Whatever their real intent on this occasion, they were interpreted by Russia as a defiance and by Turkey as a promise of armed help.
On the other hand, if Lord Beaconsfield hoped to strengthen the pro-Turkish feeling in the Cabinet and the country, he failed.

The resentment aroused by Turkish methods of rule and repression was too deep to be eradicated even by his skilful appeals to Imperialist sentiment.

The Bulgarian atrocities had at least brought this much of good: they rendered a Turco-British alliance absolutely impossible.
Lord Derby had written to this effect on August 29 to Sir Henry Elliott: "The impression produced here by events in Bulgaria has completely destroyed sympathy with Turkey.

The feeling is universal and so strong that even if Russia were to declare war against the Porte, Her Majesty's Government would find it practically impossible to interfere[108]." [Footnote 108: Parliamentary Papers, Turkey, No.

6 (1877).] The assembly of a Conference of the envoys of the Powers at Constantinople was claimed to be a decisive triumph for British diplomacy.