BY FOREIGN INTERFERENCE—THEIR MORAL DEGRADATION—MY KNIGHTHOOD IS DECIDED UPON—JOURNEY TO WINDSOR—LORDS PALMERSTON AND ABERDEEN—MONOLOGUES WITH PREDECESSORS IN ARMOUR—THE CEREMONY—CONCLUSION.

Events came rapidly enough. Those shadows in the East at which Colonel Airey had been throwing his pen, and was now preparing his sword to demolish, were thickening fast. A mission was offered to me to go to Constantinople, which I eagerly accepted, and in September 1853 I left England for the East. On my arrival there I was sent by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to Gallipoli. I made a lengthy report to show the uselessness of that spit of land as a place of rendezvous for the English and French to fight the Russians, then hundreds of miles away across the Balkans and the Danube.

Gallipoli is a point that may be used to threaten Asia, but not Europe. As such it was used by the Galli or Gauls—hence its name. I exposed the fact that an army disembarking for the purpose of repelling an invader, which the Russian army was, lost all the prestige of success by preparing defences in case of retreat, and the fortifying of Gallipoli meant nothing else. It seemed almost cowardly thus to begin when the Turks alone were meeting the Russians in the open field. After Lord Stratford had received this report, he sent me further directions to visit the whole length of the Dardanelles and investigate the military and political influence they would possess in the East, supposing a war took place between England and Russia. These instructions I followed out, and afterwards returned to Constantinople along the shores of the Sea of Marmora, giving further details concerning the entire coast. His lordship was so satisfied with the manner in which I had performed my task that he gave me immediately another to perform. I was sent on board H.M.S. the Valorous, Captain Loring, with a dragoman of the Embassy (Mr Sarel), to Varna, from whence I was to visit all the fortresses on the Danube, to report on their actual state and future importance, and to furnish a description of the Turkish army then in Bulgaria.

On landing at Varna, I found that a report on that place would be useless, as Colonel Neale, then her Majesty’s Consul there, was putting the last touch to a most able account of its importance and real value. The Colonel had seen fighting whilst employed in the Spanish Legion under brave General Evans, and was as competent in wielding the pen as the sword.

From Varna we proceeded to Schumla, and a bitterly cold trip it was. I must here explain that I had left Constantinople in an evening costume in the following manner: At a soiree held at the Embassy at which I had the honour to assist, Lord Stratford, to whom that same day I had given in my report concerning the Dardanelles, came from his study into the room and said he wanted me to make a similar report on the Danube, and that I must start directly. He had just spoken to Captain Loring of the Valorous on the subject, who had already left the Embassy for his vessel. Steam was already up, and the sooner I left the better.

As for clothes, I might have anything in his own wardrobe. Without more ado I took a greatcoat belonging to his lordship, which I still possess as a reminiscence of one of the greatest men England ever sent to represent her.

Thus accoutred I went on board, Mr Sarel following much in the same style of attire. When on board, Captain Loring kindly offered any part of his outfit for my use, but no number of reefs would bring them to a suitable shape on my then slender form; and Colonel Neale’s short hose were so stumpy and baggy as to make me look like a Blue-coat boy under the trailing garment of Lord Stratford: so I declined all these proffered masqueradings, and got on my Tartar post-boy charger on my way to Schumla, bundled up in such rolls of hay round my legs and arms as to make my little nag more inclined to eat than to carry me. Poor Sarel was in a still worse plight than myself. I at all events had been well hardened in the saddle, while he had only been accustomed to the soft chairs at the Embassy, and soon sat on the leather of his seat as though it had been the pigskin of the tenderest sucking-pig in Bulgaria.

Thus we proceeded in a rather undignified fashion up the Deona Valley, through Peveda and Batschesci to Schumla. There I saw Omar Pasha, and after two or three interviews, cemented an intimacy with him that the efforts of none could afterwards break until he left this world.

Omar had all the talents in him of which great men are made, but he had also the dominant failing of the weakest—namely, that of an unbeliever. It was at Schumla that I had the first opportunity of seeing the sterling worth and the vices of the Turkish army, of which Omar was so fitting a commander and representative chief. Here I saw men who lately, panic-stricken, had run away from a few harmless Russian scouts on the other side of the Danube, now patiently dragging, with frost-bitten feet and hands, big siege-guns on sledges through snow as a mere matter of ordinary duty. Tall, sturdy, smiling countenances, with death’s cold hand already upon them. But I shall not enlarge on these scenes for the present.

I visited Schumla in question, and returned in the good ship Valorous to Constantinople. This city, which an Englishman gave his name to (for Constantine the Great was not only British-born, but his mother, the great St Helena, was the daughter of a remarkable king of Essex), was to me a place of wonder: my eyes were more occupied in feasting on its marvels, than my thoughts in working out its future.

The men of the Embassy were as remarkable as their chief—the Smythes, the Allisons, the Brodies, and the Pisanis, were a bright nucleus of men any nation might be proud of. Neither were the representatives of the real antagonists, Russia and France, much below them—the Aussicks, the Menschikoffs, were no ordinary men.

My mission being ended I returned to England, and on arrival found that my report had created more anxiety than satisfaction.

Whatever the world may say or think about those then actually in power, I found them to be possessed of only erroneous preconceptions and to be influenced by indecision. As I unfolded to Lord Raglan the real state of affairs, he kept nervously twitching the stump of his arm, and looked more like a victim going to be sacrificed on the altar of duty, than a general prepared to take the command of an army.

I was thanked for what I had done, but that was all I got for my pains. True, Colonel Airey called me always Captain; but as this was a mere act of courtesy, just as two years afterwards he called me General when in the Crimea, I naturally placed no more value on it than it deserved. I hope, however, that he will read my future description of that campaign, and explain by what misconception he needlessly caused so many thousands of British soldiers to go through such an amount of bitter suffering.

At this time I was offered a knighthood, but refused it as being of no military value to me. Another mission was then proposed, which I accepted. Russia and France seemed determined to seize each other by the throat, in their dispute as to which of them had the right to paint the Holy Sepulchre, and to hold the keys of that tomb which the apostles found empty.

Lord Stratford was looking on as arbitrator. His better judgment was with Russia, but his bias against her; his grand intellect swayed to and fro in his efforts to reconcile both. Some of his despatches at this momentous time are the grandest specimens of diplomatic correspondence to be found in the English language. To those who were cognisant of the tortuous intricacies of the Eastern question, the truth, the energy, the flashes of genius amidst obscure renderings that are therein found, are something truly wonderful. Had he willed it, at this time, the war would not have taken place; but his great mind at last wearied, and reeled under the burden of holding the balance aloof in such weighty matters; and from being judge he became advocate, thinking, perhaps, that the shells might remain to Russia and France, whilst England should have the oyster. This could not be right, for the British Government had no perception of the duty that was incumbent on possession. Its actions reminded me of what I had then recently witnessed in the Turkish provinces. There beys or governors were good enough in themselves, and to those of the same creed, but they lived and haughtily prospered on the vices and failings of those whom they governed.

Parents often kept their children, or children their parents, in prison, to satisfy any pique of the moment, or persistent desire to wrong one another. At Silivri, ancient Silymbria, a town of Roumelia, on the Sea of Marmora, containing about 8000 inhabitants, I turned out of prison upwards of sixty persons, who had been kept in durance vile by the governor on the daily payment of so much per head, according to the rank of the incarcerated, for no crime whatever, but simply to satisfy the grudge of persons with whom they were at enmity. A Nicolai Bogdan, a wealthy tradesman of the town, had imprisoned his own mother to gratify the spite of his wife for some supposed family wrongs; and as the poor old woman left the prison, where she had been confined for the last four years, squalid in her filth and rags, Ahmed Bey, the governor, asked me if such a dog of a Christian, as Bogdan was, deserved the attention of Lord Stratford. In this observation lay the gist of all the evil of the time.

The Whig Government, more or less subservient to the Manchester school of politics, wanted, like the governor of Silivri, to prosper in a worldly point of view, but did not wish to assume any moral obligation. So long as goods were sold they did not care anything about the buyer personally, or as to where his money came from, provided he did not become bankrupt. They were equally indifferent as to whom fell the task of paying twelve per cent interest on the loans they so freely offered to the Turk, forcing him to greater and more relentless exactions on the poor Christian taxpayer for the repayment.

Such policy is as selfish as that of a French Communard, whose motto is, “After us the Deluge;” and the deluge did come, sweeping away the prosperity and comfort of thousands and thousands of English families who had trusted to the positive indebtedness of the British Government to supervise and direct those to whom they otherwise would not have trusted their hard-earned savings.

It is useless to speak of hatti-humayoums, irades, or any other devices of ambassadors, signed by a time-serving Sultan for the regeneration of his subjects. Local laws such as these, if applied to the people themselves, may fulfil all their requirements; but foreign suggestions and foreign pressure require foreign subjects, which native subjects who are worthy the name will never become. Neither can you regenerate a nation by the mere force of will, nor by force of arms. The people must have an innate feeling of willing participation to render reforms desirable.

I have had, whilst governor of the district of Bourgas, a sack brought to me by a Bulgarian peasant, which contained the head of his own child, murdered by brigands before his eyes; yet that peasant, who was mayor of his own village, and had ample means of at least making an effort to save it, had never lifted a finger in its behalf, but now came to me for assistance towards payment of the ransom he had promised to save another child he had at home. I ask, what laws could regenerate the conduct of that man? Parental love could not even arouse him to his duty towards his own flesh and blood! What chance would foreign devices have to move him? I do not cite this as a solitary case, but as one of many similar examples of degradation which weigh upon a large portion of the population in Turkey. I have more than once seen a Turk maltreating a Christian. I have had the instrument taken out of the hand of the offender and placed in the hands of the stricken, then, standing over both, have insisted upon retaliation. But this was too abstruse a method for the perception of a Bulgarian. If, thought he, no doubt, I could really help him, why not let him murder the Turk? As for beating, that would still leave his foe alive, and after my departure the Turk would thrash him worse than ever. What the Bulgarian told me in 1854 is applicable now—“Leave the Christian alone in the hands of the Turk, and he will be more despised and ill-governed than ever.”

The clergy in the East, as might be readily supposed, offer no fixed standard of morality to guide the masses, as the following, among many other cases brought to my knowledge, will readily prove. When the Emperor Nicholas of Russia died, I was then in command of Western Roumelia; and the clergy of the district, headed by the Metropolitan of Adrianople, came officially to ask of me, as a Christian Pasha, to be allowed to celebrate a Mass for the repose of the Emperors soul. The ostensible reason given for this act of public gratitude was the many acts of solicitude the dead Emperor had shown for their Church: scarcely an ornament on their altars, even to the very canonical costumes which they then had on their backs, but they were indebted to him for.

This outward demonstration imposed so much upon me that I told the Metropolitan, and the other bishops with him, that if they were so much indebted, why did they not, by some overt act beyond spiritual regard, show their acknowledgments? The successor of him whom they so deeply deplored had ascended the throne. France, England, and Turkey were in the field against him, and he had not a friend in the world—not even Austria, who owed her very existence to his father—that would say a word or lift a finger in his behalf. Now, at this solemn moment for the orthodox Church, a universal display in favour of Alexander might so impress the Allies as to eventually bring about a close of the war without too much sorrow and suffering on the part of Russia.

The Metropolitan replied, “We have nothing to offer Russia alive; when she is dead, all we can do is to offer up prayers for her.”

So much for Christian gratitude in the East—and be it remarked that these Vladicas and Popas were not all Greeks, but many of them Bulgarians.

I was now on the point of leaving England once more without the slightest notice having been taken of the recommendations of General Sir Harry Smith, General Cathcart, or of the colonists regarding my services, when it was suggested by Lord Clarendon, whom I was going specially to serve, that some sort of handle to my name would increase the chances of my being useful to him. The letter of the noble statesman on this subject, which is still in my possession, would merit a place, and that not a low one, amidst a collection of jokes of the period. Its only fault is that it makes one laugh on the wrong side of the face. This parental solicitude of the Foreign Office towards one of its adopted little children aroused me to the necessity of belonging to some established English institution. The Horse Guards, where I begged my new guardian still to leave me, had refused to receive me without payment. As a pis aller, it was decided that I should be sent to Windsor Castle; and I must say that, after all my late tossings about, I had reason to be gratified at last, for I breathed much more freely there than in Downing Street—and I was, besides, much more kindly treated.

The journey to Windsor Castle was a pleasant one. I was seated between Lord Palmerston and Lord Aberdeen; and although the Duke of Newcastle had assured me that Lord Palmerston was always so much behind time as never to see fish on his own table, yet he managed to come in very strong with the roast for Lord Aberdeen before we got to Windsor. The quiet old Scotchman seemed more than once on the point of “spitting” out a not over-polite expletive in reply, but, on reflection, he always managed to bolt it. The two presented such a contrast, that it appeared to me, a youngster, incredible that they could occupy the same political level. The former amused himself by pumping me out; the latter required almost a force-pump to get anything into him. The result might be the same, but the operation was quite different. I took, however, special pains during the journey to instil into the mind of this kilted-petticoat authority that, although I looked so young, I was really no novice in the art of war. He was to be my respondent, or warrantor, for my qualifications as a knight-bachelor, whatever that may mean.

At length we arrived at the Castle. The Ministers went to attend a Cabinet Council. It looked more as if they had been engaged on some parish business than on the affairs of the world. I was left alone to promenade up and down a long corridor, lined with my predecessors in glory—knights-dummies in armour. I was getting tired of my monologues with these iron-jawed gentry, and beginning to feel some uncomfortable twinges from an inward monitor not always easily appeased after a country ride, when the young Duke of Brabant, the present King of the Belgians, came up to me and asked if I was Captain Lakeman from the Cape. He said that the Duke of Newcastle had told him of my presence; and he added, I would no doubt easily excuse his anxiety to know all about the Dutch colonists, in whom his father also took the warmest interest. I was relating to him, in as few words as possible, all I knew about the sturdy Dutchmen, with whom I also claimed a common descent, when a most solemn-looking personage came up and told me to follow him. After a warm shake-hands, which the young duke honoured me with, I followed the gentleman in black as gravely as though this had been my last farewell on earth. He led the way to a small side door, and opening it as a church-beadle opens a pew, beckoned me to enter. I bowed, and walked in. It was a small, oak-panelled room, in the middle of which stood a Lady surrounded by sedate-looking men. I felt as if a mistake had been made,—that I had got into the manorial enclosure instead of the strangers’ pew,—and was on the point of bowing myself out again, in the humblest way possible, as a proof of my unintentional intrusion, when the Lady mentioned smiled so kindly that I left off bowing and walked further on. There was no necessity to tell me now that I was in the presence of the Queen. I felt that I was. Whatever may be often thought nowadays of “such divinity as doth hedge monarchs,” I for my part was ready at once to acknowledge that fealty to England’s ruler which, hitherto, I had only offered to the dear country itself. After a few words had passed, a cushion was brought and laid before me, and then another, on which there was a heavy-looking sword. Some one behind me whispered that I was to kneel—an operation by no means agreeable to a man before company. This I somewhat awkwardly did, and so remained, with my face bent towards her Majesty’s feet, expecting every moment to feel the weight of the sword on my shoulder to indicate that the ceremony had begun, but nothing came. There was a dead silence. So I looked up and saw the Queen holding up the sword and directing an inquiring glance towards some one behind my back. Whoever that person was, he seemed to be a long time in answering. It was the Earl of Aberdeen. It was evident to me that her Majesty could not hold the sword over my head much longer. I asked what was wanted. “Your Christian name,” her Majesty said. “Stephen,” I replied; and down came the sword, missing the shoulder and striking the cushion. The ceremony, however, was complete without that, for her Majesty immediately said, “Arise, Sir Stephen,” and held out her hand to kiss. I did kiss it, and felt in doing so that she had not many in her wide realm who would serve her more devotedly than I if necessity required it.

The cushions were removed; the Queen graciously smiled to all around and left the room, and we retired together through the long corridor before mentioned. I was standing near the entrance to the Castle door whilst the Earl of Clarendon was lighting a cigar, when the Duke of Newcastle rejoined us, and said, “Allow me to congratulate you as Sir Stephen Lakeman, and as to having your head still on. I thought at one time her Majesty was going to cut it off.” “Ah,” said Lord Clarendon, puffing away at his cigarette, which I thought extremely unbecoming in the Castle, “if the Queen had given it a whack it would have done it good.”

“Just as it might do your lordship to whack out your cigarette,” I replied. I had, within the last few days, taken a sudden dislike to his lordship, which, however unaccountable at the time, was a true presentiment of our future relations. His Grace of Newcastle took me by the arm and led me away. He at the same time informed me that I was to remain at the Castle: a certain person, whom he pointed out, would attend to my wants, and I might freely answer any questions that would be put to me during the afternoon.

When I returned to town that night, I was grateful for the honours that had been bestowed upon me at the request of the Cape colonists.

THE END.

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