But that was not all.  Nearly at the same time we performed the same operation in another quarter.  We objected to a treaty between Russia and Turkey as having no authority, though that treaty was made in the light of day—­namely, to the Treaty of San Stefano; and what did we do?  We went not in the light of day, but in the darkness of the night—­not in the knowledge and cognizance of other Powers, all of whom would have had the faculty and means of watching all along, and of preparing and taking their own objections and shaping their own policy—­not in the light of day, but in the darkness of the night, we sent the Ambassador of England in Constantinople to the Minister of Turkey, and there he framed, even while the Congress of Berlin was sitting to determine these matters of common interest, he framed that which is too famous, shall I say, or rather too notorious as the Anglo-Turkish Convention.  Gentlemen, it is said, and said truly, that truth beats fiction; that what happens in fact from time to time is of a character so daring, so strange, that if the novelist were to imagine it and to put it upon his pages, the whole world would reject it from its improbability.  And that is the case of the Anglo-Turkish Convention.  For who would have believed it possible that we should assert before the world the principle that Europe only could deal with the affairs of the Turkish Empire, and should ask Parliament for six millions to support us in asserting that principle, should send Ministers to Berlin who declared that unless that principle was acted upon they would go to war with the material that Parliament had placed in their hands, and should at the same time be concluding a separate agreement with Turkey, under which those matters of European jurisdiction were coolly transferred to English jurisdiction; and the whole matter was sealed with the worthless bribe of the possession and administration of the island of Cyprus!  I said, gentlemen, the worthless bribe of the island of Cyprus, and that is the truth.  It is worthless for our purposes, worse than worthless for our purposes—­not worthless in itself; an island of resources, an island of natural capabilities, provided they are allowed to develop themselves in the course of circumstances, without violent and unprincipled methods of action.  But Cyprus was not thought to be worthless by those who accepted it as a bribe.  On the contrary, you were told that it was to secure the road to India; you were told that it was to be the site of an arsenal very cheaply made, and more valuable than Malta; you were told that it was to revive trade.  And a multitude of companies were formed, and sent agents and capital to Cyprus, and some of them, I fear, grievously burned their fingers there, I am not going to dwell upon that now.  What I have in view is not the particular merits of Cyprus, but the illustration that I have given you in the case of the agreement of Lord Salisbury with Count Schouvaloff, and in the case of the Anglo-Turkish