An absurd rumour, which is not however quite new, received
on Wednesday an amount of belief not very creditable to British intelligence. It was affirmed that the Government of Washington, which has grave cause of complaint against the Sultan for allowing houses to be wrecked belonging to the American missionaries in Kharpnt, had resolved to send a man-of-war to Constantinople, and that if it were denied admission into the Sea of Marmora an American squadron, supported by the British, French, and Russian fleets, would force the Dardanelles. In other words, the European Powers had persuaded the American Government to be the active agent in coercing the Sultan. The plan suggested is, of course, wholly opposed to the American policy of not interfering in Europe, and to the fact that the American squadron, though it consists of three powerful cruisers, is wholly inadequate to the task assigned it, that of running the gauntlet of all the forts and batteries erected to protect the thirty-mile strip of narrow water called the Dardanelles. What had occurred was that the Americans asked permission to station a gunboat in the Bosphorus as the other greLt Powers do, and that the Sultan had refused. If it is resolved to extort compliance by force, which is improbable, Mr. Terrell would order the squadron to threaten Alexandretta or Smyrna, not to force the Dardanelles. The latter opera- tion is a most serious one, and if it failed the ships which passed while the Turkish batteries still existed would be caught as in a trap.
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