[Lord Edwin Hill-Trevor, MP for County Down.] Autograph Letter Signed ('AEHT') to his son George Edwyn Hill-Trevor, writing from the House of Commons on the day the British Fleet sailed for Turkish waters during the Anglo-Russian crisis.

2pp., 12mo. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper. An interesting letter from a senior Conservative politician during Disraeli's second government, written on the day the British fleet set sail for Turkish waters, with war between Great Britain and Russia appearing imminent. (Tensions between the two countries had been increasing during the course of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and the fleet would anchor off Constantinople, which the Russians threatened to occupy.) The letter begins: 'My dear George | We divided last night contrary to all Expectation. Sir Stafford Northcote [Chancellor of the Exchequer] told us this afternoon the terms of the Armistice [between Turkey and Russia], 10 of them, & that in consequence the Government had ordered part of the Fleet to go to Constantinople tomorrow afternoon to protect British Lives & Properties. We are having Lord Hartington on his legs against the Vote of Credit - & do not know whether we shall get the money tonight or not.' He concludes with a discussion of the weather ('you have by far the best of it') and the health of 'Leila'. (Regarding this matter Hartington was at odds with Gladstone and many of his colleagues in the Liberal opposition. His entry in the Oxford DNB comments: 'Both in May 1877 and in the spring of 1878 Hartington refused to accept that there were no circumstances in which British military support of Turkey against Russia would be justified.')