Lord Palmerston also warmly takes the part of the Turks, and will not allow the men to be surrendered. It is this affair which gives the chief interest to the autumn of 1849. He writes on the matter very hotly to Lord Ponsonby. “As to working upon their feelings of generosity and gentlemanlikeness”--the feelings of the Austrians--“that is out of the question, because such feelings exist not in a set of officials who have been trained up in the school of Metternich, and the men in whose minds such inborn feelings have not been crushed by Court and office power, have been studiously excluded from public affairs, and can only blush in private for the disgrace which such things throw upon their country. But I do hope that you will not fail constantly to bear in mind the country and the Government which you represent, and that you will maintain the dignity and honour of England by expressing openly and decidedly the disgust which such proceedings excite in the public mind in this country.” It is evident that he had heard something of which he does not approve in Lord Ponsonby’s mode of thinking. “The remedy against these various dangers, which are rapidly undermining the Austrian Empire, would be generous conciliation; but instead of that, the Austrian Government knows no method of administration but what consists in flogging, imprisoning, and shooting. The Austrians know no argument but force.” The two fleets (the English and the French) were moved up to the Dardanelles. “In this affair we are trying to catch two great fish, and we must wind the reel very gently and dexterously, not to break the line.” This he says to Sir Stratford Canning. He declares to Brunnow, “That our sending our squadron up the Mediterranean was, for the Sultan, like holding a bottle of salts to the nose of a lady who had been frightened.” Of course he has his way, and Turkey is not allowed to give up the Hungarians, though he ascertains in the course of the correspondence that Lord Ponsonby, his own ambassador at Vienna, is opposed to the instructions which he receives. But he reprimands him at last with severity. “I write you this, and desire you to do your best; though I hear from many quarters that you oppose instead of furthering the policy of your Government, and that you openly declare that you disapprove of our course. No diplomatist ought to hold such language as long as he holds his appointment.”