The Weekly Portage Sentinel

Diplomatic Squabble at Constantinople.

A most unseemly dispute is reported to have recently taken place at Constantinople between the British Ambassador, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and the British Commissioner, for the re-organization of the Danubian Principalities, Sir Henry Bulwer. It appears that instructions were sent to Lord Stratford to confer with Sir Henry on all matters connected with the special mission of the latter, and to communicate to him all the correspondence on the subject, and all the official documents relating to it. Lord Stratford, whose haughtiness is as well known as his ability and patriotism are universally conceded, could not brook the presence of a coadjutor of Sir Henry's rank and influence, and refused to hold any intercourse with him. The day at last arrived when the mixed conference of Ambassadors and Commissioners took place. Sir Henry, at the outset of the proceedings, with sarcastic politeness, asked for information of what had taken place, presented his instructions, and stated that he was in utter ignorance of everything which ought to have been communicated to him. Lord Stratford, it is said, then "rose in a storm and said he did not come there to enter into personal questions; and that if Sir Henry continued he should take his hat and leave the room." The Ambassador was furious; "his look, his gestures, his angry tones, his indecorous expressions were such," it is represented, "as have never been seen in our times in a diplomatic or even a popular assembly," and the Commissioner "sat calm and collected, still further aggravating his opponent by his polite and cutting replies." The Turks looked on in amazement; the other representatives were "delighted at the display," and after some good-natured efforts to appease the strife, the conference adjourned without having transacted any business.

How Lord Clarendon means to adjust the difficulty, whether by recalling the angry Viscount, or the cool Knight of the Bath, or meditating between them, is not known; but, in the meantime, the incident afforded no little amusement in foreign circles. It is supposed that Lord Stratford will resign rather than yield. He who, to impress the Turks with a due sense of his power and importance, purposely kept the Great Pasha waiting for half an hour at an official audience, will never submit to be worsted by an inferior in rank; and if he be not permitted to arrange the entire Eastern question alone—which he seems to consider his prescriptive right—he will retire in disgust rather than suffer defeat where his supremacy has never been questioned.