to organize for resistance. The National Party's V. A. Urechia claimed that young Sturdza being furious of his father's interference, which had prevented him from swinging the "old boyar" vote. He reports that the former Pasha intended to use his Ottoman connections to prevent Cuza from ever gaining international recognition, and also that he was arming "vagabonds", ready to "storm into that Mr Cuza's palace". Various other sources suggest the existence of a Sturdzist plot against Cuza. Definitive information suggests that he could rely on some 1,200 Poles, answering to Nieczuia Wierzbicki, were gathered on Sturdza's estates, with 6,000 more expected to join in from Wallachia and elsewhere. The Russian consul in Moldavia, Sergei Popov, noted that some partisans of "Grigore Mukhlis" had already been found in Bucharest, where they worked to undermine the possibility of a double election. Sturdza's coded letter to Czajkowski suggests that he wanted to appoint himself Caimacam through bribery, for which he intended to open a credit line with Antoine Alléon's bank. A January 1859 report by British Consul-General Henry Adrian Churchill notes Sturdza's resentments, and also alleges that he was pondering an open rebellion. According to Churchill, the troops Sturdza had pledged for Cuza's seizure of Bucharest were in fact mutinous and self-interested; they would have included Poles who viewed the Principalities as a stepping stone toward recovering Congress Poland. Rumors of such intrigues resulted in a temporary clampdown on Polish revolutionary cells in Moldavia: 23 Poles were arrested and 11 convicted during a trial which saw Sturdza appearing as a witness. An English Masonic agent, William Solioms, was also detained in connection with this intrigue. The Moldavian press published reports according to which Wierzbicki was tasked with a sweeping social reform, as well as with the mass assassination of Moldavia's political elite, in order to set the stage for Sturdza as "prince of Romania". Sturdza himself rejected the rumor in an open letter carried by Stéoa Dunărei, but it was largely confirmed by Poles taken into custody. Scholar Juliusz Demel also reports that the plot was factual, since Czajkowski intended to carve Dobruja out of the Silistra Eyalet and set it up as a "good base of training Polish insurgents", with Ottoman acquiescence. This would have made the area "an uncomfortable neighbour for the Romanian state". Some details are disputed by historian Panaitescu, who proposes that, since Romanian and Polish nationalism coexisted in