In the period immediately following the outbreak of war between Mehmet Ali, the ruler of Egypt, and the Ottoman sultan in 1831, and the military intervention of Russia and the Treaty of Hunkiar Iskelesi to which it gave rise, public opinion in Great Britain, till then generally complacent and ill-informed, underwent a dramatic change, culminating in a bout of Russophobia, unparalleled in its intensity. Among the numerous publications which gave expression to this change, a collection of articles and reviews, edited by David Ross of Bladensburg, entitled Opinions of the European Press on the Eastern Question (London, 1836), must rank as one of the most significant.1 The articles published by Ross in this collection, all anonymous, include an article, entitled 'Freedom of Commerce in the Ottoman Empire', originally published in the Moniteur Ottoman; five reviews of 'Turkey and its Resources', a study of the political and commercial systems of the Ottoman Empire, published by David Urquhart, a leading Turcophile, in 1833; two articles on administrative reform in the Ottoman Empire; two articles, entitled 'Answer to the Augsburg Gazette', supposedly written in response to articles previously published in that journal; four reviews of a pamphlet, entitled 'England, France, Russia and Turkey', also published by David Urquhart, in 1834; two extracts from William Cobbett's Weekly Political Register; an account of the political situation in Europe, entitled 'The Quadruple Treaty'; and a number of reviews of travel books, in particular Michael Joseph Quin's A Steam Voyage down the Danube (London, 1835), and Lieutenant Alexander Burnes's Travels into Bokhara (London, 1834). It is evident that a number of the articles and reviews published by Ross, in particular the reviews of Turkey and its Resources and 'England, France, Russia and Turkey', were directly inspired by the works of David Urquhart, a friend of Ross's and a leading proponent of an anti-Russian policy. Moreover, many of the others were indirectly inspired by Urquhart, who in the 1830s led an energetic press campaign designed to persuade public opinion of the viability of the Ottoman Empire as an outlet for British goods and a bastion against the advance of Russia in the Near and Middle East. To this end he is reputed to have secured effective editorial control of a number of periodicals, in particular the Quarterly Review and the Foreign Quarterly Review; and to have inspired articles in other journals in support of the policy he advocated. At the same time, in 1835-37, he brought out a weekly periodical, entitled the Portfolio, in which he published a variety of material, including secret Russian documents, favourable to his cause. David Urquhart first became interested in the Eastern Question in May