COUNT MOURAVEEFF AND ENGLAND.
[To TUE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIE,—Canon MaeColl having devoted a long letter to the endeavour to prove the " ignorance " of diplomatists in general, and of those belonging to the British Service- in particular, winds up by asserting that my statement of -the belief of diplomatists throughout Europe as to Count Mouravieff's active policy against England is "one of the hardest things ever said of the Service" I He is also: of opinion that Count Mouravieff was "a very clever man." General foreign criticism at the time of the Count's death hardly went to this length ; but journalists are often nearly as ignorant as diplomatists. Being no dialectician, and not being desirous of following the Canon into side issues which seem to me not to affect the facts of a case in which con- jecture is opposed to knowledge, I hope that I may be forgiven for carrying the controversy no further. I have no commission to take up the cudgels for the much-abused "Service" in which your correspondent has discovered only two exceptions to the general incapacity. Although I con- sider him hardly an impartial judge of that Service as a whole, I share his great admiration for the Marquess of Dufferin and for Lord Napier and Ettrick. Perhaps if he had had the same opportunity of knowing other chefs de mission as intimately as Lord Napier, he would not refuse to admit a few of them into the number of his " Select."—I am, Sir, &a.,
EMERITUS.
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