University of California,

FROM THE LIBRARY OF

D R . FRANCIS L I E B E R ,

I'r-'fi— .: nf llisn.ry and Law in Columbia College, New York.

:KT OK

MICHAEL REESE,

<TU Francisco. 1 -7:5.

F ^ /t i* rti+jf JUt OK Ct/J II*

Of California

RECENT EVENTS

IN

THE EAST.

BEING A REPEINT OF

MR. URQUHART'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE

MORNING ADVERTISER, DURING

THE AUTUMN OF 1853.

LONDON: TRUBNER & CO., 12, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLIT.

n/

We to-day are neither so governed that we may rest, or so governed that we require to choose between revolt and slavery. Where we are placed is neither under justice nor the sword, but under a thick hazy mist of our own speech, in which 'guilt sees and folly fattens. For us then citizenship consists in the detection of fallacy, and patriotism in aiding others to remove the scales which have fallen from our own eyes. — Mr. Urqukart to the Irish Eepealers in 1847.

PREFACE.

MR. PORTER, addressing M. Thiers, in 1840, used these words : " For ten years I have found Mr. Urquhart's prognostications verified, and I have seen no event in Europe that he has not prognosticated." The remark was true: the date may be extended. In 1833, when the opinion of Europe condemned Turkey to the operation of inevitable decay, Mr. Urquhart alone founded upon the knowledge of her capabilities the prophecy of her resurrection. In Europe, since that period, have occurred many ap- parent changes, but no real variation from a prede- termined order detected and proclaimed by the same unerring witness.

With regard to the events treated of in this volume, its contents will best speak. The articles, which appeared originally in the Morning Advertiser, are reprinted without the slightest alteration, and the reference to the dates sufficiently indicate the fre- quent pre- announcement of important facts. They have been collected and reprinted by the Publisher, in consequence of the great demand for Mr. Urquhart's recent work on Russia, and the feeling awakened throughout the country by his efforts. We subjoin testimonies of authority which will dispense with our adding more on the subject.

IV PREFACE.

At a meeting at Belfast on the 29th of December, Mr. Ross of Bladensburg spoke as follows —

" Having known Mr. Urquhart from the com- mencement of his career, — having followed him, co-operated with him, listened to his anticipations, and day by day watched and traced their accom- plishment, I can assert that England is not without a man perfectly qualified to play against Russia that game of empire in which we are at present engaged. It is no struggle of power against power — the events of the world are not decided by relative strength and weakness, they are decided in the same manner as a game of chess, and he who would predict the moves of the ablest player must be himself able to play the game. The Times had recently a remarkable article, in which it placed the Avorld on one side and Mr. Urquhart on the other. Such is exactly the position — he had stood alone in his judgments against the world, and events had justified him — he has been, so to say, the historian of Europe before the facts. The present events in the East had been confidently asserted by him as about to happen, and exactly in the manner in which they have happened. I can answer for the prediction having been emphatically made in the summer of 1851, that Russia was under the necessity of breaking down Turkey if she would not perish herself — that the means she would adopt would be the crossing of the Pruth, while, at the same time, using the powers of Europe to prevent the Turks from crossing the Danube — that this would take place in the autumn, affording her the opportunity of establishing herself there during the winter, and so convulsing Turkey and Europe in the spring."

PREFACE. V

The Morning Advertiser of the 26th of December has this passage : —

"And herelet us do an act of justice to Mr. Urquhart. When we and the country were full of joy, on first receiving intelligence of the sailing of the united fleets to the Bosphorus, because we believed that movement was the result of a tardy determination to afford ma- terial assistance to Turkey, — Mr. Urquhart expli- citly, and in the most emphatic terms, declared that the presence of our ships in the Bosphorus would be the worst thing which could happen to the Sultan. He affirmed, that instead of helping, it would hinder Turkey — that instead of being a benefit, it would be a positive injury to that country. People thought at the time that the late member for Stafford was la- bouring under some unaccountable delusion. Much as we admire the talents, and highly as we regard the extent and accuracy of his information on all matters connected with the Eastern Question, we certainly did share the prevailing opinion at the time, that in supposing that Turkey would be injured instead of benefited by the presence of our fleet ' at Constan- tinople, he was indulging in what is commonly called a crotchet, which, by some incomprehensible means, he had been induced to adopt. But the event has shown that he was right, and the whole country wrong. He has shown himself, as the Times is con- strained to admit, a marvellous prophet on matters connected with the Eastern question ; and henceforth, therefore, whatever he may say on the subject, will be received with the greatest respect."

NOTE APPENDED BY THE AUTHOR.

ROSSTKZYOR, December 28th. As this reprint has been undertaken by others, 1 declined revising it for the press, lest it should be suspected that any modifications had been made. The precaution was not uncalled for, seeing that a journal of the character of the Spectator permits itself to make such an insinuation against me in reference to a stereotyped work, 'The Progress of Russia in the North, TVest, and South/ I have however to regret that, in consequence, not even those typographical errors have been corrected which were inevitable under the circumstances from the rapidity of publication in the daily journal in which these essays appeared.

I take this opportunity of stating a remarkable fact; while the accuracy of my anticipations have been generally acknowledged as to past circumstances, there has been no disposition to seek my opinion in regard to the present and the future, at least except- ing only the working classes among my fellow-coun- trymen. This nation, always ready to acknowledge that it has been wrong in the past, is always sure that it is right for the present, so that each event leaves it with so much experience the more, and so much wisdom the less.

D. U.

COBKIGENDA.

Page 29. line 25. for Danube, read Cuban.

&i, lines 3, 5. for 1S26, r.-c .

92, line 18. /or 21st, read 31st. 121, lines 23, 24. far £11.000.000. read £17,000,000. l:>2. line 12. t,->r .Diplomacy, read Diplomacy chaotic. 1W, line 5. for l&ll. rw41852. 180, line 3, for Nay. read Nay why. 192, line 4,' for £11,000, read' £17,000,000. 209. This article should precede that on p 198 ; it was written

and dated on the 15th September. 217. line -x/c/r stops, read stabs.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

The Greek Church and RUSSIA Protection . Atigust 10th 1

Time in Diplomacy — the "European Recognition" „ llth 10

Nineveh and Parliament „ 12th 18

Denmark and the " Times " „ 13th 22

The relative Power of Russia and Great Brjtain „ 13th 24

Denmark and Russia ,, 16th 33

.War between England and France ... „ 16th 37

Lord Palmerston and the Cabinet . , . . „ 19th 41

Protestantism and the Czar .... „ 20th 48

Rationale of the Servian Occupation . . „ 22f/ 52

The Kaiser and the Czar .... „ 23d 56

Evacuation of the Principalities . . . „ 24th 60

Austria and the United States ... „ „ 63

The British Press and Russia .... „ 25th 66

Russia and the United States— the Corn Trade „ 26th. 70

Approaching Conflict of Russia and the United States 2*7 th 76 The "Character" of England and the "Honour"

		29th 82
Consequences of Surrender	35	30th 86
Anatomy of a Diplomatist ....	)'	30*7* 88
The Scales of Justice		31st 92
The Times and the United States	5J	31st 97
The Anatomy of a Diplomatist. No. II	September 2d 100
The Honour and Character of a Great Gentleman „	3d 105
Another Pebble from the Brook	55	3d 112
Lord Fitzwilliam and Russia	55	5th 117
The Venetian Conclave ....		6th 123
Tooth Money on the Pruth and the Eyder	J5	„ 127
Diplomacy made Easy	J3	7th 132
The Happy Family ....	53	7th 136
Mr. Roebuck and the Galley Slave	55	8th 141
The Fabian Policy	55	Qth 147
A Peep behind the Scenes		10/A 152
	'	12th 159
Commercial Diplomacy ....	35	12th 162

Till

CONTENTS.

The Safety of Turkey and the Honour of England

Mask and Anti-Mask

The Pocket Crisis

A Byzantine in London ..... How to get out of Besika Bay ....

How to keep the Peace

The Ransom

Shall the Turks and the Eussians bellowed to

fight it out ?

England — France — Turkey ....

The Error

The Malefactors

The Defence

Suppressio Veri

Lord Aberdeen

Compunctious Thimblerigging

Billstickers Beware !

Coincidences and Anticipations ...

Besika Bay Squadron ..... Philosophy of Ambition ..... Is the Continent to become Tartar or Cossack ? Charles James Fox as a Diplomatist

The Liturgy of Crime

Russian Agency in Cabinets and Clubs

" The Times " and Turkey ....

Lord Palmerston

The Eye of the Czar

Refusal by the Porte of Western Succour .

Why does the English Cabinet persevere ? .

The Uses of Impeachment ....

The Democracy of England and Diplomacy .

The Squadrons and the Loan

Westminster Review and Lord Palmerston

The Turks in Arms and the Turks in Diplomacy

Terms of Settlement with Turkey

The " Times " and the Manchester Meeting . .. „

Turkish view of the Public Meetings in England December 10th

11th

19**

20th

21st 21st

fad

23d 23d '23d 21th 21th

October 3d

„ 20th

. „ 21th

' 5> 5>

. „ 29**

Sot- ember 1th

8th

, 12th 13th

209 218 218 220 222 223 225 230 236 238 239 24O 243 247 250 253 257 260 261 262 263 264 268 273 275 280 283 288 290

October 27th 301

Custom Houses and Embassies

Note to Article on Russia and the ITnited

States— the Corn Trade .... r 19th 306

On the Present State of the Turkish Question er 22d 307

LETTERS, ARTICLES,

THE GREEK CHURCH AND RUSSIAN PROTECTION.

August 10th.

SIR, — The course which you have adopted, with respect to the great matter now in hand, may not, in itself, be deserving of gratitude, because you have only done your duty ; but duty is meritorious, when neglect is the rule, and observance the exception. You have dealt with the case on its merits, and according to your best judgment. You have even given this proof of sincerity, that you have changed your opinion with respect to statesmen as the matter developed itself, and you had reason to understand them better. The ability which you have brought to bear is a matter of scarcely less importance. While you have not lent your columns to deceive (the general use of newspapers), you have employed your pen to arouse and to direct the sense of the nation, in respect to the matter the most grave ever yet submitted to the decision of public infatuation.

After this statement, you will pardon me if I venture to remonstrate against your article of this morning. The new incident, like the turning in a road, shuts out the connection ' to the physical eye, and it requires to be acquainted with the country, to know which hand to take to arrive at the pro- posed destination. The matter, Sir, is not concluded with the passage of the Pruth ; that event in itself is nothing ; it has happened a score of times without endangering the Ottoman Empire. You consider that supervision of the

6 THE GREEK CHURCH AND

conduct of Ministers now only regards the past. Allow me to tell you, Sir, that you are but approaching the critical moment. The profits of the passage of the Pruth are now to be realized in a convention by which the Powers shall be made to interfere in the affairs of the Christian subjects of the whole Ottoman Empire, in the same way that, twenty - seven years ago, they were made to interpose in those of the small province of the Morea. This, Sir, is the danger, this the achievement worth a dozen campaigns ; pursuing the nobly beneficial course upon which you have entered, warn now in time the people of England (diplomacy is as a race where the last is always beaten and the foremost always wins), so that they may not hail with jubilation the new crime which will be presented to them as a triv.nipJi.

I tell you, Sir, that Eussia will evacuate the Provinces, and would evacuate them twenty times, in order to secure that " general assurance " of the Porte which is to deprive her of all " exclusive influence." I tell you, Sir, that it would be tenfold better to allow her to occupy the Principalities than to admit such a condition for their evacuation ; and, still further, that it would be infinitely less dangerous to allow her an exclusive Protectorate, than to establish a general one, however vague and unmeaning it may be rendered in terms. An exclusive one would, at least, be her own assump- tion, and not your act. It would excite resistance against Tier, jealousy of her ; it would be a public crime committed by her ; it would unite Sultan, Mussulmans, Greeks (Oriental Christians), and Europeans against her. As a common measure, the odium lies on you, together with the impossi- bility of reversing it, because the step which you take from a motive of expediency is itself unlawful, and places you at once out of the court of honour and out of the pale of reason. It amounts to this — four policemen discover a burglar with a set of housebreaking tools upon his shoulder, too heavy for him to carry, and too many for him to use, and they*say amongst themselves, " Let us help the poor fellow, and then no robbery will have been committed." Does England or France want to protect the professors of the Oriental Church ? Do the people of England or France know what the meaning of the word is ? Teach them that, Sir, and you will deserve a civic crown, and a mural, too, for saving many citizens from heedless guilt, and Europe from

RUSSIAN PROTECTION. 3

ruin — for not less is involved in the case now before you. Allow me, in the meantime, to suggest some points for your consideration.

The Oriental Church, to which belong nearly 14,000,000 of the subjects of European Turkey, is not the same as the Russian Church. The Russian Church has a doctrinal basis which was originally in conformity with it, but it has, by the governing action which has absorbed unto itself all things in Russia, in the course of five centuries, been changed into a mere piece of administrative machinery. This machinery is constructed, not simply for the purposes of internal despotism, but also for those of external aggression. In the pursuit of this end, the Emperor has been made at once, in a religious and political sense, Head of the Church. His name is printed in the same form as that of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The children are taught in their catechism that to him "faith" and "worship" are due. The congregations are deprived of all consistorial rights ; the prelates, of all independent functions; and the patriarch, the object of peculiar veneration in the Oriental Church, is absolutely extinguished.

Now, Sir, you can judge by your own feelings of those of the professors of the Oriental creed, if you were called upon to admit this HUMAN GOD as head of the Church of England, or of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Do not for an instant suppose that the Christian subjects of Turkey would feel less acutely than you would, either abhorrence of the sacrilege or indignation at the imposition. On the contrary, they will understand it better, because they have possessed, unbroken from. the earliest times, the Apostolical constitutions. These feelings will not appear, so long as Russia, from a distance, proffers political independence; but wait till you see her bring political subjection. Then you will see (supposing her established at Constantinople) a religious persecution, and a war of polemical hatred, such as the world has never yet witnessed.

Nbw, the Oriental Church, which goes under the name of " Greek," and is even called " Russo-Greek," has actually little or nothing to do with that people. The Greeks, in as far as they constitute an agricultural, organised, warlike, and worthy population, have already been severed from Turkey. There remains belonging to that empire only half a million

4 THE GREEK CHURCH AND

living as a community, and occupying the country south of the Pindus and Olympus ; this population did not choose to rise even at the time of the Greek revolt. The remainder of the Continental Greeks are scattered through the principal cities, where their occupations are those of handicraft, mer- chants, hucksters, brokers, interpreters, and priests, living there solely by their dependence on the Turks, and possessing wealth and influence by the happy adaptation of their genius to in- sinuate itself into the good graces of the dull and confiding Turk. They are better known by the Christians, every race of whom either hates or despises them. On their side, they know their interests to be bound up with Turkish supremacy, but they are, by their greater intelligence, the people of all the East who most thoroughly detest the Russians. For the same reason, they are for her the most available of instru- ments : but no Greek serves Russia save for a consideration. They are, however, a vain people, and entertain travellers with stories of a Byzantine restoration ; so, also, they disguise the painful circumstance of the mis-estimate of their qualities by their fellow Rayahs. The employment of them by Russia has mainly contributed to discredit her in the eyes of all these popu- lations ; and the common movement in "VVaDachia, Bulgaria, Servia, &c., to get rid of a Greek prelacy, and to substitute for it a national one, has arisen out of the connection of the Greeks with Russia. The eft'ect of this revolution in the Patriarchate of Constantinople has been to detach it from Russia, who has now lost that leverage of religion which she has hitherto worked with such deadly effect.

You will observe, Sir, the confirmation of this statement in the very demand which Russia now puts forward of a Pro- tectorate. If she possessed influence over the Christians, she would use it, and say nothing about it ; if she demands it from the Sultan, it is that she wants his authority to esta- blish it. But the case is infinitely stronger : the Sultan is actually the protector of the dissidents of Russia Proper, not as the result of Turkish intrigues at St. Petersburg, but as the result of their direct appeals to him. 50,000 of fnem have already emigrated into the Turkish dominions. The recent atrocious persecutions in Russia have led to a petition to the Emperor, either to be left alone or to be suffered to miirrate into Turkey. They are prevented from escaping into Austria by a secret arrangement entered into in September,

RUSSIAN PROTECTION. 5

1846, under which several of them have already been seized and delivered up. Now, these dissidents, who are supposed to amount to nearly 8,000,000, are no other than the rem- nants of the ancient Church of Eussia, and are consequently in every respect identical with the Christian subjects of Turkey ; so that the Protectorate claimed has in view not less the per- secution of Russian dissent, than the subjection of the Oriental to the Russian Church, and that to be effected by arousing Mussulman fanaticism against the Christians.

It will thus be seen that Russia is engaged in a very hard task, and one utterly hopeless, if her own means be considered; but if — by putting forward religious pretensions which the Powers consider alarming, and backing it by a military in- vasion, which the Powers have rendered alarming by inducing Turkey to endure it — she can bring them to propose as a means of adjustment, any sort of recognition by the Sultan of the right of interference, in reference to its Christian subjects, — then she will have effected, in reference to the administra- tion of the Empire, exactly what she effected in 1841, in reference to its integrity. In that year she proposed a eommon guarantee of that integrity, on the condition of ex- cluding men-of-war from the Black Sea ; by means of it, in 1853, she sweeps over provinces in resources exceeding in importance her own immense dominions. If, now, you again admit of common engagements, expecting thereby to curb and clog her action, you will, as then, and on all other occa- sions, confer on her the power of doing that which by her own means she could not have accomplished.

We must now render to ourselves an account of what Pro- tection is, and what it can mean. In the Capitulations, the word has a peculiar and, so to say, a legal sense. It is neither vague nor general, but special and individual, as used in the Capitulations. These acts, be it observed, are not bipartite contracts or treaties : there are no counter-stipulations, and are incapable of enforcement by legal procedure : they are merely charters octroyed to the various populations, granting them privileges and immunities, the chief of which is that of being governed by their own laws and by their own magis- trates. But, when cases arise between them and the subjects of Turkey, the mode of procedure is laid down, and the Turkish Court is not allowed to adjudicate except in presence of the agent of the community itself, namely, its consul, or

6 THE GREEK CHURCH AND

interpreter, who is to be present to protect their rights. That is the value of the word " protection ;" it means no more than the right of having a certain advocate or attorney. The Capitulations with France allowed her in this manner to protect other persons, not her subjects, being without natural protectors ; but these persons were not subjects of Turkey, they were " certain Latin priests." No stipulation was re- quired to obtain this right. Turkey refuses it to none. A private individual may exercise it : any foreigner may claim such protection from any foreign agent. France, however, made use of this purely fictitious right, carrying it to the extent of deporting the so-favoured individuals, and, in her very admirable instructions in 1792 to her consuls in the Levant, these functionaries are required to send out of the country any of those Latin priests who rendered themselves obnoxious by intermeddling in local politics, so as not to compromise the French Government with the Turkish.

I think, Sir, you will now apprehend the bearing of a general, vague, and abstract right of interference with nearly 20,000,000 of Turkish subjects in Europe and Asia— for Armenians, Jacobites, Nestorians, Catholics, &c. will be prac- tically included. You will perceive that the more vague, the more unmeaning the contract or note may be made, by so much will it be the more dangerous ; if any of your readers do not apprehend it, their eyes may be opened by an illus- tration.

Suppose that the Emperor of the French had obtained a similar sanction in England, and could make it apply in the same manner to Catholics, — then, if a question of a Catholic trust came for adjudication before the Lord Chancellor, the French Consul would take his place beside the gentlemen with silk gowns, and so argue the case, to the disgust alike of the bench and the bar ; if, notwithstanding his science and eloquence, the Chancellor demurred to the view taken in the instructions from Paris, the matter would be immediately transferred from Westminster to Downing-street, there to be decided between the French Ambassador and the English Foreign Minister. In this analogy we must suppose a French fleet with an army of disembarkation at Dover, the entrance of the Thames open and unguarded, and the other Powers of Europe consenting parties to the general arrangement, and, moreover, with their navies locked up in the Black Sea or the

RUSSIAN PROTECTION. 7

Baltic, having bound - themselves by treaty not to use their physical preponderance in passing those limits. What, I ask, would be the condition of the internal Government of England, what the burning indignation in the heart of every Protestant against the detested Catholic name ? Would you not have Lord George Gordon mobs — would you not have assassina- tions and burnings, to justify, by this explosion of Protestant fanaticism, the bombardment of London ? Would you not have the Catholics of England turning to the Emperor of the French, even although he had officiated in lieu of the Arch- bishop of Paris, and had told his flock, striking his forehead with his fist, as did Peter the First, " Here henceforward is your Pope and your GOD !"

The object of the Emperor of the French would be tke creation of a body of partisans ; his instructions consequently would be, always to support a Catholic claim, and always to oppose a Protestant one ; the cases would not be confined to those of corporate rights and administration, but would extend to every individual interest — not merely as in conflict with other individuals, but as regards the payment of taxes, the jurisdiction of rulers as well as of courts, and would apply to every quarrel in the streets. Eeverting to the case of Turkey under the approaching settlement, which I call upon you to labour to prevent, such an incident as this might and will arise.

The Ambassadors of England and Russia are seated to- gether in a room in the " cross street " of Pera : a row takes place below ; a Turk has knocked off the cap of a Greek, or the Greek has stabbed the Turk, and is seized by the officers of justice: the Russian Ambassador starts up, exclaims, "This is unbearable," and calls out to his janissaries to go and rescue the Greek. " Oh ! " exclaims the English Ambassador, " you have no right to exercise an exclusive influence ; we are to clog you." " Yes," replies the other, " it is a common note, and, therefore, you are bound also to interfere. If you do not perform your duty, you cannot prevent me from per- forming mine ; it remains for you but to thank me for relieving you from the performance of the engagements you have con- tracted."

The course which I have here described is exactly that which the British Ambassador would himself take in reference to a British subject. When one of the 8,000 so-called persons resid-

8 THE GREEK CHURCH AND

ing in Turkey happen, as is not unfraquent, to assassinate a Turk, he is taken out of the hands of the native authorities, is sent to Malta for trial, is acquitted for want of evidence, and can in three months return to assassinate another. It is the same with respect to all minor crimes.

The matter will not rest with, as the case may be, the de- fence of the injured or the liberation of the culprit. The Turkish Government and the Turkish people have been accus- tomed to submit to such proceedings in reference to foreigners, but they will draw between these and this interference in regard to natives, a distinction not visible to European diplomatist. The courts of law will resist ; the Porte may resist too, the people will rise ; blood will be shed, one or two Russian cai-as/ies will be killed, perhaps also an attache, or a consul or two; and then it will be a case for reprisals. Ob- serve that Russia, in the Treaty of Adrianople, has given her- self a right of reprisals, not for the payment of debt, but as the -penalty of any alleged violation of stipulations ; that these reprisals are not to be a sequestration of property, but acts of war. Observe that there lies a capital exposed to bombard- ment, and a squadron ready for bombarding it, a tanto, and with water and provisions on board, at the extreme point of the Russian territory nearest to the entrance of the Bosphorus, the distance being 200 miles, the wind almost always favour- able, and the sea across which they would have to pass relieved by the treaty of 1841, "for the integrity of the Ottoman Empire," from the possibility of the inconvenient presence of the men-of-war of other States. Such is the action that has to be clogged by an interference that sanctions it.

Such is the immunity from punishment which you are now about to establish for 20,000,000 of men, no longer foreigners resident on sufferance, but the natives of the land, who are henceforward to see in the Emperor of Russia a type of freedom, such as never entered into the dreams of a sans culotte. Thus is anarchy to be enthroned — to involve, in the first instance, the Powers of the West in an intervention on its soil, leading to a war between themselves, — then and then only can the Dardanelles be occupied.

the present arrangement may not realise all, but the door is opened from the moment that any condition is attached to the evacuation of the Principalities. They must be evacuated unconditionally, an indemnity must be paid to Turkey, other

RUSSIAN PROTECTION. 9

securities must be taken; into which the length of this letter prevents my at present entering. But, Sir, you may rest assured that if the powers can be brought to agree in any stipulation whatever, bearing this way, aj danger is incurred a thousandfold greater than the passage of the Pruth ; and if the withdrawal of that array be necessary to obtain this stipulation, most certainly will it be withdrawn.

In the meantime, the Eussian troops will have consumed the harvest, and thereby open in England a market for Russian grain, drawing into Russia some millions of money, and adding to the receipts of the treasury 15 per cent, upon the exports. A small profit of £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 will have been made for the moment at the expense of the British artizan ; and next year, on some new complication, she will return on other grounds. And this is the most favour- able view of the case.

You have long professed a lively interest in the fate of Turkey, you have long recognized the maintenance of that Empire as at once the most important, and the only perma- nent interest of England, connected as it is, and alone is, at once with the maintenance of the peace of Europe and of your supremacy in India ; but you have been alarmed lest that empire should not be able to maintain itself, and you have deplored as the cause of its danger the misuse of its resources, the dilapidation of its military power, and the dis- affection of its Christian subjects. At one and the same moment you are startled with the discovery that it actually supplies to Europe one-third of its enormous consumption of grain ; that it possesses a magnificent army of incomparable spirit ; but, above all, that its Christian subjects are not the dupes of its enemy, and not united in faith to Russia. Are you now overjoyed in the sense of the security you have re- gained ? No ! each discovery falls on you only as an embar- rassment ; each evidence of Turkish strength, by leading to resistance, has become an annoyance. You apply yourselves first to extinguish her trade; secondly, to nullify her army, and to convert it into a source of danger by sanctioning in- vasion, and proclaiming peace ; and you are about, thirdly, to force the whole mass of Christian Rayahs, as you did the Greeks in 1826, into dependence on the enemy you dread, and the protector they abhor ! Such conduct exhausts the most powerful feelings of the human breast — contempt and

1 §

10 TIME IX DIPLOMACY

indignation ; it surpasses in its bootless iniquity, almost the conceptive faculties of man. How can you thwart Russia's plans, you who cannot comprehend your own acts.

Your task, Sir, has but commenced; the siege opera- tions of a century and a half have now been completed, the zigzags and trenches dug, the third parallel drawn, the silent labour of spade and mattock is at an end, the breaching batteries are unmasked, the assault is carried to the foot of the walls, the fabric of European power totters, the time of foresight is gone by, the struggle has come, and we who live on the earth shall see with our eyes and feel in our bodies the drama performed and the penalty inflicted.

TIME IN DIPLOMACY— THE "EUROPEAN RECOGNITION/'

Augmt \\tli.

SIR, — I have to express to you my gratitude for the inser- tion of my letter of yesterday, by means of which you have enabled me to put within reach of those to whom the manage- ment of affairs is confided, warning beforehand. After the e\eut, words are useless ; the still voice of reason, the whisper of truth, or the storm of public rage and opinion are equally in vain. In the Agorai of Greece, and the Senate of Borne, the Ambassadors of Foreign Powers were introduced to make their statement in open debate, with those of the other party, to hear and to reply ; but now all is managed in whispers ; and, instead of knowledge preceding counsel, it is conceal- ment. The only chance of arresting evil measures is pre- dicting them — so that they may see that to be a snare laid for them by others, which they imagined to be a profound combination of their own.

This habit of secresy superinduces in the nation heedless - ness of causes in operation and excitation upon events. All they care for is news, and consequently they never think upon a subject until it is too late for any advantage to be derived from their reflections.

On the present occasion the Russian Cabinet has .pushed

THE EUROPEAN RECOGNITION. 11

the English into the attempt to solve enigmas, not only in reference to the countries surrounding the Black Sea, but also in respect to those surrounding the Baltic. The two positions are, in fact, to be simultaneously advanced upon ; however far asunder in point of space, and dissimilar in point of antecedents and procedure — still, in one respect, and the important one, the road that leads to them — they are the same. Downing Street is the way alike to the Sound and the Dardanelles ; and that because the English Cabinet will manage, and in secret. You will, therefore, understand the importance which I attach to the insertion of my letter of yesterday in your journal, which, in consequence of its recent articles on the great event of Europe, is now read in diplo- matic circles.

For a similar warning respecting the Soujid, I could get no insertion. That warning was translated, by the zeal of friends, into some half-dozen languages, and sent in vain to some score of journals. The papers at Constantinople did not dare to insert it : Yassy, Bucharest, Augsburg, Vienna, Paris, and London were tried with no better success. This universal repulsion arose, not so much from Kussian parti- sanship as from sheer incredulity ; it was regarded as extra- vagant. However, within a couple of years the treaty was signed ; and then, reproaching myself with my own neglect, I instantly sent it to be printed as a pamphlet, and it came out under the title of Denmark and the Duchies.

But even the Treaty did not help me; there was no sensation : it was not known to be an event ; all that society knew, and all that the Ministers knew, was merely what Baron Brunnow had told them ; so that though the Treaty was announced in the Times, there were members of the Government who, in the March of the year following, denied its existence, and were startled when a printed copy was shown to them. Before the Treaty I could not be heard, because the proposition was too monstrous to be believed. After the Treaty, again, I could not be heard — because, if my interpretation was correct, the Treaty could not exist. One single copy of the pamphlet was sold : not a paper noticed it ; the statement therein contained is now the admitted opinion of the whole of Europe : the result now deplored has been submitted to only because not seen in time. It was not seen in time, because you only care about news, and

12 TIME IX DIPLOMACY

will attend to matters only after it is too late. A member of that Cabinet said, "Ah, if I had known this before." So it has been, so it will be with England, until her last capital of folly is expended : it will always be, " If I had only known before."

This may appear to have little to do with the matter in hand ; but, in fact, it has everything to do with it. It is not the four corps of Russians on the Danube, nor her 150 gun- boats, that are to deflect the stream of history from its level course, and change it to a Niagara. It is the evanes- cent thoughts of some five or six — or, at the utmost, some twenty or thirty — men and women in London, who are no more conscious than the babe unborn of the methods employed now, and for generations past, to keep their minds in tutelage, — tjiat will bring the events which the graphic historian will have to pourtray, and the profound reasoner to investigate. To what end the creation of the diplomatic faculties of Russia, unless to overreach — why overreach us, unless our power was great ? — how overreach us if not by blinding us to its existence? Then she uses it to her ends.

In my letter of yesterday, I think I made it clear that Russia wants a " European recognition," in reference to the Oriental Church, such as she obtained last year in reference to the Danish succession. The word I have quoted is her own — it is from the Protocol of "U'arsaw. When the Powers granted that " Recognition," they did not know that they had done anything ; the English Government attributed to their act no further importance than that of relieving them- selves " from being pestered." Russia, when she obtained it, converted it into a " European necessity," and brought it down like an icy avalanche on the head of Denmark, to extinguish at once its ancient laws and its modern liberties — its past beneficial despotism — its present applauded Consti- tution. Thus were cut out by the stroke of a pen twenty heirs to the Crown, a whole host of royal and princely lines disinherited, and the succession of the now united Monarchy entailed on the heir of a quarter of the Duchy of Holstein, recognised in the person of Nicholas the First — on the strength of claims doubtful, if not inadmissible, in their origin — and, if founded, over and over again extinguished by boundless concessions !

THE EUROPEAN RECOGNITION. 13

The country, thus dilapidated and prostrated by your unconscious act, is covered with no Cimmerian darkness, robed in no Colchian fable ; it is almost on your shores, and under your eye ; the victims are a people of your own race ; the Sound was at stake, and with it the oceanic supremacy of Great Britain. What then has to be expected, when it is a question of an Oriental Church — of barbarous Turks — of Khans and Knezes — Boyards and Caliphs — of wild tribes roaming on the plains across which were wafted the sighs of an Ovid, or Pandours inhabiting unpronounceable fortresses on the Danube ? This is the difference between the two cases, that you have sacrificed the Sound, to escape from being further lectured by a Russian Ambassador ; and that you will sacrifice the Danube, the Euxine, the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles — with these, the Levant, and ultimately Egypt and the Red Sea, by a triumph over the Czar.

In the Danish case, Russia did not trouble your inventive faculties ; she gave you the Treaty all ready ; she put the pen in your hand, after she had dipped it in the ink, and merely said in an undertone — " Sign this." In regard to the Turkish settlement, she allows you the satisfaction of taking the initiative ; she has cast you off — kicked you — spat on you, and said — " Now, pray invent, devise a process. You know I have lifted the trick in the north; you know that there is no water in the Baltic for your line-of-battle ships ; now, I give you your revanche — dice or cards, whichever you like ; the ' colours ' or roulette ; the billiard balls or single stick ; the foils, with buttons on or buttons off; make your choice: it is all one to me." " Well," says the British Government, " we will try a congress ; we will have a joint note ; we will beat you at your own weapons, and roast you on your own spit ; we will bring down upon you a * prudent reserve,' and checkmate you with ' judicious conduct ;' we will batter you with 'character,' 'courage,' and 'sincerity;' with France in one hand, with Austria in the other, and another weighty stone — Prussia — under the arm, we will drive you back into your deserts and your snows." On this the Czar shoots himself. Lions and cocks, and .leopards,* and eagles black and gray, with double' alld single maw, a whole menagerie let loose about a dancing and muzzled bear ! And ^et the

* The Imperial animal of the Ottomans.

14 TIME IN DIPLOMACY

result, unless you, Sir, the conductor of a popular English journal, and Lord Clanricarde, the member of a degraded British Legislature, interpose by a few words of man's reason to prevent it, will be the imposition upon one of the five con- federates, by his associates, of a condition which extinguishes his sovereignty ! The close of the passage at arms with Russia will be* a stab in the back at Turkey.

Is this not, then, the occasion to direct attention to our governing system, and to call for its revision ? It is very needless to abuse the members of the present Cabinet. I would, of course, if it depended upon me, bring them to the bar of justice ; and, if there were virtue enough in the country to adopt that course, no doubt the evil would at once be remedied ; for men would not accept office without the requisite qualifications, if responsibility attached to their acts. That course being impossible, at least for the moment, I would direct attention from the ministry to the people — I would ask the latter how they have employed those great incentives to public action, those springs of pre-eminent virtue and sinews of national success — censure and applause ? The public men of England are the creatures of popular breath ; they are masks with mechanical voices, but, like that of Esop's fable, without brains ; they have, indeed, a material brain, but not an originating one ; their senses are plants parasitical, feeding on the trunk of opinion — nurtured by the dews of applause ; they perceive when the people desires — but have no sight in that direction where opinion does not run. The nation has had no opinion to spare for its great concerns, and as the rulers must ever be what the people are, its government has neglected its great concerns. You trust peace and war to the Monarch, but you have taken from the Monarch the means of action ; you have taken out of his hands the nomination of his servants : having usurped from the king of England now reigning — Victoria — the kingly functions, you have not the coherence of despotic will sufficient to exercise in fulness that usurped authority.

The Parliament, the echo of ephemeral faction, arrogates to itself the nomination of ministers, and so becomes a sovereign ; and, ipso facto, an irresponsible sovereign : yet it- imposes upon its own omnipotence an absolute abdication, by excluding itself from knowledge. The House of Commons has the nomination of ministers ; the Crown the prerogative

THE EUROPEAN RECOGNITION. 15

of peace and war ; servants of the Parliament — they conceal from their master their acts ; servants of the Crown — they impose on it their persons. These are not individual acts of tyranny ; these are not achievements of individual art ; this is the system — a system existing by the nation's will and approval, of which the individual members of Parliament are the victims ; of which the Ministers, for the time being, are the victims ; of which the actual wearer of the crown is the victim. They are all victims, especially in this, that they know not what themselves would be — conceive not what themselves would do — had they come into the exercise of their respective functions according to their original institution.

In consequence of this usurpation — the nation becoming indifferent — the minister is reduced to dependence upon Foreign Powers, having to defend British and public right against extrinsic action. The nation does not even know of the existence of this struggle ; it is neither intent at his back watching and urging him if he errs or fails, applauding and strengthening him if he is right and successful. Pressure is constantly applied on the one side without countervailing resistance on the other. It is the intellectual application of the steam engine in its new combination of high and low pressure ; the piston-minister is driven by the expansion of vapour on the one hand, and dragged by the exhaustion of vacuum on the other.

To what does Russia owe her pre-eminent station and her vast ambition, whence that faculty of aggregation which has converted her life into a theory of expansion? Is it the ennobling impulse of freedom — is it the discipline of discus- sion— is it the compactness of resources — the order of a well-regulated society — is it the legitimate influence of refined literature and of polished manners — is it homogeneity of race, language, and faith ? Is it, in a word, by any one of the elements of greatness which remarkable Empires have possessed and remarkable reasoners conceived ? The answer I need not give ; there is no mind however common-place, no prejudice however inveterate, that has not anticipated it. She has risen, then, to the possession of a power, and to the concep- tion of a purpose, by which she menaces all things existing on the face of the earth, — the embattled fortress, the thatch- covered hut, the cities of kings and the wanderers' tents, the icebound fiords of Scandinavia, the sultry plains of the Deccan.

16 TIME IN DIPLOMACY

Her arm is raised over a caliph of the Mussulman, it is shaken from afar at a Lama of the Bhuddhists ; her one foot is placed upon the neck of the Pope of the West, and the other is lifted, ready to fall on the patriarchal remnant of the faith of the East, — crushing the very cradle of Christianity. She has made herself a god upon earth, placing herself la the seat of Providence, intending to take from the human race the soil upon which they tread, the habitations in which they dwell, the bodies in which they live, and the very souls which God has given them. But let us content ourselves with saying — " She has rendered herself the most powerful State in Europe, and is actually engaged in purposes of active aggression, while the rest of the world is quiescent;" to what does she owe this station if not to some faculty of mind which has not been correspondingly cultivated by the other States • What that faculty is, it is not difficult to apprehend, although that apprehension will not give us the possession. It consists in knowledge of man, not of man in the abstract, but of man dwelling in society. When you consider him thus, and with a practical purpose — that of considering what you can do with him, how you can play off this faction against that, how you can convulse this state or that, how you can misdirect the action of this state upon that, how you can excite the animosity, or persecution, of this faith or sect against that, and how you can bring into collision this Govern- ment with that — then, indeed, is there nothing visionary and nothing impossible in the scheme, seeing that we live in an age where opinion is rife and virtue is rare ; and, when once you get the practice established that one Government shall interfere in the affairs of another, and the maxim introduced that the decision to act shall be taken in secret — then may the Russian representative in every capital in Europe stand aa an irresponsible adviser, an occult and inviolable influence behind the throne, and every nation be governed from the Russian Embassy.

It will not be denied that the present Cabinet of Englan J is a fair representation of the knowledge and capacity that lielong to the race. If we fail upon the present — the greatest occasion ever offered in our time — it will not be in conse- quence of our affairs having been for a moment entrusted to inferior hands. It cannot be said that a popular triumph, or backstairs intrigue, has cast, or tricked into office, a knot of

THE EUROPEAN RECOGNITION. 17

demagogues or sycophants ; neither can it be said that we are in the hands of a worn-out official, or compact family clique, effete by established routine, or insolent by nepotism : it cannot be said that we have new men, inexperienced in the arts of government, or unpractised in those of diplomacy. Our Cabinet contains all in mind, or character, qualified to ennoble power and command fortune. It has struck deep its roots in every intellectual soil ; it has spread forth its branches to every lucid and varied breeze of celebrity ; and, whilst its venerable summit is frosted with the dignified experience of half a centuiy, green vigour shines through its humbler leaves. Need I refer to the Nestor or the Ajax of diplomacy ; to the rational earnestness of the expounder of a national conscience; to the unshackled energy of the asserter of colonial liberties ; to the young and bold promise of Celtic originality ? We have, in fact, a Government repre- senting all opinions, combining all capacities, honoured by the confidence of the Crown, and not dependent on the will of the Parliament ; — bound by no pledges, but possessed of all knowledge ; propped by no faction, but guided by libe- rality ; led by no sordid ambition of power, but starting from power to win an easy way to fame. It is at such a moment that England is unfit to deal with an insult and an injury; to unmask a knave, and repress a bully !

I write these words under the painful anticipation of to- morrow's debate. I took up my pen, intending to proceed with practical details, but I have yielded to the overpowering thought of your character. What signify facts, when you have got no men ? what signifies what Russia is doing on the Tigris or the Danube, on the Nile or the Pruth ? — that only is of moment which she is doing in the drawing-rooms of London : there is to be lost and won the dominion of the world — won by a phrase or two, lost by a single weakness. England, you have no voice in that conclave. Your Ministers can never listen to the exposition of your sufferings, of your rights, or of your fate. You have put them in that position ; and therefore, when the evil day comes upon you, wolf-like, you will die with the growl of a wild beast, never having charged your wrongs as a man.

"The evacuation of the Principalities is," said Lord Clarendon, " a sine qua non preliminary to any settlement." But that evacuation to be a settlement must be unconditional,

18 XIXEVEH AXD PARLIAMENT.

as far as Russia is concerned, and provision must also be made against present injury and future aggression. First, then, the evacuation will be without any engagement entered into by Turkey. Secondly, an indemnity to Turkey for pecuniary loss, and to the trade of all nations on account of the accidents at the mouth of the Danube, resulting from her neglect. Thirdly, the abrogation of all existing Treaties between Russia and Turkey, and consequently of any pretence of interference with the subjects of the latter country. Fourthly, the abrogation of the Treaties of 1840 and 1841, equally violated by her act, and the consequent admission of men- of-war of all nations to the Black Sea. Fifthly, the modifi- cation of the English Treaty of Commerce of 1838, so as to obtain the free exportation of Turkish grain. Sixthly, the renunciation of all claims upon Persia, whether pecuniary or territorial. Seventhly, ithe abrogation of the Treaty o"f the 8th of May, 1852, and the consequent restoration of the succession and constitution in Denmark.

There is no more difficulty in obtaining all than in obtaining one. If you do not, you will be, in the words of Lord Clanricarde, " parties to the present act of piracy, as you have been to all the previous steps that have led to it." " Of the seven points, the essential are the admission of our vessels to tlie Black Sea, and tJie exportation of Turkish grain ; no one will pretend that there is the slightest difficulty in ob- taining either. They have even nothing to do with Russia, but only with Turkey.

XIXEVEH AXD PARLIAMENT.

August Ut/t.

The civic crowd nightly rushes to behold the conflagration of Nineveh, with restored decorations, presenting to us the very image of a splendour buried in its own catastrophe, and exhumed after 3000 years. Little do those who flock to the drama imagine that they have represented on the stage before them the ancestors -of the two great empires, whose actual conflict presents a spectacle to Europe. The parts are, how- ever, reversed, and it is the descendant of Sardanapalus who

NINEVEH AND PARLIAMENT. 19

stretches forth his hand upon the diadem of the successor of Arbaces. Here the scenic thunder rolls to reprove the impious descendant of Nimrod, assuming the place of God, but on the theatre of real events no lightning strikes the descendant of Peter, and it is the thunders of a Christian world that applaud and approve the sacrilege.

This affiliation might be accepted, on the spiritual claim of descent, for two races could not have been found to admit a pretension so repugnant to human nature, to universal evidence arid belief. It rests, however, upon more practical evidence. The learned Michievicz, in his lectures at the University of Paris, has endeavoured to establish the identity of the Russians and the Assyrians on philological grounds. One of the most curious of his illustrations bears upon this very point of the adoration of a " human God." It appears that the name of Nebuchadnezzar is nothing more than the Russian phrase for " There is no GOD but the CZAK." As to the connection of the Medes and the Turks little doubt can remain, after the discoveries of Messrs. Layard and Botta, and the interpretations of Rawlinson, Hincks, and others, where the learned have discovered, to their infinite surprise, the Turkish or monumental language in pre-historic times.

If this be so, it is certainly not one of the least remark- able events of this wonder-making age, that at the moment when Turk and Russian are about to mingle in deadly con- flict, and that for a position which is to command the world, facts should be brought to light which carry back through thirty centuries the origin of this strife, and that the tombs of these nations should give up to us the body, feature, colour of their daily existence, their modes of being and acting, their gestures and adornments, the arts which they practised, the monuments they reared, the language they spoke, and the very objects they gazed upon.

There is something appalling to find oneself in presence of the long-forgotten dead ; but what is this to finding our- selves in presence of long lines and races who have played their part on the great stage of the Universe thousands of years before our name was heard, with characters permanent as the objects of nature, and impulses fluctuating, but regular as her laws? Such a contemplation furnishes some relief from the nausea and the common-place of the " Eastern

20 XIXEVEH AND PARLIAMENT.

Question,55 and we can forget for a moment Diplomatists, Cabinets, and Parliaments — the rats and weasels of the day — -for the lordly bulls and winged lions of Ezekiel, and the Prophets of Esarhaddon and Cyaxares. Let us then for a moment consider the mental features of the descendants of the Medes, who, in early times, of all the nations of the earth combined warlike energy (they were the institutors of discipline) with patriarchal freedom ; wealth, arts, and splen- dour with mild and beneficent rule ; and of whom it has been said that they exacted tribute as the sign of dominion, not as the reward of conquest.

The Turks of the present day afford to Europe several great lessons in the art and practice of government ; the first of which is the placing of local usage on the footing of, and invested with, the attributes of written law, and so dis- pensing with the process of legislative compilation, as to enable the government to be carried on by means of a few simple maxims, capable of adjustment and application to every variety of local circumstance.

They present a monument of religious toleration. It is not indifferentism ; they are not merely neutral, or passive ; they adopt into their administration the hierarchy of the respective creeds, giving currency and effect to its legitimate decisions, and overruling and setting aside the law of the Koran, when- ever that^ law for its Christian subjects is in conflict with*the lights, or rules, of the Church. That toleration extends also to finances. Xo taxes are imposed as a religious disability, and no payment is made under any form whatever for the advantage of the predominant Church.

In matters of finance, currency, protection, and ail that regards the pecuniary interests of the Government, and con- sequently the material condition of the people, a class of facts are afforded for our study, not less important than the foregoing. We must 'not here allow recent infractions, im- posed by exterior considerations, to deprive us of the value we may derive from the examination of the system itself. That system is one of pure simplicity ; it has no Tariff, and does not complicate with the question of taxation the interest of classes. The consequence is, first, that there is needed no Parliament to protect the liberties of the nation, because the amount of taxation is invariable ; secondly, that there are no opposing interests of classes, because taxes fall on

NINEVEH AND PARLIAMENT. 21

property ; thirdly, that there is no pauperism, for the ex- change of labour is unartificial.

The last great principle which we shall notice is the sub- ordination of the regal and executive power to the judicial in matters of peace and war — that is to say, in the judicial matters affecting the State as a State. Hence has arisen a sense of honour in regard to transactions with foreign powers, at once discountenancing projects of acquisition, and encou- raging throughout the nation a spirit of resistance to foreign violence. It is to this division of authority that is ulti- mately to be attributed the fact, that the most aggressive position in the world — the Dardanelles, is at present con- dered as a point to be guarded, not as one to be guarded against.

Now, if we turn to the antagonist of Turkey, we will not find analogous subjects of study, or grounds of sympathy. There is enthroned a system of intolerance and persecution, of restriction arid prohibition, of complication of laws without liberty in their enactment, of complication of func- tions, and multiplicity of functionaries, of concentration of all power in the hands of the Chief of the State, and the extinction of religion, both by its conversion into an instru- ment of statecraft, and by the attributes conferred upon the Czar.

There remains absolutely but one branch in which we have anything to learn from Kussia, and that is diplomacy ; but this study is imposed solely in consequence of the use which slie makes of that art against ourselves.

But Turkey is not merely remarkable in maxims, — she is so also in events. A. quarter of a centuiy ago she had nearly fallen to the ground, not less by internal decay than by external violence ; not merely had her Christian populations risen in arms, but her Mussulman subjects had denied their allegiance. The whole of the great organisations of the State were simultaneously in revolt — namely, the regular force, or Janissaries ; the great feudatories, or Dere Beys ; the irregular feudal militia, or Spahis ; while the viceroys of the extreme provinces of the west, the east, and the south, were preparing to erect for themselves independent sovereign- ties. The Executive power entered simultaneously on a contest with all these bodies, and on a war with Russia. The result is that its authority has been restored from one

22 DENMARK AND THE TIMES.

extremity of the Empire to the other ; that each of these organisations has been swept away, even to the very name ; that an absolute dependence and subordination of adminis- trative authority has been instituted ; that a disciplined army under the direct orders of the State, amounting to 300,000 or 400,000 men, has been created ; that the revenue of the Treasury has been increased threefold, and the commerce of the Empire fourfold. It deserves also to be noted, that in the course of this change two tides of convulsion had swept over Europe, once in 1830 and once in 1848, and that neither Russia nor Turkey were, in any degree, shaken by these events, or in any degree conscious of their passage — further evidence of the permanency of these societies, or of their fortunes resting upon foundations not assailable by the fluc- tuations of opinion, which periodically submerge the powerful and intellectual Empires of the West.

It is in anticipation of the debate in the House of Lords this night, that we offer these reflections, as possibly they may strike, in those who may take part in it, a nobler chord than those which have given forth on similar occasions their wiry discords. Yes, Senators of England, it is into a great presence that you are about to rush, whether it be that of the Turk and his dignity, or the Russian and his genius. See that you disgrace not by unseemly words and unworthy thoughts the name that you bear, and the land that you ought to adorn and to protect.

DENMARK AND THE "TIMES."

August

The Russian organ of Printing -house-square, yesterday re- turned to its Danish vomit, and drubbed its readers with a daring rechauffe of its old and exposed falsifications. Our readers were made acquainted at the time, by our corre- spondent at Copenhagen, with the coup d'etat of the 19th of July. That catastrophe was the flagrant exposure of the Treaty of the 8th of May, 1852— a Treaty which the Danish Minister required the Diet to accept as a " European neces- sity;" and, because of the Diet's refusal to accept it in an

DENMARK AND THE TIMES. 23

unconditional manner, the Constitution has been violated, in fact and deed, by four reiterated dissolutions. The Times, in the course of these operations, by a calculation which we traced day by day, suppressed — in as far as depended on it, and, in so far as it could not suppress, falsified — the facts for the British public. It played its part in Denmark by threatening and bullying the Diet into the acceptance of the Treaty. It condescended to implore their submission in the interests of the preservation of the Constitution — a Con- stitution which it then extolled as a " successful result" of the events of 1848. When the coup d'etat took place, it announced that no coup d'etat had occurred, and it described, on July 30th, the Eoyal measure as " a constitutional way of modifying an impossible constitution." It now announces the Eoyal project as a great provident and beneficial act, ad- mitting, nevertheless, that it is a " self-denying ordinance, which undoubtedly curtails," &c. In the earlier stage of the proceedings it gave the people of Denmark to under- stand that Russia was the Power anxious to abolish their liberties, and that its own deep interest in the question, and the advice to submit to the Treaty, were founded upon its anxiety to thwart Russian projects. Now, it boldly asserts that Russia has had no hand in the matter, but " on the contrary, the Russian Minister at Copenhagen has taken every means in his power to express his disapproval of the Ministerial scheme." Who but the Times was acting at Copenhagen ? All hail to the diplomacy of Printing-house-square ! It has beaten off the Czar from the Sound ; while that of Downing Street, with its fleets and its " Talents," has been surrender- ing the Dardanelles.

It goes on to say, — " Similar misconceptions appear to have arisen with reference to the Danish succession." "Ay, there's the rub," said the Prince of Denmark — not that new "Prince of Denmark" of the play-bill of the Times of yester- day, but that pallid detector of treason, and punisher of crime, who communed with gravediggers, and moralised on a skull — " Ay, there's the rub/' British journalist and Russian tool, deceiver of confidence, suborner, false witness — who uses the faculty of vending type doubly, to sell him who buys your news as foreign, and him who trusts your words as British ! Now, after you have consummated your work, and performed your task — not a gratuitous one, for

24 THE RELATIVE POWER OF

the honour of knavery, be it hoped — after you have extin- guished Denmark : for you have the honour of the work — after all Europe has detected the imposition, and though, alas ! too late, the consequences — you dare to proclaim that Russia has "formally sacrificed her own eventual rights,' and you have the face to warn the Ministers of Denmark that :. rowing themselves under the influence of Russia" they will "forfeit the confidence of the nation,"

Here is a case liable to no ambiguity. Any man of ordi- nary industry, by spending an hour in turning over a file of the Times, commencing from May, 1S52, wilTsee it at once. There is statement, perversion, suppression, contradiction, regularly adapted, for cam-ing out the views of the Russian Embassy, by misrepresenting England 'to Denmark, and Denmark to England, together with the constant assumption that the journal itself has undertaken to act against Russia. In what sense, then, we ask, must the Times have been act- ing in reference to Turkey ? Then come two other questions — what rewards has the Times received from Russia ': What does it deserve at the hands of England ?

THE RELATIVE POWER OF RUSSIA AND GREAT BRITAIN.

August 13«.

SIR, — Providence in granting toman but a limited supply of reason, has guarded against the dangers thence accruing to societies by implanting a compensating instinct of honour ; it may be ind'eed a question of war with Russia whether the attribute of the lower order of animals does not assume the precedence even in matters the most humane and practical. To designate an individual a man of honour, would not convey the idea of dexterous management, or successful fortunes; but when you have said " honourable nation," you have implied talents to acquire, courage to defend, virtue to enjoy. On the other hand, " dishonourable nation " implies resources squandered, and degrading crimes.

These reflections are suggested by the debate in the Lords of last night. It has also brought to my recollection some incidents of the past, and particularly one in which the

RUSSIA AND GEEAT BRITAIN. 25

Member of an Assembly of a State somewhat similarly affected with our own, addressed it in these words : — "The necessity of freemen has long impended over you — the necessity of slaves may you never know ; the necessity of slaves is stripes, that of freemen is honour."

Instinct is, doubtless, no less than reason — a process of ratiocination ; but the distinction, like that between mesmeric and natural action, rests on a supercession of the use of the senses, or the results obtained by them. Thus, the rationalist politician would require, in order to form a judgment of the present negotiations with the Emperor of Kussia, to master a library of useful information, requiring six months for its perusal — even if it were collected. Having neither the time nor the materials, he is reduced to a conscientious nullity, or becomes a loquacious sentimentalist. For the honourable man, it is enough that he should be indignant ; he requires no statistics, and thus instinct is safety. Such valour may, indeed, deserve at times the character of Quixotic, but that is when honour is weak, and insolence mighty.

In the debate of last night, the background of the picture was war, and, doubtless, it is the dread of war, whether con- scientiously entertained or perfidiously suggested, that has placed England and Europe in their present ludicrous and humiliating position, and to this point I intend to address myself in this letter. I confess that it is painful to do so, but I make the sacrifice. It is so upon more grounds than one. It is an equal crime not to make war when just and necessary, and to make it without cause and necessity. It is not in your option to make it or not, if it be a just war, for the injustice is the act of others ; but if you are known to be ready to submit through fear of consequences, those con- sequences which you seek to avoid will most assuredly fall upon you ; if, on the other hand, you are known to be pos- sessed of spirit, that alone will guard you better than fleets and armies. There is, in the present generation, no danger, save that which is based on a calculation of your cowardice. Peace as an end, but justice as a means. Peace as a means, is war as an end ? — a war following degradation.

Now, let us take the case of a war with Russia. Will it be aggressive or defensive ? Will she attack you, or will you attack her ? On what element, on what field will the conflict take place ? — what forces will have to be employed ? — what

2

26 THE RELATIVE POWER OF

interests, what troops compromised in case of failure? — what results in case of success ?— how much blood will be shed, and what will it cost ?

We may set it down as a preliminary, that Russia will not send a fleet into the Thames, and that England will not send an army to Moscow. The power of the one state is on the sea, and that of the other on the land ; and as Cossacks cannot attack squadrons, nor line-of-battle-ships Calmucs, as England is enclosed in the seas, and as Russia environs the pole, there remains no field on which they can meet, except in so far as the one or the other may travel beyond its own territories, engage in aggression upon a third state, be compromised in a war with that state; — then respectively they may supply resources, and so indirectly make war upon each other. On the present occasion Russian armies have travelled out of her own territories into those of Turkey. If the latter country accepts the visitation, you have nothing to say ; if not, then the war is between Russia and Turkey. We have first to consider the relative power of the principals.

In their last war, namely, in 1828, with the exception of a single fortress, Russia encountered no opposition until she had crossed the Danube. She then overran the Principalities, as she has done in 1853, and no importance was attached to that fact. The contest was considered as commencing only after the Danube was passed, and the theatre of it was held to be exclusively Bulgaria. The whole resources of Russia were called up, " after two years of preparation," 200,000 men and 300 guns crossed the Pruth. On the other hand, the defence of Turkey, from temporary circumstances, to which it is superfluous to refer, was, to use the words of Pozzo di Borgo, reduced to the mere Mussulman population on the seat of war. She had, however, 30,000 of her new levies, and about an equal force of irregular cavalry. This was all that she could oppose to the invaders in the field. The Russians were defeated, and driven back at every point, save Varna, the capture of which was owing to our having destroyed the Turkish" fleet at Navarino, to which circumstance is also to be referred the unfortunate issue of the subsequent campaign.

The resources of Russia have not increased since 1828, but, on the contrary, they have diminished. The condition of her army, from reasons too long to enter into, is no longer what

RUSSIA AND GREAT BRITAIN. 27

it then was, and even then it was, by the avowal of the Russian authorities, no longer what it had been in the previous cam- paign of 1810. The resources of the southern provinces of Russia have not increased, but, on the contrary, diminished. They are actually proceeding towards depopulation : the Steppes, being adapted to a pastoral people, and requiring the camel even to be tenantable, are reduced to a wilderness, in proportion as the Tartar population is expelled, and a Russian one attempted to be introduced. The navy of Russia in the Black Sea has not increased; she had then thirteen sail of the line ; she has thirteen sail of the line now. In respect to the populations, which form, as it were, the two advanced wings of the Ottoman Empire, her position is wholly reversed. In 1828 the Polish Constitution had not yet been put down, nor had the Poles commenced to suspect the identity of their interests with the Turks. The Circassians had not commenced that wonderful political agglomeration and course of military triumphs, tvhich have constituted them so great a weight in the balance of European power. The Cossacks still lent themselves with docility to the Russian Government, nor had yet been awakened amongst them those aspirations, political and religious, which now point to a reconstitution of the ten millions of Malo -Russians, as an independent state. Finally, the commerce of Southern Russia has declined, partly through the depopulation to which I have referred, partly through the competition of the Turkish provinces. The condition, there- fore, of Russia has become worse in every point. Now let us turn to Turkey.

Here has occurred one of the most extraordinary revolutions ever observed, and the maxim signally disproved that nations cannot recover. Each of the diseases, severally judged lethal, has been eradicated : bloodthirstiness, anarchy, dilapidation of finances, milkary disorganisation, and political disruption. The central authority has regained possession throughout the entire empire, and every province has been subjected to the conscription, furnishing now its quota to the army. A yearly- sum (£3,000,000), amounting to nearly the entire revenue in 1828, is now expended upon the army, the material of which surpasses that of any troops in the world. At this moment the judgment of General Bern will not fail to be read with interest : I give it as expressed in a letter to the present Grand Vizier, then Minister -at -War : —

28 THE RELATIVE POWER OF

UR, — Not seeing the order arrive to com- mand my presence at Constantinople, I conceive it to be my duty to address to your Highness some considerations which appear to me to be urgent.

" I commence by declaring that the Turkish troops which I have seen— cavalry, infantry, and field artillery — are excellent.

" In bearing, instruction, and military spirit, there cannot be better. The horses surpass those of any European cavalry. That which is inappreciable is the desire felt by all the officers and all the soldiers to fight against Russia.

" With such troops I would willingly engage to attack a Eussian force double their number, and I should certainly be victorious.

" And as the Ottoman Empire can march against the Russians more troops than that power can oppose to them, it is evident that the Sultan may have the satisfaction to see restored to his sceptre all the provinces treacherously with- drawn from his ancestors by the Czars of Moscow. " I have the honour to remain, Sec.,

" MB RAD."

This opinion may be considered tinctured by the feelings of the man, but the fact is unquestionable that Turkey can now muster on the theatre of war twice the number that Russia can bring against her ; and if these are not all regulars, they are the same irregulars who in 1828, at Kurterpe, under every disadvantage of position, beat twice their number of Russian regulars. As to their quality, the opinion of General Aupick, expressed to the Sultan in 1S49, tallies with that of General Bern. " Your Majesty's troops," he said, " are able to give a good account of any enemies that will be opposed to them."

Such, then, is the first ally that England would have in a war with Russia ; one singly her match, and which will fight against her, — once the contest is engaged, to the very death, conscious that existence is at stake ; but this would be only the./M.

From what is publicly known respecting the dispositions of Persia, I may content myself with merely stating that the fact of a war of England and Turkey against Russia would bring of necessity a declaration of war by Persia, and the placing of the resources of that state at the disposal of the

rnalit.inn.

RUSSIA AND GREAT BRITAIN. 29

The third is Circassia; but this one has not to be invited, and requires not to be supported ; Circassia is at tear, and winning daily triumphs. By the very last accounts, another fortress on the west has been captured, and movements of such importance have taken place on that side that a blockade of the coast has again been proclaimed. If they have stood their ground alone, and if, while Russia can bring to bear upon them her undivided resources, they are able to drive her back, take from her fortified places, and to beat her in the field, what would be the effect of their finding themselves suddenly supported by Turkey, Persia, and England ? From offensive, the war would at once become aggressive, and 100,000 Circassian cavalry would be on their way to Moscow. Here I must pause to point out that the new organisation of the Circassians has come from the Cossacks. There are no less than 500 Cossack naibs (newabs) or chiefs, under the orders of Shamyl Bey ; and taking this fact, in conjunction with the altered dispositions of the Cossacks towards Russia, it may not be too much to assume that the Cossacks should, even as a body, enter themselves on the list of aspirants for freedom, arid join their forces to those of the Circassians, who, in the supposed case, would not appear alone in the plains of Eussia, but in company with a Turkish army. Such are the allies whom England will have at her disposal, east of the Dnieper and south of the Danube. But after these come the Poles and the Hungarians, of whom it would be superfluous to speak. In fact, 70,000,000 may be moved against Russia, and her territories to the west, south, and east, encircled with a flame of insurrection.

Lord Ellenborough, indeed, called attention to the fact, that a war with Russia would be an " offensive " one, because it would in its consequences put in motion the Poles and Circassians. The character of offensive or defensive depends on the acts which give rise to a war, not on the incidents which arise out of it ; but the world's attention requires to be called to the fact, that Russia is ever at war with the rest of the world, though she will not gainsay you while you call it peace.

The casus belli arises out of the advance of an army, con- sisting of her whole available force, into a territory where it will be entirely at the mercy of the power possessed of the maritime supremacy in the Black Sea.

30 THE RELATIVE POWER OF

At the period of the French African occupation, the English Government was taunted with suffering a course of policy to be commenced which would bring France into collision with England ; it replied by the then organ of the Foreign-office, the Globe, that this measure placed, on the contrary, France in entire dependence upon England, for we had got 100,000 Frenchmen as hostages. Such is precisely the position in which a Russian army would find itself in the Principalities : the Carpathians descending from the west ; the marshes of the Danube extending from the east, narrow to a single point, and that, defended by the Sereth, the communication between the vast Russian and the Turkish Empires. By transporting a Turkish force to the north-west angle of the Danube, the communications of the Russians would be cut off in the rear ; an English squadron in the Black Sea without even taking part in the conflict, but merely by locking in its harbour the Russian naval force, would enable the Turks, with their own means, to effect this operation. The army in the provinces is, under every circum- stances, dependent on supplies by the Black Sea and the mouths of the Danube : by cutting off the communications, that army must capitulate from starvation. The trade of the Black Sea is also exposed ; you have but to occupy the line of Perekop, to insulate the Crimea and as effectually extinguish Russia's maritime force by a land operation, as her military force by a sea operation.

The only point to be considered is the force that would be engaged on the Euxine. Turkey has the actual superiority in steam ; she has nine or ten line-of-battle-ships, of which five are splendid vessels, of first-rate power, and magnificent in equipments. With the African reinforcements, the Otto- man navy may be considered as quite a match for that of Russia, if not more so. The British squadron now at the Dardanelles is itself far more than a match for the Russian force in the Black Sea. consequently the two conjoined, it would be impossible for a Russian flag to show itself; these results would be thus obtained without the expenditure, ex- cept for salutes, of a single charge of powder ; there would be no further expense incurred than that which the squadron at present costs, whilst the occasions for that expenditure, or for future armaments, would be removed. No subsidies would be required for Turkey ; she, on the contrary, would be

RUSSIA AND GREAT BRITAIN. 31

glad to afford the provisions for your squadron. That this is Russia's vulnerable point is sufficiently proved by the secret article of the Treaty of Hunkiar Skelessi : the most valuable concession in Turkey's power, to grant Russia then selected — and that was the exclusion from the Black Sea of the men-of-war of any nation with which she happened to be at war.

Of such a war costing nothing, England would be uncon- scious ; it might be prolonged for years, or centuries ; it would cost Russia at the least £20, 000 a day (her present ex- penditure exceeds £12,000). Tor England there would be the alternative of continuing gratuitous operations, or a peace with securities against future aggression ; for Russia the alternatives would be continuing a war at the rate of £6,000,000, and 100,000 men, or the disruption of her empire.

But this is not the only field of contest, nor the only means of coercion. The Baltic is equally open ; 110,000 Swedes are filled with a spirit fraternal to that of the Nizam, and, not to speak of Norwegians and Danes, there are, Fins and Lithuanians as well as Poles and Cossacks. Evolutions in the Baltic would cost no more than evolutions in the Channel.

But what would become of the trade of Russia all this time ? What would become of her revenue ? What would her nobles, threatened with bankruptcy, be about? Nor would this be a temporary matter. It not that the exports of Russia would be stopped for a time, but that the demand would flow into other channels never to return to her. 1 therefore conclude in the words of Sir John M'Neill, " Eng- land being -with Turkey, all aggression on tJte part of Itti.ma becomes impossible."

I have subdued my feelings to enter with patience and laboriousness into this review, in order to remove, not by reason but by facts, the obstacles presented to ajust estimate- of our position by a vague dread of war ; and for the same reason I have spoken of England as acting alone, not of her acting in conjunction with France, although it is impossible for her to act in this sense unless in conjunction with France. Whatever the dispositions or obligations of the Sovereign or Ministry of France, that Government could not stand still if England went forward, unless, indeed, the Ministry

32 THE RELATIVE POWER OF

were disposed to sacrifice their posts and the Emperor his crown.

I think I have shown war to be impossible : it is so upon two grounds — the one intellectual, and the other physical. If it required war to curb Russia, you would never make it, because you are no match for her in mind : it is an insolence for Englishmen to talk of war with Russia. Make war with your equals — make war with France.

It may be, however, supposed that Russia's power may pro- gressively advance to that point where collision will become inevitable, and her arrogance "reach that limit where subser- viency will cease to be endurable. Even then I declare war to be impossible. In the first stage it is so, because Russia cannot cope with you ; in the second, it will become so, be- cause you will not be able to cope with her. From the one condition to the other, the two countries will pass, not by slow degrees, but in a moment of time, in the twinkling of an eye — a moment that you will not anticipate, a twinkle that you will never perceive. This will come in consequence of the peculiar configuration of the countries to the south, and the anomalous mixture there of land and water, so adjusted that the turning of a Bramah key fetters at once continent and ocean. On the dispositions of Turkey, who holds that key in her hands, the issue rests. So long as she continues to strive for independence, the key is in your pocket ; when she resigns that hope, the key goes to St. Petersburg ; then will England's trident be laid down by Poland's spear; one hour will give to Russia the empire of the east, and take from England that of the ocean. Heretofore, to a heedless world I have cried aloud and in vain, " Until the Darda- nelles are occupied, Russia must submit to your decision ; afterwards, you will have to submit to her acts." I now repeat the warning to an alarmed world. I repeat it while your fleets are anchored at its portals, seeking not daring or not willing honestly to enter. I repeat it to England, conscious now of consequences and of power.

Dismiss at least idle speculations — dismiss hollow fallacies — take credit for the support you do yield — assume the merit of the power you exercise — let the world know that Russia's fortunes spring from your munificence.

Your Minister has declared " the Evacuation of the Prin- cipalities a sine qua nan of any settlement." The Evacuation

RUSSIA AND GREAT BRITAIN. 33

of the Principalities is no settlement, and can be none ; and if it were so, you would not obtain it. Your Minister will feed on his own words as heretofore without fattening. Yet, in 1851, the Principalities were evacuated without England's help, and by Turkey's sole act. Would this, then, be a triumph, even if obtained ? Russia will evacuate to-morrow — she will make compensation to the Turk — renounce every pretension — surrender every claim and every existing right which she possesses — if you make her doing so the con- dition of not sending your squadron through tlie Dardanelles.

Far be it from me to advise so base a course. Enter the Dardanelles first, and then make your conditions ; but as this is the course that England has to pursue, so is it the course she will not pursue, and the present fluster of opposition will, like every one that has preceded it, serve only to betray the cause, or the interest, by which it was provoked. You never have drawn the sword against Eussia ; you never will. " I dare any many in this house," said Lord Derby, on one oc- casion, " to utter the word war." Such is the language of Nicholas to Europe ; and thus it is, that the only power that has to dread a war, solves every question in her own favour, by its menace.

DENMARK AND RUSSIA.

August IQth.

The events in the East have at least had the effect of open- ing the eyes of this country, and of Europe, to the perfidy of the Russian Government in respect to Denmark, whilst the simultaneous operations had established the unity of her action as bearing upon the two great positions of the Dardanelles and the Sound. It appears, however, by the ministerial explanations on Friday night, that the Government of England has not shared in this enlightenment, nor admitted this con- nection. But in this respect the Governments stand, as it does in Oriental matters, in direct opposition to the nation. There is the nation on one side, and the Government on the other. Unfortunately, however, the one is passive and the other active ; and the opposition, instead of having the effect

34- DENMARK AND RUSSIA.

of relieving the Government from foreign thrall, forces it into dependence on foreign protection — and, seeing what it no longer hesitates to declare respecting Denmark, we can no further doubt as to what it will do respecting Turkey.

The question of Mr. Blackett was by no means a formi- dable one. He commenced by assuming what was false, and thereupon asked a question which was futile. " He had in- formation," he said, " that the Court of Russia had executed full renunciations of its right of succession ;" and asked why " those renunciations were not included in the Treaty of last year, as similar renunciations by the House of Bourbon were incorporated in the Treaty of Utrecht ?" We are at a loss to know whence Mr. Blackett derived his information ; and we do know, not only that Russia has executed no renunciation?, full or empty, but, further, that she has, in the most emphntir mann d her rights. It is but a few days since we

extracted a passage from a despatch of Count Xesselrode to the Baron Ungern-Sternberg, Russian representative at Copen- hagen, which was made public in that city on the 2-ith of July, and in which the Russian Government fully reserves her rights. The answer, therefore, to his question was, simply that the renunciations were not inserted in the Treaty, because no renunciations had taken place. It is true that Russia has waived her claims in favour of the Duke of Glticksburg, and it was solelv by so doing that she obtained that settlement, by which were excluded the lines and in- dividuals that come before him, as also the lines that come after him, removing every other impediment to her absolute succession to the entire monarchy. This could not have been Mr. Blacket 's meaning, as is clearly shown by his reference to the Treaty of Utrecht, that is to say, such renunciations as should prevent the eventual union upon the same head of the Crowns of Denmark and Russia.

This reply is, however, not that given on the part of the Government by the Home Secretary. It is a very different and a very curious one. '* If," said he, " the honourable gentleman named the ' renunciation ' of Russia, or any par- ticular documents, he would ascertain whether there was any objection to their production, and apprehended there would not." We will now see the breadth and depth of Mr. Blackett's information and ingenuity, and we await with im- patience alike the <c naming " and the " production,"

DENMARK AND RUSSIA. 35

The Home Secretary did not, however, content himself with this sleight-of- wrist; he went on to expound the case : —

" As things stood, the succession to Denmark Proper went in the female line, the succession of Holstein went in the male line, the succession of Schleswig was disputed between two parties ; and therefore, on the death of the King and his uncle, who was the next heir, Denmark would have gone to the female heir, Holstein to the male, and Schleswig been divided between them. It was the business of the British Government to prevent such a state of things ; and it was thought an important object to keep together those three States which, in common parlance, were called the Danish Provinces. He was anxious to get renunciations also from thai male branch which had claims on Holstein, and to combine the whole in some party who might equally claim all portions. TJwt was accomplished &p the Treaty."

It is curious, but, so long as the negotiations were pending, we never could obtain a word upon this subject. When, once or twice, in the House of Commons, it was inquired whether the negotiations respecting the settlement of the war in the Duchies would be made in any way to touch the suc- cession of the Crown, nothing could be extracted. It was, then, monstrous to suppose that there were any projects on the Crown of Denmark, or that England was to interfere to overthrow the rights of any portion of the kingdom, whether as affecting internal liberties or succession. Now we are told that England was engaged not only in disposing of the Crown, but in superseding the rights of the distinct portion of the present kingdom; and for the first time it is admitted that the Duchies follow a succession distinct from the king- dom. We are also informed that " Denmark would have gone to the female heir, Holstein to the male." Who, then, was Prince Frederick of Hesse ? Was he not the female heir, and did not the quarrel in the Duchies arise out of the im- posing of him upon the Duchies, or, rather, the manner of doing it? Well, the Duchies have been reduced. What further difficulty remained? Do they desire the Prince of Gliicksburg ? Is he not equally imposed upon them ? Why, then, is Prince Frederick discarded ? He is no longer son-in-law of the Emperor ! Ay, there's the rub ! He and his line, his sister and hers, and all the others, are cut out, until the Princess Louisa ; she again is cut out ; and the

36 DENMARK AND RUSSIA.

very person to whom she is made to convey her rights — the Duke of Gliicksburg — is himself excluded by a " full renun- ciation." But is he the representative of the male line ? Not in the least. That line (the Junior Royal) is in toto cut out; but the Junior Ducal is let in, with its claim on a portion of Holstein. Here are the words of the actual archivist of the Danish Crown, M. Wegener, who, at the demand of Russia, is under legal proceedings for having published them : — " Should Prince Christian and his sons die without male successors, who would then inherit ? No one is able to amicer that question." He, however, himself answers it thus : —

" The abrogation of the succession by Lex Regia, makes the House of Gottorp the sole legitimate Pretender to Hol- stein."

But it appears that it was the " business of the British Government " to unite the succession. "Well, suppose that to be a legitimate business, surely the union was to be in favour of Denmark, and not in favour of Holstein — that is to say, against, and not in favour of Nicholas the First. Xow, hear Mr. Wegener, upon the point of this " integrity " of Denmark, and its effects : —

" The introduction of the principle cf the indivisibility of the monarchy, enables this Pretender (to Holstein) to extend his claims to the whole of the Danish kingdom. Could the great Powers have signed a Treaty to change first principles, and make the Danish Monarchy a Russian Gottorp secundo- geniture?"

Mr. "Wesjener is brought before the bar of Danish justice for explaining what the English Government had done. There must surely be something very rotten in the state of some other country, as well as that of Denmark. It is a proud reflection for England that her courts could not be made in like manner the subservient tools of a foreign despot, and that, consequently, no such coercion could be applied to a British functionary ; but, on the other hand, it must be ad- mitted that this immunity of her functionaries is of as little advantage as is the independence of her courts ; and, whether we look to the east or the west, to the north or to the south, whether it be a confidential despatch or a Parliamentary explanation, whether it be a declaration of right or a state- ment of fact, whether it be the doing of what is hurtful, or the not doing of what is honourable, — the results are every-

WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 37

where the same, and such as must attend the operations of the government in a country where freedom is the abstract proposition, and indifference the practical result.

" 'Twas fierce contention, impotent distrust, Caprice that made it treason to be just— 'Twas guilt in some, and heedlessness in all — Bowed the great city to its fate and fall " Till gold at length made clear the tyrant's sway, And crushed all hearts in languor and decay."

WAR, BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

August 16th.

SIR, — I must claim your indulgence for a final letter. You have afforded me already the opportunity of exposing three delusions — first, that regarding the identity of the Oriental and the Eussian churches ; secondly, of there being a diplomatic contest between England and Russia ; thirdly, of there being a possibility of war between England and Eussia. I now wish to touch upon the last and essential illusion, that of union between England and France.

In the height and fervour of the entente cordiale, I pointed out, on more than one occasion, that as the motive of that alliance was the protection of Europe from the encroach- ments of Eussia, the failure of achieving this end would lead, of necessity, to its dissolution; that, as we attached im- portance to it, and wisely so as curbing Eussia, she must attach equal importance to its rupture; that consequently her known ability would be directed not only to rupturing it, but to converting it into competition, and finally into war, without which her projects in the East could never be crowned with success ; and I pointed out the opportunity she had of effecting this end, by leading us into competition in third countries, also that she would make use for the same end of their common desire to oppose her. This reasoning has been borne out by facts, and this prognostication verified by results ; the entente cordiale has disappeared ; each new aggression on her part has, indeed, led to a tumultuous out- break of enthusiasm in the two countries, drawing them together, but always ending in discomfiture and ranklings.

38 WAR BETWEEN* ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

The first serious matter was Spain, where we interfered iu common with France on the assigned ground, absurd as it may appear, of combating and overthrowing the influence of Russia in the West. By this intervention the entente cordlale was sacrificed.

Immediately before, the two Governments had sent a naval demonstration to the Dardanelles against the Treaty of Hnnkiar Skelessi : the common result of these operations in the East and in the West was the mutual increase of the navies of England and France, as against each other.

In 1S39 the French Government, under Marshal Soult, determined to send a squadron through the Dardanelles, under the then prevailing apprehension of a Russian descent. England was also zealous in the cause, and out of their re- ciprocal eagerness arose a quarrel as to the mode of execution, from which resulted the open rupture of the subsequent year, which must have led to collision and war if M. Thiers had not recalled the French squadron from the coast of Syria.

In 1S-16 the confiscation of Cracow let to a protest of England and France, resulting in mutual protests between themselves with respect to Spain.

In 1849 the two Governments again are united by the menace of an invasion of the Ottoman Empire ; again they send their squadrons to the Dardanelles, and this is imme- diately followed by a rupture about Greece.

In the present instance another conjoint demonstration takes place at the Dardanelles. Their squadrons are actually there. Similar failure now unmistakeably hangs over it, to be followed by the natural consequences of pretended triumph, and acknowledged discomfiture and disgrace. Thus the reason of the case, as the history of past events proves in an irrefragable manner, that on your successful or unsuccessful dealing with the affairs of the Levant actually depends the nature of your relations with your great neighbour : as her friendship was useful to guard against dangers menacing in that quarter, so, by failing to turn it to account, it must itself be converted into feelings and conduct which will bring upon you an infinitely greater danger than that against which you had to guard.

The judicious observer possesses an infallible guide to the still germinating projects of Russia in the columns of the ; there may always be found that which Russia nt

WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 39

moment desires to be believed, and the forecast of what she intends to do. This morning it announces the termination of the incident in the East, in terms of that decided stamp that reveals a mind not expanding in the complacency of triumph, but girding itself for the prosecution of further suc- cess. " The country," it says, " will be satisfied with the result, for never was a more complete victory won, by temper and union, over the angry threats and extravagant demands of a power which had attempted to break down the common policy of the rest of Europe." On this it at once proceeds to the matters now in hand ; and in one article, of which China is the scapegoat, takes occasion to represent Kussia as " a very old bugbear, and little more than a bugbear in the East." In a second article, where Lord Malmesbury replaces the Emperor of China, France comes out as the state dan- gerous to its neighbours, and the Government of Lord Derby is represented, whether as judiciously thoughtful or perversely mischievous, as each reader will interpret according to his previous bias, as allying itself secretly with Russia at the very moment that it was professing the most cordial support of France. " We are prepared," it says, " to show, if Lord Malmesbury requires it, that at the very moment when he was distinguishing himself by a prompt recognition of the ' new dynasty ' in France, he proposed and concluded a close and confidential connection with Kussia and the German powers, to maintain, at all hazards, the territorial arrangements of Europe. We do not llame him for these measures of precaution, or for the desire he showed to maintain amicable relations with the new French Government."

It is impossible to conceive, considering the weight of this journal, a step more calculated, especially at this moment, to arouse the indignation of France, her detestation of English perfidy, and the desire of a Russian alliance, than this publi- cation. These are mere opinions in England — they are acts for France. It is the counterpart to the Pacifico-excursion of the English squadron to the Piraeus. Now I would ask whence the Times derived this information. This is a question for the English nation to ask, and not to be satisfied without a reply. How can the Times be allowed to make the insinua- tion and conceal the fact ? The fact referred to may le a very innocent one, not so the insinuation, but still more important is the source whence the Times derives it? Was it

40 WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

from the Eussian Embassy? Let this be known. It is rather too much for an English journalist to profit at once by Russian gold and English credit. The source that may not be suspected in England will not be doubted in France."

Shortly before the assumption by Louis Napoleon of the Imperial title, a despatch from the Russian Cabinet reached Paris, announcing its resolution not to allow him to assume an hereditary empire. This despatch was read to him, but he was haughtily refused a copy of it — tlie very next day it appeared in the Times. The London Journals were then vehemently assailing him, but of all his critics, the most severe, unrelenting, and vituperative, was the Times. The other journals were strictly prohibited : there was no pro- hibition against the Times. Louis Napoleon might as soon have sent away the Russian ambassador.

The three last wars between England and France have been brought about, not by existing differences between the two countries but by the means which Russia has adopted to envenom them, and of this any man will find proof who will take the trouble to study the correspondence of the first Lord Malmesbury. In respect to the rupture of the peace of Amiens, she was possessed, by the growth of journalism — of a new weapon — and to it Lord John Russell has attributed that event. Journalism has now made much greater progress, and the vast extension of the Times enables her with little trouble to monopolise its power. She has got in it what Caligula desired for the Romans — if not one neck, at least one throat ; while she moves Cabinets by whispers, she hounds on public passion by trumpet blasts, wielding at once the powers of influence and of the " pressure from without."

Be assured that these various instruments — that her talents and dexterity, that your ignorance and infatuation, are in respect to even- case, and in even- moment of time, directed to that one great end, without which she can achieve nothing, by which she can achieve everything — war between England and France, from which nothing can protect either country except the passage into the Black Sea of their sqnadrons. Then would be afforded an intelligible ground for their policy ; then would be forged a link for their concert ; then would credit attach to their Governments ; then would the vulnera- ble point of Europe be protected from attack, and losing abroad the prestige of success, at home the hopes of triumph,

LORD PALMERSTON AND THE CABINET. 41

impulse would be withdrawn from Russia's action, and the bonds of internal cohesion be relaxed.

She has driven you into your actual predicament by calcu- lation ; not less that of weakening Turkey than of disuniting England and France. She has judged you beforehand ; she has laid down from the first point every subsequent step ; she has rated what on each contingency you would do, and she has made you break down the power of Turkey that you wish to support, and break down the alliance of France, which you are proud of having secured ; but the greatest of her triumphs will be in having made the English Ministry break its word, and the English people believe that it has achieved a triumph.

I now, Sir, for a time take leave of you and this subject, and 1 do so in the words of an authority to whom I have already often referred, who in the year 1835 wrote in the Quarterly Review this sentence : — " From the time that a barbarous power took part in the affairs of Europe and of Asia, she has converted the Cabinets and the Statesmen of Europe into the tools with which she worked."

The events of eighteen years have shown that maxim to be an historical truth, and it cannot cease to be a truth until you have taken the trouble to educate men for the diplomatic service, and have the sense to discriminate bet ween a Minister who is " British," and a Minister who is not.

LORD PALMERSTON AND THE CABINET.

August

SIR, — I took leave of you, the expository debate supervening, my task was ended; that alone is worth saying which is said beforehand. But the debate has exposed nothing that was hidden, and as it closes the session by leaving open the case, I may once more strike a stroke, or sling a pebble, at the monster, the name of which the reader will discover at the end if he has not detected it in the body of this matter.

Lord Palmerston's speech on Tuesday is an event — I may almost say an epoch. Public orations seldom afford me the occasion to indulge in the superfluities of satisfaction, and still seldomer do the opinions of statesmen come upon me,

42 LORD PALMERSTON AND THE CABINET.

save as cheerless and chilling blasts. For once, however, I can give way, not to mere contentment, but to positive pride —the two-fold pride of the public acknowledgement of my high estimate of a man, formed when this entire nation held him to be a trifler : and his concurrence with me in the estimate of the high qualifications of a nation, which, at the time when that opinion was pronounced, all Europe held to be a corpse.

The authoritative dictum is invaluable. Like the morning rays piercing at once and extinguishing night and darkness, it dispels the gloom of prejudice, which was risinsr li^e a rroin the land, shrouding the senses and withering the frame of action. Who now will venture on a vague specu- lation regarding future adjustments — who will dare ju- policy which has sacrificed, on a plea of weakness, an empire, not only alive, but full of prosperity — one which has recovered from a next to fatal disease, to a condition of growth, expan- sion, and progress ? One of two questions has now to be put- How has a Cabinet, containing Lord Palmerston, betrayed Turkey? or, how is Lord Palmerston a member of that Cabinet?

The whole matter resolves itself into the judiciousness of the advice given to Turkey to be cant tints. The suffering: of the infraction of its domicile can be justified only by inability to defend the house. The advice to leave the door open could only be given in the absence of bars and bolts, de- fenders and ammunition. Caution in such a case meant time. It was saying, "You cannot hold your own; wait till we come up." I say nothing of the consequences, I speak of the fact. Lord Palmerston has shattered the assumed one, and with it the only shred of a pretext, which the English Government can put forward, not only for its advice, but for its interference. Never was there an exposure so damning as this, and it would pass comprehension that the Home Secretary was not expelled on the spot (four-and-twenty hours have now elapsed), were it not that another equally astound- ing and unsolved enigma has already enveloped us. How could the Home Secretary have been all the while tfceir colleague ?

It has been an almost universal judgment, that the pre- sent disgrace could not have befallen England had Lord Palmerston been Foreign Secretar -n ember of the

LORD PALMERSTON AND THE CABINET. 43

Cabinet he is indeed responsible for its acts, but of course he was in a minority, or too busy with the Thames to think of the Danube, or told to mind domestic smoke whenever hazarding a lucid suggestion for the foreign department. His speech, however, justifies the public instinct, that he was the man, and prepares for his removal to a more congenial, or his elevation to a more distinguished post. But still that speech contains a certain calculus, which has to be extracted and examined apart. It occurs at the end, being like a refractory residuum in the crucible, and consists in that impracticable matter which we call a contradiction, not, indeed, in terms, but in sense, being the concurrent enunciation of maxims severally distinctive. It is as follows : — " I am satisfied that Turkey has within itself the elements of life and prosperity, and I believe that the course adopted by Her Majesty's Government is a sound policy, deserving the approbation of the country."

If Turkey has elements of life, it is that she is not to be cut up either for the benefit of a Byzantine empire, or of a Muscovite incorporation. Yet the admired course following thereupon is the positive cutting of it up for both ; the argu- ment against "the course of the Government" concludes with, — ergo, that course was to be adopted. Either the Danu- bian Principalities are no portion of Turkey, or her tc elements of prosperity," are so terribly strong as to be able to survive a blow which no European Government could survive — the unresisted invasion of its territory by a hostile army. Surely this is a position which involves the necessity of an explana- tion, or non-explanation involves the expulsion of the Home Secretary, or of his colleagues. We have heard of the horns of a dilemma ; this is the natural weapon of England's emblematic figure, on which the poor brute spits himself.

The cry of war has not been raised without a reason. It was expected that, when thoroughly alarmed, the English public would have hailed with joy a settlement which obtained peace ; and, according to its wont, called that, whatever it was, a triumph. You, Sir, in the columns of the Morning Advertiser, have been chiefly instrumental in reversing, in this respect, the current of opinion, and thereby of events. You have baffled the calculations by disconcerting the plans of the Russian faction, whether working through the Cabinet or the Press, and hence the floundering in the type of the one,

LORD PALMERSTON AND THE CABINET.

and the confusion in the speech of the other, and the confi- dence of the Times " is lessened" by a debate, in which the Ministry announces the " vitality" of Turkey.

I have, however, taken up my pen rather with a retrospec- tive intent, in consequence of the claim put forward by Lord Palmerston to credit for the restoration of the power of Turkey, which he attributes to "the advice given, with a view to the eternal improvement of that country." I have been myself engaged somewhat on the same field, though I cannot flatter myself with saying, as he has done, that on all occa- sions " those endeavours have been attended with the most beneficial results." But this I can say, that I have invariably found myself in direct opposition with the Noble Lord ; it now appears that we have been agreed as to the end, while opposed as pole to pole as to the means, that opposition extending from the most fundamental principles to minute details. AVe have been struggling foot by foot, each inch of ground, as to which of the two systems, the result which we now unite in proclaiming as having been obtained, is referable. The reader may be able to judge from a few specimens.

The matter which I have considered of greatest import- ance, was the opening of the ports of Turkey for the exporta- tion of grain. I am happy to think that Lord Palmerston rated it of no less importance, though in an opposite sense, and I confess that I have been beaten. It is, however, no disgrace for a private individual to be beaten by a powerful Minister, wielding the influence of a great country. I brought the Turkish Government to concur in the plan : he imposed on it a Treaty, placing nominally twelve, practically twenty- five per cent, on exportation ; but he did not succeed in imposing it on the Danubian provinces : the exportation of grain from them justifies my anticipation ; the absence of ex- portation from the other provinces of the Emperor is the evi- dence of his success.

The matter next in importance is the condition of the Rajahs. The measure urged by the English Government for improving their condition has been the imposing upon them of the con- scription. In this respect Lord Palmerston cannot claim the merit of success.

The English Government interfered respecting the admi- nistration of the Lebanon, and coerced the Porte, by the threat of being abandoned to Russia. The result of this

LORD PALMERSTON AND THE CABINET. 45

success has been two civil wars, and an actual condition of chartered anarchy.

The English Government interfered in the affairs of Servia, to back an attack made by Russia on an arrangement uni- versally adopted by the Servians, and sanctioned by the Porte. Here the English Government was unsnccesful. It was on this occasion that Lord Stratford de Redclift'e exclaimed, in reference to the conduct of England and France, " By G — they are making Turkey Russian !"

In respect to Egypt, the English Government rejected the original application of the Porte for succour. Lord Palmers ton warned William the Fourth against the Turkish Ambassador, sent to this country to demand it (Namik Pasha), as "a creature of Russia," and advised that the appeal should be made to Russia. On the second insurrection of 1839, he stated in the House of Commons that the English Embassy at Constantinople was engaged in preventing hostilities, and asserted that they would not take place. They did take place, being vehemently urged by the British Ambassador.

In connection with this subject, I may introduce that of the passage of the Dardanelles. The Turkish Government desired, and even applied for, the entrance of our squadron into the Black Sea. This Lord Palmerston prevented and rejected — making, meanwhile, demonstrations at the Dar- danelles, which, consequently, were against Turkey, not Russia.

In regard to the Danubian Provinces, the English Go- vernment forced, in 1834, by the demonstrations at the Dardanelles, the Porte to submit to the convention of St. Petersburg ; it sanctioned, two years later, the establish- ment of the Russian quarantine at the mouths of the Danube, interfering with internal traffic and British naviga- tion; it sanctioned, in 1848, the entrance of the Russian armies, falsely declaring it to be a measure undertaken in concert with the Porte ; it advised, in the following year, the Porte to sign the Treaty of Balta Liman, for their prolonged occupation for seven years more, and concurrently argued against the infraction of Turkish neutrality by the invasion thence of Hungary. It was here successful and unsuccessful — successful, in the acts it rendered inevitable ; and unsuc- cessful, in the remonstrating language it employed. When the Turkish Government was taking steps for the superces-

46 LORD PALMERSTOX AND THE CABINET.

sion of that Treaty, and the removal of the Russian troops, the English Ambassador at Constantinople called upon the Sultan to dismiss his ministers. Finally, when in July of this year, the Russian troops re-crossed the Pruth, 'the English Government advised the Porte neither to resist the invasion, nor to advance its own troops, according to the stipulations for a joint occupation by the convention of Balta Liman, nor did it deal with the fact as a violation of its own Treaty of 1841 ; and, in so far, the English Government can be considered as successful solely on the hypothesis that its success consisted in the detaching these Provinces from Turkey, and the delivering them over to Russia.

In regard to the internal condition of Turkey, the point of importance next to the opening of the ports, was the esta- blishment of roads and canals. Here the English Govern- ment has been in the last degree active, and, according to Lord Palmerston's statement, in which I fully concur — suc- cessful. For England, the great matter was the opening of the direct channel to the Indian Ocean through the Isthmus of Suez. This project has been opposed by the English Government. Second only to this, comes the opening of the ancient channel of the Danube. When this project was urged by Austria, and resisted by Russia in 1846, England had no advice to give ; when, five years later, it was resumed by the Turkish Government itself, the English Government resisted it.

Roads and wheels were the great levers to be introduced for the improvement of the country, but without the one you cannot have the other. Roads might be made by the Turks, but upon the Franks they were, in the first instance, de- pendent for the wheels to roll upon them. The European merchants at Smyrna proposed, for their own convenience, to undertake the opening of a road into that city, which would have been the commencement of a system extending through- out Lesser Asia. They addressed a letter to the Grand Vizier, offering to bear one-half of the expense. The Turkish Government was much gratified at the proposal, but advised that it should, in the first instance, be presented to the English Ambassador, that they might appear to act on his suggestion. The matter being laid before that Ambassador, he frankly replied, " that so far from lending to it his in- fluence, he would exert that influence to the utmost to pre-

LOUD PALMERSTON AND THE CABINET. 47

vent it." I was myself the channel of the communication which bore the signature of all the leading houses in Smyrna, and the answer of the Ambassador was by me transmitted to that body at the time. I now, upon my honour, declare, that such were the words addressed to me by Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe, and that in consequence of them this plan fell to the ground.

The English Government was at that time urging a road of its own — namely, one from Trebizonde to Erzereum — on the ground, that otherwise the transit trade to Persia would be diverted from the Turkish to the Kussian territory. That road, if made, would have had no Turkish wheels to travel on it, and would have left behind a military road between those two points — the one of which Eussia could reach by an army, the other by a fleet. But it failed : 44,000,000 of piastres were expended in vain, and the Turkish Govern- ment thoroughly disgusted with road-making. "The Eng- lish Ambassador has become a Eussian engineer" was a phrase current at the time at Constantinople, and attributed to Kossuth.

I need not multiply instances — from these learn the whole. I think that any reader will require no commentary to con- ceive that Turkey, in as far as it has been reorganized, has not been so by the aid of the counsels of the British Govern- ment ; and that, in so far as it has not been thoroughly dis- organised, it has not been only so in spite of the British Government and its counsels; and he will infer that the English Government, in its silent, consecutive, and prepa- ratory action, has no less than in flagrant acts in critical moments been the unfailing supporter of Russia's designs, and is, according to Lord Clanricarde, a party no less to the preparatory steps than to the catastrophe. • At all events, it must be evident that acts abroad are one thing, and decla- rations in the House of Commons another ; and that under our present system, when words are taken for facts, deeds go for nothing.

The Times of yesterday, commenting upon this debate, attacking everything but Eussia, and every person but those who serve her, after commending the speech of Lord Palmerston, tauntingly disproves his conclusion by asking how, if this reorganisation of Turkey has been real, she should submit to-day to that invasion of her provinces

48 PROTESTANTISM AND THE CZAR.

which, in 1828, she had repelled by arms, even though then in a state of avowed dissolution, and abandoned to her fate by England and France ? That question is really answered. In 1828 England and France were against her; in 1853 England and France are supporting her. The Times had another question, however, to put, and it is marvellous it did not think of it — How were the Principalities evacuated in 1S51 ? The answer is the same. At that moment Turkey had recovered her freedom of action, in consequence of a coolness with England about the Persian frontier, and a quarrel with France about the Holy Places.

This fact alone remains sure and certain, that the Porte is the only Government of Europe retaining independence — that alone possesses the will to resist Russia ; and that it is only prevented from doing so by the desperate infatuation. of believing that England and France are its friends.

Has the reader, by this time, guessed the monster to which I referred, in commencing this letter ? If my faculty of expression, or his of apprehension, has failed, I will now proceed to name — that monster is SECRECY. "While that idol stands, it matters not who be his ministering priests ; and, if an Aberdeen, or a Palmerston, were removed from the altar, their places would be supplied by a long succession of equally qualified prelates. Until a crown be left to govern, or until a popular freedom exercises in its complete- ness its rights, there can be no closing of the gulf opened in the Forum ; and even if Russia disappeared, other Muscovys would arise to grasp the mighty prize, abandoned to chicane by being surrendered to chance. Practical England, ask yourself if that establishment can be safe where the merchant is not allowed to know what the clerks are doing ?

PROTESTANTISM AND THE CZAR.

August 2 Of A.

We owe an amende honorable to Mr. Layard. We have, on more occasions than one, taunted the explorer of the palaces of the ancient Sardanapalus with a dubious backward- ness in bring to light the doings of the modern one. How-

PROTESTANTISM AND THE CZAR. 49

ever, in the debate of the 16th, he has redeemed his own credit, and thrown light on several important points, not the least of which is that of the progress of Protestantism in the East. He has informed us, that, owing to the labours, chiefly of American missionaries, in every great city in Turkey, the nucleus has been formed of a Protestant Church, and that amongst the Greeks remarkable dispositions have been evinced to abandon the superstitions of the Eastern Church. He explains the present demands of the Czar as based upon the alarm felt by the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, at the probability of the Greek communion escaping from its control, and represents it, not as a protectorate, but as a yoke. This view of the case was originally put forward in our columns, but upon wider grounds. We recommend it to the serious consideration of the religious community, and especially to those who have hitherto been inclined to assent to, if not to applaud, the pretensions of Russia as leading ultimately to the triumph of Christianity and the fall of Islamism.

Mr. Layard is, however, mistaken, when he speaks of the intolerant spirit of the Greeks of free Greece. He has cited, in support of that view, the article in the constitution of 1843, by which proselytism is forbidden. That article, together with the one which required the successor to the Crown to be of the Greek faith, was introduced by Russia, and is, in fact, but the repetition of a police regulation of the Russian empire. The Greeks appealed to England and France for protection; but these Powers, pursuing their ordinary avocation of purveyors to the Bear, "hastened unanimously to declare the perfect unanimity that existed between their Courts." From one of the numerous ex- posures in the press of the time, we select the following : — " Are we to be reduced to this last of servitudes? For what else is this restriction upon proselytism, which denies to the professors of the dominant religion, the faculty to change their creed ? What contradiction ! what sacrilegious pretension on the part of foreign Powers, who, in the exercise of this pretended intervention, surpass the frank perversity of per- secutors ! We must supplicate France and England to pre- vent this iniquity, and to add to the benefits of their powerful protection, that of religious liberty. So long as we are frustrated by Russia in this our right, we do not merit the

3

50 PROTESTANTISM AND THE CZAR.

name of freemen — we have ceased to be descendants of the people that produced a Phocion and an Epaminondas.

In this past transaction we have a counter-part of the present, but here is more distinctly revealed than at present Russia's purpose, which is to prevent the spread of the Gospel. Mr. Layard informs us that the first converts to Protestantism were subject to many persecutions, not indeed on the part of the Turkish Government, but of the heads of the Churches which they had abandoned. They are now, however, a community, recognized by the firmans of the Porte, in the full enjoyment of religious liberty.

In another point, Mr. Layard understates the case. He considers the Czar as seeking to prevent proselytism from the Greek or Oriental Church ; he is not aware that the Muscovite Church is one of a very different order — one in which a man is placed in the seat of God, and consequently that it is the object of Russia to impose this sacrilege upon the Oriental Church, through the fallacy of the term Russo-Greek. It is not that the " Greeks" must not become Protestants, but it is that the Greeks must become Muscovites; they must surrender, not merely every character of Christianity, but also of Paganism and of Natural Religion, and accept a man as their God. Such is the triumph of " Christianity," which, alas, too many of our conscientious but misinformed coun- trymen consider to be in progress, by such unhallowed arts as those which the world has recently seen exhibited in the East with disgust and indignation, and to which the Govern- ments of Europe have lent themselves with a meanness and a perfidy too often paralleled in their past acts, but never before exhibited in a manner so flagrant and with consequences so fatal.

This is not a matter which affects Protestants alone, it touches no less the Church of Rome. Its missionaries are no less counteracted than our own ; its faith is no less pre- scribed than ours ; it is, in fact, the common cause of free discussion in religious matters throughout the whole of the east of Europe and the west of Asia, and affecting 120,000,000 of souls. Support the pretensions of Russia, and you exclude discussion by the iron rule of despotism ; leave her to herself, and she can effect nothing.

If these populations were united with her in heart, purpose,

PROTESTANTISM AND THE CZAR. 51

and superstition, it would be a melancholy sight and a deplo- rable condition for humanity. But this is not the case. They seek to escape in any direction ; they want to become Pro- testants or Catholics, to maintain themselves as* Greeks, or even to become Mussulmans, and you go and herd them in for her, drive them back into her fold ; you make yourselves her shepherds and her watch-dogs, with the double effect of closing the door to the light of religion, and placing in her hands a terrible power to be ultimately directed against your- selves.

Hitherto, Islamism has alone profited. On the shores of the Adriatic, and on those of the Black Sea and the Caspian, along the upper waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates, there has occurred] within the last century a wonderful and unobserved religious revolution, coinciding with the progress of Russia. The populations have sought to disassociate themselves from her thrall, and to draw themselves nearer to the sovereigns of Constantinople, as the only protectors against her oppres- sion or enroachments ; and in these regions, it is asserted, that between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 have been converted to Islamism. In their minds, it is impossible to disassociate a religious from a political system, and if the governments of Europe continue to exhibit themselves as her allies, Protes- tantism and Catholicism would be alike eschewed as hateful and contemptible. A large body of the Armenians have been already prevented from becoming Protestants, by dread of association with the policy of the English Government- Let, then, the religious world look to it. How have they been suppressed ? It is a case in which the interests of our faith go hand in hand with the honour of our nation ; it is one in which every man possessed of a vote, or of a voice, has the faculty of counteracting the wrong, for the evil-doers are not seated at St. Petersburg, encircled with myriads of bayonets ; they inhabit Downing-street ; they sit on the Treasury Benches, enabled to afford this spectacle of infamy through the trust and confidence generously reposed in them by the British nation. They are no incorrigible malefactors — no deep designing plotters; they are only weak men, yielding to pressure from wherever it is applied, and in the hands of the Russian Embassy, only because there is no England with head or heart to rescue them and herself.

52

RATIONALE OF THE SERVIAN OCCUPATION.

August 22<7.

Xot only is the passage of the Danube above the Carpa- thians a more important, but it is also a more striking event than the passage of the Pruth. We have often seen in our times, and have heard of from the generation that pre- ceded us, of an efflux of Baskirs, Calmucks, and Cossacks into lowlands westward of the Euxine ; we have been fami- liarised, cloyed, or nauseated, with Russian designs and Mus- covite insolence ; and considering that the words Russia and Turkey have sulphurously glittered side by side in an oriental borealis of suspended fireworks for at least half a century, it is a matter marvellous in the extreme that any excitement should have been awakened by the repetition of such a spec- tacle. Nothing has happened in 1853 that has not over and over again happened before without producing any sensation ; nay, worse has happened before, and has been received with satisfaction.

We propose to our fellow-countrymen a grave question — that of the peculiar part which Austria is called upon to play, and the immediate purpose to winch her act is to be applied. In doing so, we would desire in like manner to address ourselves to the Austrian Cabinet and public. We approach the subject with no animosities, and shall give way to no invective. We have around us, and before us, a scene and a prospect too solemn to admit of passions, and under the sense of the approaching catastrophe for Europe, we can have no thoughts save for the sufferings of our fellow-men, and the means of rescue. With this view we must for a moment pause on the preliminary matter already adverted to, not only from the self-evident connection, but also on account of an inference to be thence drawn, which will presently appear.

In July, 1853, the Russians crossed the Pruth, upon which all Europe was excited ; the fall of the Ottoman Empire was apprehended ; England and France sent their squadrons to the Dardanelles.

In March, 1848, the Russians crossed the Pruth, also in time of peace. No indignation was excited, no alarms for

RATIONALE OF THE SERVIAN OCCUPATION. 53

the fate of Turkey were awakened, no squadrons were sent to the Dardanelles ; but the English Government proclaimed its satisfaction at the event, and considered it a means of restoring or maintaining internal order.

In May, 1828, the Russians crossed the Pruth, declaring on the same day war at St. Petersburg. The Turkish Empire was, in Europe, supposed to be about to fall ; but no excite- ment was produced by that anticipated event ; no squadrons were sent to the Dardanelles; but the Eussian squadron sent round from the Baltic, on condition of waiving its belli- gerent rights in the Mediterranean, did blockade the Dar- danelles and the coasts of European Turkey.

In 1806, the Russians in peace crossed the Dniester (the Russian frontier not having then reached the Pruth) ; no attention was paid in Europe to the fact. England had before sent a squadron to force the Dardanelles, with instructions to bombard Constantinople (England being at peace with Turkey) unless the Porte yielded to certain demands, one of which was, that it should cede Wallachia and Moldavia to Russia.

This simple statement will show that the public mind of Europe has undergone a revolution in reference to the East, of which the evidence chiefly appears in the alarm excited in consequence of circumstances that might almost be considered normal. A similar change may be observed in Turkey, where heretofore the offers of protection by Russia have always been accepted with gladness, and the passage of the Pruth, in as far as Wallachia and Moldavia are alone concerned, looked upon by the generality of the Turks with indifference. More- over, Russia has hitherto had through mutual jealousies the co-operation of Persia and Egypt, when preparing for ope- rations against Turkey ; and Circassia has counted for nothing on the field of war, or in its event.

It is now exactly twenty years since a Russian squadron and army of disembarkation reached the Bosphorus. It encamped on the Giant's Mountain, above the landing-place now celebrated in history, of Unkiar Skelessi. It so encamped as pretended auxiliaries against the Egyptians, then marching through Asia Minor. On the same spot is now encamped aa Egyptian auxiliary force against Russia ! The Russian descent then did not alarm Europe ; it was undertaken on the advice of England.

The co-operation of the English Government with that of

54 RATIONALE OF THE SERVIAN OCCUPATION.

Russia, judging historically, was not a fact calculated to excite indignation, or even comment, or to impose upon itself hu- miliation or shame. It concurred in the Treaty of 1326, for the settlement of the East — a treaty sent from St. Petersburg; it acquiesced in the war of 1826, against Persia, with whom it had a defensive treaty of alliance ; it acquiesced in the war of 1828, against Turkey, denying the grounds upon which the war was made ; it recognised the Treaty of Adrianople, closing that war, after having protested against it : it acqui- esced, in 1831, in the extinction of Poland, rejecting the proposals of France and Austria to maintain that country, and repressing the common movement in its favour in Turkey, Persia, and Sweden ; it acquiesced in the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessiof 1833, against which it had protested, and, on its expiration, converted it into a general European act; it acquiesced in 1836, in the usurpation of the mouths of the Danube, after having instructed a commercial firm to resist the interference of the officers of the Russian Government. In the following year it sacrificed the Yixen, and with it, as far as it was concerned, Circassia. Again, in the following year, after denouncing the hostility and perfidy of Russia in Persia and Central Asia, and sending an expedition to Cabul, it expressed its " entire satisfaction with Russia's explanations and acts." In 1S4Q, it signed another treaty for the pacifi- cation of the East, which treaty was ostensibly sent from St. Petersburg, and which, at one blow, sacrificed the French alliance, and stipulated the occupation of Constantinople by a Russian maritime and military force. In 1846 it concurred in the confiscation of Cracow. In 1848 and the following year, it sanctioned the invasion of the Danubian Principalities, on the grounds of internal order, and then the sacrifice of the neutrality of Turkey, by the invasion thence of Transylvania, and afterwards of Hungary, and acquiesced in the forced de- tention in Turkey of the Hungarian refugees. In 1852, it accepted a treaty sent from St. Petersburg, to give to the house of Romanoff a title to the succession of Pemnark, and to cut off even* other claim to that succession alter one restricted line.

The concurrence, therefore, gf the English Government with that of Russia, in 1853, was only in the ordinary course of events, and if it has excited feelings different from those which former incidents had evoked, which, when not indif-

RATIONALE OF THE SERVIAN OCCUPATION. OO

ference or satisfaction, were confined to a partial, transitory, or smothered discontent, it is another proof of a shifting of the basis of opinion, of the silent extension throughout the nation of a juster estimate of the purposes of the Russians, and of the character of the Turks. This, as it has taken our own Government by surprise, may have been unappreciated even by the Cabinet of St. Petersburg itself.

If, then, we find ourselves, at this day, enveloped in a contest, which even those hitherto considered visionaries and alarmists looked to as to come only with revolving years, we are, thanks to the toil of those alarmists, placed in a position to meet it, of inestimable and unanticipateable advantage : the Bast, from the Indus to the Adriatic, from the Don to Abyssinia, and almost, we may say, to the Atlantic, is united. Not only does insurrection not interpose its brand — not only does rivality of dominion not interpose its sceptre, but fana- ticism itself withdraws its rancours. States and creeds, peasant and prince, combine : like Aaron's rod, Russian aggression has swallowed up the pettier snakes of dissension. If, then, the British nation will arouse itself, carrying — as it must do, the French people along with it — Russia will, after all, have dared the world in vain. Already has the present movement of Russia been explained as a necessity imposed upon her, arising out of a revulsion against her in the East — a statement which subsequent events have fully justified. She has been asserted as about to play " a desperate game for very life." Incredible, or incomprehensible, as this statement may have appeared a short time ago, the intelligence of every day reveals its truth, and explains its meaning. But, whatever the antecedents, the junction of Austria and Russia, their common invasion of the territories of Turkey, present a case of a gravity far transcending that even of a war with France, for the existing state of things in Europe is now positively and practically assailed, not as the result of a transitory quarrel, but as the mental conclusion of a system in action for centuries, which for centuries has bided, and now seizes its time. The Cabinet of St. Petersburg has decided that it shall bring matters to issue at once with Europe and with Asia ; and whether that decision is based upon advantages to be obtained or dangers to be averted, it is not the less true that the struggle is opened, and if Russia does upon this die

56 RATIOXALE OF THE SERVIAN* OCCUPATION".

stake her existence, it is only the more certain that in the. play she will be supported by the element of desperation.

In ail cases it is requisite to know our antagonist. We must know not only that antagonist's means, but also his purposes ; we must not only be aware of the forces he has in the field, their character and quality, but also ascertain the disposition he has made of them. * We would attend to no details heretofore, because we disbelieved the purpose of attack. Let us attend no\v. We have a necessity for doing so, and also an encouragement. As yet, everything is in our hands.

These preliminary remarks have extended to such a length that we must postpone till to-morrow our review of the position of Austria, and the part she is to be made to play between the Latin and Greek populations of European Turkey. In the mean time, we recommend to the attention of our readers a memoir addressed at the beginning of this vear to the Austrian Cabinet.

THE KAISER AND THE CZAR.

August 23d.

In our impression of yesterday we sketched the progressive importance during the last half century attached in Europe to the vitality of Turkey, and the growth within the last quarter of a century, of cohesion in the East, and resistance to Russia. This review was undertaken as preparatory to the considera- tion of the recent step of Austria towards plunging herself, just escaped from all but fatal convulsions at home, into a war of religion, race, and nationality with the populations of the East and the Turkish Empire. It was chiefly intended as a warning to the Austrian Government against too facile credence in the prolonged indifference and endurance of Europe, and against the too facile belief in the Eastern preponderance of Russia. We have a further warning to offer, and that is as to the spirit of the Austrian army. We do not refer to Hungarians and to Italians, but to its German and Austrian portion ; and we are aware, if the Government of Vienna is not, that deep humiliation pervades that body,

THE KAISER AND THE CZAR. 57

and that is, for a war against Eussia, and not in conjunction with her, that it sighs.

The latter portion of the last century exhibited Austria, on two occasions, acting a part parallel to the present. On two occasions of difference between Russia and the Porte, Austria presented herself as mediatrix, and after allaying the appre- hensions of Europe, and soothing for a while the feelings of Turkey, enabled Russia to make a sudden attack, and then herself joined in the war. In 1791, she occupied Servia, as she has done at present, and the consequence of these opera- tions was the convulsion of Europe, and two occupations of Vienna by the French.

At that time the Diet of Presburg still subsisted. Hun- gary afforded her an uncompromising and generous support ; rejecting the offers of Napoleon, as previously those of Louis Quatorze, she still possessed her Rhenish provinces, and had not yet been tempted into fatal acquisitions on the Adriatic coasts. At that time her combination with Russia might be justified by the plea of expediency. There was a certain process of reasoning which might, though fallacious, be pur- sued, and it was the one which then earned conviction to some, and was employed as an argument for others — it was the reasoning of Kaunitz, and to this effect : — " Russia will become dangerous to Europe when she has got the control of the Black Sea and the possession of Constantinople. To prevent this result, one of two courses has to be adopted, either that of resisting her, or that of sharing with her. Unless we are to go to war with her on a field where she is strong and experienced, and the powers of Europe weak and ignorant, we must join with her, and so neutralise the effect of her conquests upon ourselves."

Events confuted this reasoning, both as regards Europe and Turkey. Europe, which had been next to indifferent, so long as it was a question between Muscovites and Tartars, became seriously alarmed when Germans interposed. The forces of Frederick II, by their rapid march into Silesia, dissolved on that side the theory doomed to signal refutation at Bosnia, Serai, and Belgrade. Russia, alone, profited by the argument. •

This was, however, but a repetition of the lesson she had received twenty years before, in the war which ended in 1774, when her previous co-operation had enabled Russia to spread

3 §

58 THE KAISER AXD THE CZAK.

herself all around the mouth of the Black Sea, and commence her career as religious protector. Austria's then delusion cannot be more condemningly exposed, even at this hour, or by her bitterest foe, than it was at the time by her own representative at Constantinople. It is singular to observe how the repre- sentatives of all the European Powers at Constantinople will almost always be found struggling against the policy and denouncing the infatuation of their Courts. At that time the Cabinet of Vienna had yielded to exactly the same seduc- tions which are employed at present. M. foe Thugut, Inter- nuncio of Austria, in replying to the assumed satisfaction with which Russia would see the aggrandisement of Austria on the side of Bosnia and Servia, points our to his Govern- ment, in a despatch which has recently been brought to light by M. Von Hammer, that Russia had the best of reasons for en- tertaining no jealousy of such aggrandisement, because " such an extension of territory, so far from strengthening the power of his Imperial Majesty, would only weaken it." The grounds of this opinion are not only of the most irrefragable truth, but of the most immediate and practical bearing on present events. They are not general or abstract — they are peculiar and local ; they would not apply to Italy or to Switzerland. They have reference not to the law of nations, or to the policy of the Powers of Europe. They exclusively apply to Servia and Bosnia, and particularly in reference to the religious con- nection of those Provinces with Russia and Turkey. " They are inhabited," says M. Thugut, " almost entirely by Maho- metans and schismatic Christians. The former would not be tolerated as residents there, the latter, considering the close vicinage of the Oriental Russian Empire, would not delay in emigrating thither, or, if they remained, their faithlessness to Austrian power would occasion continued troubles."

Such were the results obtained, such the warnings uttered, while as yet Austria had nothing to fear on the score of her own independence, whilst Russia was as yet behind the Dnieper and the Vistula ; while she had not yet seized on Poland or the Crimea ; whilst no one dreamt of her possessing the Sound, or rising into maritime preponderance. Now that Austria is herself encircled on the west as well as on the east, after owing Hungary to Russian arms, there can be in the repetition of such acts no longer a question of fallacy, but one of dependence. But dependence is less dangerous than

THE KAISER AND THE CZAR. 59

fallacy pushed to its last conclusion ; the one extinguishes reason, the other patience. Let her now then look to results — degradation at home, the contempt of Europe, which will entail practical consequences, the exasperation of Turkey, not yet muzzled, and to which, if the wild beast be there again aroused, Austria will be cast the first prey.

The gravity of the Russo-Turkish case resides not in the military, but in the religious view of it. As it is presented to us, we have not to consider a collision between the Nizam and the Russian armies, but a concert between the Czar and the Christian population of European Turkey. Now, if such be in reality the case, it is impossible to conceive a more fatal alliance for Russia than that of Austria. That Christian popu- lation can support the Czar only upon the grounds that his protection is yielded to them by love of the Church, and not with the view of political domination. If he associates him- self with Austria, they must at once see that his object is not religious but political.

This population has no grievance with the Porte on mere religious grounds ; there is no polemical schism with the Mussulmans ; the total separation between Mussulman and Christian, together with the toleration of the Mussulman Government, takes away all animosity on that* side. No proselytism, keeping alive in the village and the individual a constant sense and instinct of warfare, has been carried on. Not so with the Latins. The differences between the two churches are so slight, that there is an incessant temptation to, and dread of, attack in matters of faith, which are more exciting to the spirit of man than invasion of territory. The two bodies are everywhere in presence ; both are animated with the spirit of proselytism and the competition of privi- leges. The two bodies look to rival Foreign Potentates as their protector or as their enemy ; the one to the Emperor at St. Petersburg, the other to the Emperor at Vienna. The Emperor at Vienna pensions the Latin priests in Turkey ; the Emperor at St. Petersburg pensions the Greek priests in Turkey and in Austria. What now shall we say of the asso- ciation of the two ? Must not the " Greeks," that is to say, the 12,000,000 of European Turkey — not Greeks, indeed, m race or tongue — consider this alliance alike menacing and in- sulting to their faith, as well as fatal to their independence ?

War with Turkey is not, therefore, at present contemplated

60 EVACUATION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES.

by Russia ; for, by the co-operation of Austria, she would lose her " Greek55 allies, but she involves Austria in a preparatory collision, which will bring Servia into a condition parallel to that of the Principalities. Thus will be introduced a religious warfare between Latins and Greeks. But the course which we here indicate has been announced beforehand, together with the necessities upon which it was based. We close the case with the following passage from the 'Progress of Russia in the West, North, and South,' which embraces a wide range of future contingencies : —

" To prepare for her possession, Russia has to raise a religious persecution between Mussulmans and Christians. She must engage Austria in a war of extermination ayaimt tlte neighbouring populations. By these means, or a union of the Roman and Russian Churches, she must break the confederacy of Greeks and Latins, which is sure to be formed against her. Besides these local operations, she has to work out a war between England and France and a European revolution. Such are the preliminary steps to the elevation of the Christian subjects of Turkey to the rank of serfs and the pagans of Christendom, for the long-promised mass of St. Sophia."

We will in a subsequent article show how Russia, by a sudden shifting of decorations, may render her own occupation of the Principalities acceptable to Turkey, as a protection against the Austrian occupation of Servia, and thus mutually engage Austria and Turkey in projects of dismemberment, and support them therein.

EVACUATION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES.

August 24th.

On the 8th of August, the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Lord Clarendon) declared that he "considered the entire evacuation of the Provinces as a sine qua non of any agree- ment whatever." The Secretary for the Home Department in the House of Commons, on the 20th of August, stated that he was "confident that the Emperor of Russia will, make a merit of evacuating the Principalities after the settlement with Turkey."

EVACUATION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES. 61

This contingent and eventual " merit" is to be prompted by the spontaneous regard of the Emperor of Eussia to his "own honour and character" — an honour and character which, according to the Home Secretary, " every sovereign of a great country must always be inspired by." Such being the opinion of the English Government, in reference to the securities of public right, we demand why it was not announced at the beginning of the Session, instead of being reserved to the close ? We demand why the squadron was sent to Besika Bay to insult the honour of this Sovereign of a great country by an unfounded suspicion and an offensive act ?

We might further ask, to what end the Parliament votes ships and men, and why the Crown sends embassies? If " everywhere " or " always " great sovereigns are endowed with " honour and character," nowhere or never can armies or fleets be required, either for attack or for defence, and the labour of ambassadors and diplomatists must be expended in vain. Such, nevertheless, are the words of a British states- man ; they are the last sounds issuing from Parliament at the close of this session, in the course of which unheard-of dis- plays of fleets and armies have been made, as if these expe- dients had acquired an importance unknown for many pre- vious years ; and notes and other diplomatic instruments have been drawn up, as if ambassadors had acquired a novel importance in human affairs.

Bating the peculiar phraseology of the Secretary for the Home Department, we obtain the simple and naked fact that England has withdrawn all conditions in reference to the evacuation, and has left that matter contingent for the future, as for the past, upon any discussion, upon any subject, which it may please the Emperor of Russia to raise with the Porte. This, at the close of the session, is the statement of the Go- vernment— it was ours at the opening of the discussion. The Foreign Minister was not in the secret, and used un- guarded language. The Home Minister was the managing man, and the end proves that he has been coherent from the beginning.

But, irrespective of the ample field opened by the words of Lord Palrnerston, " The settlement with Turkey," as it actually stands, is as desirable a quarrel as can well be con- ceived, and at the very moment that this declaration is made, there is tumbled into it nothing else than the occupation of

62 EVACUATION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES.

another province by another great State. The last news from Constantinople, as given by the Times itself, conveys the in- telligence of the determination of the Porte, in consequence of the news from Serbia, " not to make any other concession, and, moreover, not to send an ambassador to St. Petersburg until the Russians to a man shall have quitted the Princi- palities." Supposing now that the Russian Government is watching for the words that fall from the English Govern- ment, in order to adjust its policy thereby, what, in the present case, would be its position? In Lord Clarendon's words, it would see England allied with Turkey, and resolved to clear the Principalities. In the words of Lord Palmerston, it would see England uniting with Russia to force Turkey to a settlement before clearing the Principalities.

Supposing, again, Turkey equally watching the language of the English Cabinet, it would, in like manner, be influ- enced in opposite senses by the words of the Home and the Foreign Secretaries. According to the Foreign Secretary, it is backed in its resolution not to send to St. Petersburg until the Principalities are evacuated. According to the Home Secretary, it must send to St. Petersburg before that event, or find England united with Russia against it. By the mouth of the one Secretary we compromise the Turks into resistance ; by the mouth of the other we compromise the Russians into aggression. The world had already been long cursed with one Foreign Department in England. Are we now to be inflicted with two ?

What is the " foreign policy " of England it has long been impossible to tell, but we did know who was the "Foreign Minister." Escaping us in the abstract, we held it in the concrete, and could say, "Here is the man, such is the name." Now England, reeling like a drunken man, beholds two suns, and knows not which is which. The two faces of Janus were at least so placed as to prevent squabbles between them. The three heads of Cerberus worried not each other. We have now for Foreign Minister, at once, a biform and a triform chimera, the one bearing two departmental masks, three Parliamentary heads the other — Clarendon and Palmerston the first; Clarendon, Palmerston, and Russell the second; not t\vo faces to one head, nor three heads to one body, but all living, moving, and acting apart.

Some years ago there was imported into London from

AUSTRIA AND THE UNITED STATES. 63

St. Petersburg a sort of human orchestra, for it consisted of performers playing each a single note. This was a private speculation, and has now been improved upon. The Czar has now got a compendious horn band in the three Foreign Secre- taries.

But are honour and character, so requisite in Sovereigns of great countries, to be discarded in the ministers of great countries ? Is a Minister of England released, by the fact of his possessing power, from the necessity of retaining character ; by becoming Secretary of State, does he cease to be a gentleman ? Lord Clarendon has not been hitherto broken in to the discipline of the Foreign office ; it has not yet become habitual for him to violate his pledge or to break a word. He has now to make his option, and has not a moment to lose. The declaration of his colleague has placed him between office and infamy. In other times, no man would have associated with him if after such a declaration he had remained a Member of the Cabinet ; in other times the Members of that Cabinet would have been torn to pieces in the streets. No such disgrace at present is in reserve for the man who breaks his word, no such penalties for the man who betrays his country. If, then, Lord Clarendon adopts the better and nobler part, it will be from higher motives than the dread of consequences. By resigning office on such grounds, he will strike a heavier blow against the power of Hussia than if, by his own unaided efforts, he had obtained that evacuation which, a fortnight ago, he considered the preliminary condition of " any agreement whatever."

AUSTRIA AND THE UNITED STATES.

August 24^.

The Austrian Government has published a note in refer- ence to the proceedings at Smyrna, in which it quotes Vattel to show how sacred are the obligations of international law, and how incompatible with its dictates is the assumption of subordinate authorities to act in a manner involving the Royal prerogative of peace and war. But that Government does not proceed to bring broadsides to bear, the only legitimate consequence of such a declaration. In fact, it places itself in

64- AUSTRIA AND THE UNITED STATES.

respect to the United States, as Turkey has been placed by Europe in respect to Russia, proclaiming wrongs which it has not the courage to redress. But what wrong has Austria suffered — what right has she to appeal to the law of nations ?

It is a maxim, perhaps antiquated to-day, but still a maxim, that " he who comes into court should have his hands clean." And what had Austria done? Kidnapped an individual in Turkish territory. Here only Turkey was the sufferer, and of course the Anglo-Saxons across the Atlantic were very much to blame in taking the defence of a barbarous empire which the Anglo-Saxons on this side of the Atlantic treat in a very different manner.

The incident, however, induces us to revert to some acts of Austria's patron and compeer, and we would recommend her, the next time she refers to the interference of subordi- nate authorities with the prerogatives of peace and war, to direct her remarks to the Russian Generals, who are some- what inclined to infringe in this respect on the rights of their Master, having " without orders from St. Petersburg," within the last few years, once entered the territories of Turkey and once entered her own — Transylvania.

However, it is absolutely necessary that the United States be put out of court. They are bidding fair to reap a fine harvest in the Eastern hemisphere, not of their own sowing, but by the diligent culture of the old States. Already have instructions reached their representatives, from the Sound to the Bosphorus, to act with vigour, and to report upon any cases of injury in which the citizens of the United States may be the sufferers, and also in those affecting other indi- viduals who may not be duly protected. A wide sphere is thus opened for the acuteness and benevolence, for the industry and resolution, of the Republican representatives, who are not slow to apprehend the import of the words, nor mys- terious in reference to their receipt.

In pursuance of this new line of policy, three of their frigates, in sight of the failing courage and stationary flags of the Anglo-French squadrons at Besika Bay, cleared the redoubtable Dardanelles, and made sad havoc among the parchment shoals so terrible to British navigators. Their Commander declared that he knew nothing about treaties, and passed on. Doubtless the American Minister at Con-

AUSTRIA AND THE UNITED STATES. 65

stantinople had reported upon the unprotected state of the Ottoman Empire, and probably Captain Ingraham, having found the waters open to the Bosphorus, may discover that upon the coast of Circassia, and on the mountains of the Caucasus, there are some millions of individuals similarly situated to M. Kossta ; or he may turn his attention to the western side of the Euxine, where there are also some mil- lions of individuals in the circumstances contemplated by the instructions of the Foreign Department of Washington. The same case is again presented north of the Euxine ; or, turning from the Euxine to the Baltic, the Sound is equally clear as the Dardanelles from diplomatic obstructions — for the commanders of the United States^ as they have not bound themselves to exclude their men-of-war from the one, so have they not bound themselves to pay toll for the passage of their merchantmen through the other.

The United States have long lain under the imputation of a connivance with Russia. That spell seems now to be broken. Let Mr. Pierce but follow out what he has com- menced— let him rise but above the paltry whisperings that subdue the intrigue-ridden Cabinets of Europe, and he will elevate his country on the ruins of the reputation of the great empires, not by injuring, but by maintaining public right and honour. He will place himself, too, foremost in the rank of men who have known how to use power and to seize occasion.

He can retrieve in the East all that has been lost, with- out sending another ship, or expending a single dollar. Let him but place the three frigates, now or recently in the Bosphorus, beside the Turkish squadron, and he holds from that hour the Russian army in the provinces as his hostages. They are there at the mercy of any Power that commands the Black Sea. The Turkish squadron is fully a match for the Russian. Supported by a single American vessel, there cannot be a question that Turkey would declare war. It is not too late. The Russians are not going to evacuate. Let them build fortresses ; let them accumulate troops ; let Austria occupy Serbia — it matters nothing. From the Eux- ine, Russia is vulnerable to her very heart. Her whole care is given to protect that part ; it is protected solely by the command which her Embassies hold over a certain clique in Paris and in London. If the Russian mission at Washington

66 THE BRITISH PRESS AND RUSSIA.

does not possess, or acquire, the same command, and if the United States desire to maintain Europe free, there is nothing to prevent her from playing this part, or enjoying the honour of seeing at her feet that Czar who tramples on the Crowns of Europe.

THE BRITISH PRESS AXD RUSSIA.

August 25M.

The moving power in great concerns lies in the brain. The spring which sets a going the vastest machinery lies coiled within the circumference of a few inches. The working head is always one ; although millions be engaged on the one side, and millions on the other, it is always between the best sculls on the two sides that conclusions are tried. But what should we say of a contest in which there was brain on the one side only, and, on the other, only noses and ears ? This is, unfortunately, neither hypothesis nor fable, but fact. There is a great struggle now in the world because of an unequal distribution of brain, which has pitted itself against an immense number of arms and legs.

It would be but a natural leaning to our calling and order if we were to say that the best brain that Great Britain can afford belongs to the Fourth Estate, exercises itself in leaders and issues on the world, through the columns of one or the other of the daily press, and, in fact, which is no longer a secret, that the leading political personages are fain to assume onr colours, and to apply their lips to the editorial trumpet, so that, be it in one shape or the other, the best ability of England is at the present moment exercised in the Press, the more pre-eminently does this ability stand out by the reserve of Government and the next to total sup- pression of speech in Parliament regarding a matter which so profoundly agitates England, Europe, and the world.

If now we take the leaders which we might select from half a dozen papers, and pit them against the documents which have appeared from the Russian Cabinet, there can be no Englishman that will not feel proud in the comparison, and no Eussian that must not feel disheartened and ashamed.

We of the Fourth Estate have first of all shown a courage

THE BRITISH PRESS AND RUSSIA. 67

which seems rather to belong to men of the sword than of the pen. We have exhibited a profoundness and a discrimi- nation belonging rather to the careworn student than to the agitated champions of forensic debate. We have shown a lofty patriotic zeal above all mercenary considerations and human affections, and, so qualified, have braced ourselves to the contest, and girded ourselves to the race, smiting Eussia at every turn, heading her in every reach, beating her at fact, exposing her at fallacy, and leaving her neither a feather to wave, nor a leg to stand upon.

It is quite true that we move on different levels. Our thought goes forth in an article, and wanders in thin air; hers in a despatch, and results in fact. Her writing tells on the subjugation of states and the fate of men; our words pass into the region of debate, and evaporate in a perusal. But is it our fault that we are not the Government ? The British Press has made war upon Russia, and has thoroughly beaten her as far as they are concerned. Russia has made war upon England,'and has thoroughly beaten her in as far as facts were concerned. Each party has had its triumph, and neither has regarded the success of the other. Russia has not cared one fig for our words, nor England (the England of fact) cared one straw for her deeds.

What does it avail them to write against Russia ? Nothing as regards the moment, but a great deal as preventing the misrepresentation of present facts from becoming the data of future history. For instance : —

On the 15th of this month two articles appeared in the Times of the most singular and malicious perversity : one of them scoffing at the alarms with respect to Russia, and treating that Power as a bugbear ; the other exciting the nation against France, and arousing France against us, by a pretended revelation of a perfidious understanding against her, entered into between the Derby Cabinet and Russia. On the following morning one groan arose from the whole press of London — every single journal denounced the " Rus- sian tool of Printing House Square." One of the most vehement of the protesters on this occasion was the Morning Post. It writes : —

«« We trust that this last attempt of the Times, to sow division and distrust between the Governments of France and England, will fail as signally as its every effort has hitherto

68 THE BRITISH PRESS AXD RUSSIA.

done. We have been at the pains of rectifying its constant blunders, and we have not unfrequently exposed its subser- viency to Russian influence. On the present occasion, when to mistakes it adds inventions, calculated to rouse against us the national sentiment of France, which, were the Times to be believed, might justly call us 'perfidious' — inventions which blacken our character," Sec.

Now the Morning Post has taken the stand for many years of a partizan of Russia ; not a partizan in the sense which the word " Russian " in these days implies, but in the open and legitimate one of adherence to the principles of that Government as Conservative, and of respect for the character of its policy as honourable. \Ve may differ from the*judg- inent in these respects of the Post, but we respect the sincerity of its conclusions. It is with all the more satis- faction that we at present hail its double conversion, alike in reference to the purposes of Russia as in reference to the necessity of a strict alliance with France, because of need, not because of principles.

Well, in the selfsame article in which Lord Malmesbury is defended against the imputations of the Times, Lord Cla- rendon is attacked in a way to produce precisely the same effect upon the French mind. It takes occasion, from the reference of the Foreign Secretary' to the past intimate rela- tions of France and England, to revert to those events since the year 1823 in a manner to reveal an alarming uncertainty of public opinion on matters where it is requisite that judg- ment should be fixed, in order that we may know where we stand. It quotes the differences in regard to Spain in 1836 ; those of 1840 in reference to Syria ; those of 1847 in reference to the Spanish marriages; that is to say, the three events which ruptured the alliance between England and France, as instances of France's misconduct and of England's endurance. Xow, if we revert to the contemporary columns of the Morning Post, we will find that it took at the time a different view of these transactions. But, leaving the Post and its contradictions, the fact remains that, in our relations with our great neigh- bour, opposite conclusions can be eefually asserted ; that one thing can be said one day, and another the next ; and that the English nation at this moment does not know, and cannot tell, whether, in these transactions, it has injured France, or been injured by France. We cannot dispose of them, as the

THE BRITISH PRESS AND RUSSIA. 69

Post has done, in a sentence, but we will make one remark before quitting them ; in each, it was not France, but Eng- land, who took the initiative. The Spanish Treaty was forced upon the French Ministry. The subsequent measure which alarmed the French Government was proposed by England. The Syrian Treaty was proposed by Russia, and accepted by England, France being kept in the dark. The Spanish marriages came out of the violation of a compact by the English Ministry, in proposing a Prince of Coburg as a candidate at Madrid. In fact, all action during the last quarter of a century has proceeded from England, that is to say, from Russia, through England.

However, whether England or France be to blame, Russia is equally served. Disunion between England and France is her end and her profit. The Minister of either country who lays the grounds for it is emphatically a " Rus- sian " Minister ; and the real test by which to know a " Russian " journalist in London or in Paris, is not vehement phrases directed against that distant state, but irritating sen- tences against the neighbouring one.

While, therefore, the press of this country has been engaged in a crusade of idle speech against Russia, there are consi- derable grounds for apprehending that no small portion of these compositions have been inspired by the Russian Em- bassy, if not concocted in that department ; as it is startling to consider that, while the English press is to so great an extent in her hands, there is no countervailing action on the part of England. Who ever heard of an English article in the Northern Bee or the Journal des Invalid es !

For ourselves we have made our anti-Russian war in a different spirit. We have sought to direct the attention of the nation not to an object where their censure is futile, but to one where, if exerted, it is a weapon of power. We have not called upon it to vituperate the Czar, but to condemn British statesmen. We have sought to divert its indignation from a foreign enemy, concentrate, it upon its own servants, weakly or perfidiously using the power placed in their hands, against the nation that trusts and the enemy that uses and despises them. We have not even endeavoured to make these Ministers scapegoats of a nation's heedlessness, but have charged upon the people itself the guilt of that betrayal for which, unless perceived in time, the nation itself, and

70 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES.

not the Ministers, must suffer. For the other journals, the events of the East are, however, treated, matters of foreign policy ; for us they are matters of domestic policy ; and of these the first, combining as they do the material condition of our working population, the averting of a war, not with Russia, but with France, involving the security and possession of India; but, above all, incapacity, dishonour, and irre- sponsibility in the high officers of State.

We have further suggested a remedy, not "indeed in the expectation that it would be brought actually into operation, but that it may ferment in the public mind. That remedy is the restoration of a process upon which all internal liberty must be founded, and by supercession of which all national greatness and prosperity must in the end be sacrificed : that process is IMPEACHMENT.

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES.— THE CORN TRADE.

August

The most important branch of the Eastern question has yet to be opened. It is no other than England and bread — or food and the food of Europe.

The adjustment to labour of its remunerating price depends partly, indeed, upon votes of Parliament, but partly, also, on whispers of diplomatists ; and the great triumph of Free Trade may be filched away by a private instruction, even though penned by a Free-Trade Minister. The danger of war in the West — the realized convulsion in the East, hinge upon the com trade; and a per-centage upon exportation will ultimately determine who is to be master of the world.

Very few countries are adapted for the production of corn for exportation to any large amount ; for they require to com- bine conditions severally rare — of extensive plain lands, moderately fertile under a genial climate, and not densely populated, with access to the sea, or facilities of transport by means of great rivers. These conditions are realized and combined in Europe only in three States — Austria in regard to Hungary, Turkey, and Russia.

Up to the period of the French Revolution, the western

THE CORN TRADE. 71

kingdoms of Europe sufficed each for its own consumption, and it is only within sixty years that the grain trade has become one of importance, exhibited in the first instance by the neces- sities of France, at that time rescued from starvation by the supplies afforded to it by the Ottoman Empire. The subse- quent European wars enabled Russia to establish her great exporting system, in consequence of the necessities of the European States, through the devastation of their lands and the interruption of their industry. The peace was followed by an unparalleled impulse, simultaneously given to popu- lation and mechanics. The power of steam, and, at a later period, its application to land conveyance, proving available for the increase of every branch of human industry, with the exception of agriculture, are silently operating a revolution in the very basis of national existence, as compared with former periods. The nations of the West are daily becoming less capable of supplying themselves with food ; thousands of mouths are daily added to the number of those to be fed. Our own condition affords an example of what will soon be general throughout the West, and is for ourselves but a step only in the progress that has been commenced. A few years ago England was able to feed herself; she now buys grain to the value of £12, 000, 000 per annum. Supposing peace to remain undisturbed, in about half a generation more, England, France, and Germany, may have to import to the amount of between £30,000,000 and £40,000,000 sterling. This prospect is indeed an alarming one for us. but it opens the vastest expectations for those countries which possess yet uncultivated regions thinly stocked with people.

The upper Basin of the Danube, or Hungary, is the one nearest us, and the one which may be supposed to enter for the first and largest share in this demand. Except, how- ever, for the countries adjoining to it, it depends upon a river for the faculty of selling its produce to Europe. That river is the Danube,* so that we may put Hungary aside as ex- cluded from the competition. The matter then rests between Russia and Turkey ; that the latter country is possessed of the requisite resources was proved in the year 1847, when it supplied, from its European Provinces alone, more grain than

* By recent intelligence from St. Petersburg, I understand that the celebrated dredging machine has been employed to transport blocks of stone and to sink them on the bar.

72 RUSSIA AXD THE UNITED STATES.

the whole of Southern Kussia, or about 500,000 tons, whilst the Russian ports, those of the Danube inclusive, supplied only 430,000 tons. This, however, was but an accidental circumstance arising from the increase in price in Europe, which tided the exportation of Turkey over a duty on ex- portation, which in ordinary years amounts to a prohibition. That duty is nominally 12 per cent., but it is so calculated as to amount in reality* to 25 per cent, on grain, and 50 per cent, on Indian corn. This duty has been imposed by the Treaty of Commerce with England, concluded in 183 S', and has had the effect of extinguishing the Turkish trade in grain. But that Treaty has not been applied to the Dauubian Provinces, Austria having objected to surrender, as regards them, the ancient rights of free traffic granted by Turkey to all foreign Powers ; consequently, and in spite of the obstruc- tions at the mouth of the Danube, the grain trade of the Provinces has been maintained, and has, within the last few years, acquired so vast a development, that the exporta- tion to England alone, directly and indirectly, amounts to 1,500,000 quarters, with the prospect of further increase. It is calculated that their production for exportation would be doubled in a single year, by a reduction of 10 per cent, on charges, and the canal on the Danube, which might be executed in four months, would reduce charges 20 per cent.

The spectacle of this prosperity has not been without an influence on the minds of the Turks. "When they signed the Treaty of 1838, they were not aware of its consequences, or understood nothing of its provisions. Seeing, however, the wealth flowing into Wallachia and Moldavia, they have begun to understand that, by abrogating the export duty, the remainder of the empire might equally profit. They have been, besides, successfully engaged in remodelling their finances; in the course of 1851, they effected a most im- portant reform in the direct tribute, by the displacement of the farmers of revenue, and, at the close of their financial year, in March, 1853, the Treasury was found to have profited on that item to the amount of between 25 and 30 per cent. The persons who had urged this change, with their hands strengthened by these results, were now addressing them- selves to the export duties, and at the moment that Russia decided on passing the Pruth, they were full of confidence of obtaining in this point similar success.

THE CORN TRADE. 73

In surrendering the prohibitory export duty, the Turkish Government would still have realised the tithe which is its principal revenue on all the grain exported ; whereas it profits nothing from that which is sent from the Danube. But if the grain from the Danube, under all the disadvantages with which it has to contend, is superseding in the markets of Europe that from Russia, it is evident that the Turkish Pro- vinces situated further to the South, and so much nearer to the European marts, would have been enabled to supply, at a lower rate than Russia, the actual demand ; so that, in a couple of years at the furthest, the grain trade would have been transferred from Russia to Turkey.

The consequences of this transfer would have affected many other branches. It would have been paid for, not in gold, but in goods. It would have occupied, exclusively, British shipping, and the price of grain would itself have been lowered. The first commercial house in Smyrna, in an estimate — a copy of which, I believe, was communicated to Mr. Cobden — calculates that the opening of the Turkish ports would enable average grain to be landed at Liverpool or Dublin at 20*. per quarter. While, therefore, the internal condition of Turkey would have been consolidated, the available sources of supply would have been multiplied, and a considerable reduction effected in the price of labour, and an impetus given to the manufacturing energies of England. These results Russia has anticipated by crossing the Pruth. It has already been remarked by the Times that this event has disturbed the whole condition of Europe, and interfered at once with the productiveness of the looms of Spitalfields and Lyons, and with the food of the weavers. By the occu- pation of the Principalities, Russia has obtained the same result as she would quietly, unobtrusively have obtained, had the English Treaty of Commerce been applied to them. She has, besides, consumed upon the spot the harvest that would otherwise have reached London, Liverpool, and Dublin, and, independently of the permanent alteration, has made an im- mediate profit of not less than £5,000,000 sterling. What she gains somebody loses. That loss falls immediately on the populations', but ultimately, as we have seen, upon the English artizan. With our complicated machinery, a dis- turbance in one point brings disturbance in all, and the

4

74 RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES,

capitalist and the revenue will not escape when the labourer is smitten.

Kussia's act involves in its consequences either the incor- poration of the Ottoman Empire or the maintenance of the restriction on exportation. In both cases the effect on Eng- land is the same as regards the corn trade. She equally obtains its monopoly ; draws into her own hands the export duty, permanently realising a large revenue, and able at moments of crisis politically to command Europe by the threat of starving it. Such are the commercial bearings of the passage of the Pruth. It is also to be observed, that the restriction of exportation becomes a means of incorporation, for it destroys property and prepares convulsion ; and further, that Russia has possessed trade, and consequently power and influence, in so far as hitherto she has been able to introduce by art, or to retain by violence, the restrictions in Turkey.

From the moment that she has placed herself in this position, she is relieved from all the apprehensions which hitherto oppressed her, and she can boldly deal with duties, and then will come for England, she being all the time un- conscious and incapable of resistance, a case which involves graver results than an 8s. duty. By the English Treaty of Commerce she put a stop to a reduction in the price of grain ; by the passage of the Pruth she will impose an increase.

So much for the Old World ; let us now turn to the New. There are there lands unbounded, and Anglo-Saxon agricul- ture to work them. They are, however, at a great distance, and as in the prospective demand for grain there will be no countervailing freight, she has a margin equivalent to an out and in freight of 8,000 miles to occupy by an export duty before a question of competition arises with the United States.

It may be supposed that thence would accrue a common American and Russian interest in the necessities of Europe. But that finality does not suit the Russian Cabinet. It has long been a standing maxim and practice of that system to labour for the convulsion of every country producing raw materials ; and she has succeeded in this course. We have a flagrant instance in Turkey ; in Hungary another ; in Naples another. Its oil stood in competition with her tallow. A sum of no less than £1,250,000 was involved in the free

THE CORN TRADE. 75*

importation of Neapolitan oil into England. She has means, which T have elsewhere exposed in detail, always to frustrate that end. Another instance is South America, which, with its hides, tallow, &c., endangered her exportation to the amount of £8,000,000 a year. This country, through the instrumentality of England and France, she has kept in hot water for fifteen years. That she should form any plan for the convulsion or partition of the United States, will, of course, appear so preposterous as to be set down to the score of insanity ; and I content myself therefore with merely as- serting that such is her interest, such her system, that she has brought greater adventures to a happy termination, and that every scheme of hers has equally been set down as insane until she has shown it to be rational. But at least she will not neglect any opportunity afforded to her by in- ternal causes or external events, for bringing about a political condition which will prove unfavourable to production. There is no countiy upon which her eye has been more intently fixed, there is no country against which her animosity more fiercely burns. The rivalry of manufacturing countries is nothing to the rivalry of countries producing raw materials. In all other cases that rivalry is vague, popular, unpractical, and unmeaning ; but Eussia pursues her interests in another spirit ; and as she uses commerce as an instrument of diplo- macy, so does she use the command which she exercises through her diplomacy to advance her commercial ends.

It is true, that the United States are not emasculated by a Cabinet, and may escape from her control ; but they will not do so upon their own soil. When she brings down upon them a complication involved in their local or international pas- sions, they will be helpless. Their escape can only be by carrying the war into her own quarters, and by taking their stand with Turkey, while Turkey can be yet supported. But if she does involve them in the meshes of her diplomacy, to effect which no pains or sacrifices will be spared ; then, it will no longer be in years to come a question of an " 8s. duty," but of a " shifting scale " — a scale which will not be for the protection of English landlords, or the benefit of an English Treasury, but of a tax which England and Europe shall pay to Russia, shifting upwards, not by the accidents of our har- vests, but by the calculation of her power, and our powerlessness .

This present condition and prospective fate arises out of a

76 APPROACHING CONFLIC.T OF

treaty which England proposed to the Porte, and which it induced the Porte to sign as the condition of affording it support against Mehemet Ali Pacha. That treaty was adopted after long debates, for the express purpose of emancipating the export trade of Turkey. By the alteration of a clause, the value of which was unobserved at the time, the treaty, as subsequently signed, effected the very opposite object. Russia's success in this case was not achieved at Constan- tinople, but in London. It was not the subserviency of a Turkish Minister ; it was not the prostration of the Ottoman Empire that was available for her ; it was the corruption of an English Minister, and the imbecility of the British Empire. The other nations of Europe all adhere to this treaty, because they believe it was " a master-stroke of political design," by which "the influence of Russia was for ever overthrown." The United States have not joined this treaty ; they are in this respect as free as they are in respect to the Dardanelles and the Sound. Let. therefore, the Cabinet of Washington be aware of the motives which Russia has to overreach their foresight, and seduce them into false courses. Once that Cabinet reduced to the condition of those of Europe, and she has nothing further in the wide world to apprehend.

APPROACHING CONFLICT OF RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES.

Augmt 11th.

Lord Jeffrey, being once asked by an American what the people of England thought of their manner of conducting the war, replied, " The people of England are ignorant of the fact, that we are at war." Things have greatly altered since 1812. Then if we threw off an invading expedition more or less across the Atlantic, it was a matter of utter indifference ; now a sensation is produced in London, by the mere arrival of an American diplomatist . The United States citizens, on their side, seem to be fully aware of the impression they produce, and careful to behave in a manner befitting their new station. They have selected from out the 24,000,000, one individual as the man of all the Union fitted for the post of its repre-

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES. 77

sentative in London, and we refer to the fact, as a remarkable instance of the accuracy of public instinct. Who would have suspected that the go-a-head, money-making Republicans should have so completely hit off the character of England, as to assign as the chief reason for the selection of Mr. Buchanan for the post of Minister to' Queen Victoria, his being "well acquainted with the decided and strongly marked characteristics of the Emperor Nicholas ?" Such at least is the view of the New York Journal of Commerce. It might almost be supposed that they were recommending a substitute for Lord Aberdeen.

The Hon. James Buchanan is commended for his ex- perience in Foreign Affairs, as a practical diplomatist formed during his mission to Russia, and of being peculiarly qualified for the management of those new and delicate relations into which the United States are about to enter, by his " ripe experience in the great questions that agitate foreign nations." and his familiarity " with all the men who have any minis- terial eminence in Europe." If this be the case — and we doubt it not — then may the United States really congra- tulate themselves upon his nomination ; for the Hon. James Buchanan will thus he able neither to do any mischief in London nor in Washington. In London there will only be one Russian the more ; but it may be something at Wash- ington that there should be one Russian the less.

If the United States are to take a new line they must have new men ; if they are to adopt the policy of their own they must have men of their own. They want not experience in evil things, but superiority to them ; not the habits, but the ignorance of evil practice ; the sense of right not of diplomacy.

M. de Tocqueville, in a daring attempt to ostracise the old races and empires of the earth, whether of Europe or of Asia, has delivered the future fates of the universe to two young giants, who, according to him, are first to grow over their respective hemispheres, and then to enter into fierce contest for the palm. These are the United States and Russia. This was a far reaching into futurity, and a step- ping over of intermediary wars, convulsions, generations, and centuries. Would it not be strange if this struggle were realised in another fashion, and in our day ; and if the United States, belying the atrocious libel of the French doctrinaire,

78 APPROACHING CONFLICT OF

should stand forward for the protection of those states and empires severally to be swallowed up, according to this hypo- thesis, by themselves and by their antagonist, even before the struggle could commence ? It would, indeed, be strange ; but it does not appear improbable, for it presents attractions to the American character which it is ever difficult for it to resist, and at the same time, an opportunity for retrieving its own self-respect, deeply wounded by the imputations cast upon its public honour by various circumstances of very dubious political integrity, whether in relation to international, or to pecuniary transactions.

What we see at present is not an accidental occurrence, or a capricious resolve — it is a step in a progress which had a beginning, and which has an object. The matter has already its history. We are arrived at a point of very great im- portance in itself, and the commencement of a new phase ;* it is therefore essential to review the past in order to be able to anticipate the chances of the future.

It was the maxim of the great Republican leaders that the Union should isolate itself from the Old World, and use the Atlantic as a protecting ditch ; a consequence of this maxim was the endeavour to exclude European influence from the continent of America — a sentiment expressed in a then familiar expression, "we must root out monarchy and ma- sonry from the New World." The Spanish power in the colonies of the South was verging to its decline, and in the north Canada was expected to fall to them " by contract." Russia was, however, no more idle in this region that in any other, and the conflict going on in the American colonies was taken advantage of to call into life and being, simultaneously in both hemispheres, Diplomatic action. While she urged (in 1819) France and Spain to efforts for the re-conquest of the colonies ; and proposed the scheme which will be found published in the British " State Papers" of that year for the

* M. Soule, the new American Representative at Madrid, address- ing his compatriots before his departure, used these words : — "What a noble career is befoi-e us ! At this moment, when the greatest kingdoms of the earth have their present interests and future welfare suspended in the balance of peace or war, it may be that a small whisper from this country u-ill decide their fate more potently than the decrees of emperors, or the fiats of kings and princes. This is the mi -ion cf America; this mission I shall support as far as I am able."

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES. 79

establishment of Bourbon dynasties in those transatlantic states ; she was suggesting at Washington the adoption of a general protectorate of American Republicanism, with a view to which were undertaken the Conferences of Tacubaya — in fact she prepared a European confederacy for the re-conquest of the colonies and a transatlantic confederacy for their pro- tection— of both of which she was the spring, and of both of which she would have become the directress. The project, however, was thwarted by Mr. Canning, who detected her purpose, and who, by recognising the independence of these colonies, withdrew from her on both sides her means of action. However an intimate alliance at that time sprung up between the cabinets of St. Petersburg and Washington — an alliance publicly revealed and gloried in by the President, in his message following on the death of the Emperor Alexander.

We pass over intermediate events. The United States were occupied in extending their limits, multiplying their people, building ships and cities, trafficking and making money, until wealth, which they wished to enjoy, prosperity which they desired to refine, turned their thoughts, and inclined their feelings to the older nations, and brought them in shoals as tourists to spread themselves over Europe, from Naples to Lapland, from Cadiz to the Bosphorus. Still, it was as individuals that they associated themselves with us — the build of their Government was still undiplomatic, their policy transatlantic, and their public feeling averse to, and contemptuous of, the agitations of European States. The first event that struck upon their mind arid produced rever- berating tones, was the struggle and the fall of Hungary. The impressions might, however, have faded away with the occasion that produced them, had it not been for the visit to their shores, as an exile and a suppliant, of a man who, by the peculiarities of his character and the gift of eloquence, had instituted himself the head of that people. Possessing the English tongue, which he could use in a certain archaic form, the effect of which surpassed that of the purest diction, Kossuth was enabled to stir their minds by a succession of historiccnl pictures, and implanted the leaven of a new public life. Kossuth, indeed, fell into disrepute, but the leaven worked ; the maxim of the old Republican leaders vanished away, and there arose in its stead a feeling and an impulse

80 APPROACHING CONFLICT OF

directly the reverse — that of usin£ the Atlantic no longer a9 a barrier, but as a medium, and of seeking honour and profit, of indulging the desire of excitement, and engaging in the furtherance of cherished principles by interference in the affairs of Europe.

If the eloquence of Kossnth awakened the feeling, his reason and experience suggested the method. Whatever may be the failings of that remarkable man, in this respect he has made the world deeply his debtor. By his speeches, and the circulation given to them, he has uttered to the ear, or presented to the eye, of almost every adult in Europe and America, two propositions, startlingly in contradiction with every received opinion : the first, that the fall of Hungary is not to be attributed to the arms of Austria or Russia, but to the acts of England and France : the second, that the management of Diplomacy by secret means is fatal to the interests of the smaller States" and fatal to the character and liberties of the greater Empires — Russia excepted. On the seed so planted, and the direction so given, the recent trans- actions in the East have fallen like April showers, and thus suddenly a crop has covered with verdure a barren land. The baseness of the great States has been revealed ; the con- tempt of the Republicans for Kingly Governments and per- sonal cabals, has been justified : their' nobler feelings appealed to by the exhibition of another conspiracy, of which the Ottoman Empire is to be the victim : before the ferment had cooled, without the wish having had to frame for itself a channel to issue into action, the United States has found itself by the affair at Smyrna involved practically upon the Hungarian basis, and in defence of Turkey, against the Austrian Empire, and ipso facto, against the Russians ; at the same time the gravest question of international law is raised between them.

It is indeed a remarkable circumstance that the naturalisa- tion of a single Hungarian should unite, v.pon the same line, the United States, Hungary, and Turkey; but that result was only possible because of the utter prostration and prostitution of right in Europe; for was there ever such a case as this, that at the moment that Austria had committed at Smyrna an act, we will not say of war but of piracy, quite as flagrant as that of Russia, in crossing the Pruth, the Powers of Europe should have associated with Austria in

RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES. 81

mediating between Russia and Turkey, and made her their mouthpiece ?

This, however, is not all. Austria, by a step of the most inconceivable infatuation, instead of hushing up the matter, and knowing the responsibility upon her subordinate officers, drags it into all the Courts of Europe, compromising the United States Government into the necessity of maintaining then- act on every separate field, and encouraging them to proceed in a policy commenced under such favourable auspices alike by the argumentative weakness of her case, and the revealed powerlessness of her Government.

We were under a moment's apprehension lest the Cabinet of the United States should shrink from accepting and adopting the act of her representative at Constantinople and her naval commander. That act has been adopted by the Government ; it has been been received with universal en- thusiasm by the people, and thus Kossuth, in 1853, has realised the attempt of Russia in 1819, to involve the Union in the affairs of Europe.

Can we suppose that Russia has been all the while indif- ferent to what was going on across the Atlantic ? If we did the articles in the Times would be sufficient to satisfy us to the contrary. Must we not trace the attacks upon the American people, and especially upon Mr. Pierce, to the same source as the denunciations against Denmark, the menaces levelled against its constitution now destroyed, the efforts to sow dissensions with France, and to excite France against England, and its whole course in reference to Turkey ? Those articles upon the United States are enough to show that Russia was alarmed at something going on at Washington. But if she has here an organ, she has there a representative. -We warn the people of the United States that their Govern- ment is actually in danger. Let them scrutinize every word, weigh every man's character; the Tempter is on them — seductions will be employed as well as fallacies — gold as well as arguments. Let them be perfectly assured that they have no man fit to cope with Russia's agent, whoever that agent may be, and whoever they may employ. It is reported by Tacitus, that when Sejanus wished to entertain Tiberius privately upon some public matter, that Emperor replied, " What you have to say put in writing, that others may see as well as I."

4 §

82 THE CHARACTER OF ENGLAND

We now announce beforehand, and with the most entire and perfect conviction, that the issue of this course will be unfortunate for the world and the United States, unless measures be at once taken to stop all chamberings in matters of diplomacy — unless, in a word, all communications from the Russian Minister be rejected except those in writing, and that the writings be communicated to some body of men beyond those immediately charged with executive functions. Let them be aware that the present disgraceful character belonging to the Governments of Europe, has resulted from the occult influence of a Cabinet whose plans and whose immorality were alike above and beneath their conception.

If it be for Russia a vital question to pervert the action of the United States, so is there here also for them a vital question : for the one is at stake the project of universal dominion ; for the other internal liberty. The means that will be employed by Russia being secret and perfidious, if successful, change in fact and essence the constitution of the Union, substituting secresy and perfidy for publicity and responsibility. Let them not be too confident either in their acuteness or in their remoteness. They have seen what has befallen an ancient and a lofty monarchy, a great and a powerful republic. Distance is no protection against an invasion of the spirit and an infection of the mind ; nor can the United States escape the fate of England and of France, except by guarding against the now revealed secret of their decline.

THE « CHARACTER " OF ENGLAND AND % THE "HONOUR" OF RUSSIA.

August WtL

In the present suspended contention there is a feature which, unperceived by us, will probably appear the most salient of all to the future historian. There are two sides in every quarrel, and two views of every case. Most quarrel? arise out of common indistinctness as to the right, and those on whose side it is not, are, above all things, careful to con- found it. What, then, can be more extraordinary than that

AND HONOUR OF RUSSIA. 83

Russia should make a quarrel with the Porte in such a manner that there should be not the slightest difference of opinion in any country or in any party in reference to it ? Now this point is more than a peculiarity — remarkable and historical. It expresses, in the most significant manner, a judgment of the Russian Cabinet. The genius of Russia h/is not grown gray that she should fail in device. If she had wished to cloak her act, it would have been cloaked, at least to the extent of presenting " another side " of the case. If she has not made the quarrel upon a point, and in a manner to baffle the penetration of Europe, it was because it was not her purpose that Europe should be deceived. It would have been a fault to introduce disguise if it was possible to brand with infamy.

With less than this she could have achieved nothing. If the Powers had assented only to an impolitic conclusion, and, raider the colour of a pretext, safeguarding their honour, or at least their self-love, they would not thereby have been bound to her, and might, at any moment, have stopped short in the course, or withdrawn from the co-operation. Yet she required their active support ta hold Turkey down. She has placed them in that position which novelists love to describe, because of the strong colouring it admits, when a man is fascinated and spell-bound by the Power of Evil, and must do his bidding to the utmost, and at all hazard to the body in this life, and to the soul hereafter. Fascinated from the beginning, compromised as they proceed, finally they arc led in chains. The indignation aroused against them in their own nation rivets those chains, and thus the Government of England, through a false reflection of the light of con- science, is actually coercing Turkey, in conjunction with Russia, in a matter which it originally entered upon to sup- port Turkey against Russia. And all this she had planned beforehand ! She had sat down to devise it as a dramatist composes the march of a play ; she creating history as he a spectacle : pursuing the game with combined excitement and attractions, of a work of the imagination to construct, a feat, of dexterity to achieve, an operation of science to advance, a system of policy to prosecute, a competition for power to render triumphant, and the possession of one or more empires to secure.

Now, as regards Turkey. Unless her act had been so

8-i THE CHARACTER OF ENGLAND

flagrant that no one at Constantinople could doubt England's course, the Porte never would have deferred to England ; in full reliance on her, it suffered itself to be betrayed into the fatal position of not resisting aggression, and of meeting acts of war with words of peace — conduct which would be fatal to, the existence of any government, however powerful, as at once placing the enemy in the most advantageous position of attack, and turning the spirit by which alone an empire can defend itself, against its own administrators.

In a very able Russian State-paper, which appeared on Saturday as a leader in the Times, the process is directly brought to bear. The resistance or hesitation of the Porte is qualified as " postive infatuation," and its authors are described as "playing to perfection the game of Russia," who is thus enabled to " claim the credit of moderation." But at the same time we are told that " fresh froops are advancing into the Principalities; the Hospodars have been induced to disobey the orders of their own sovereign, the Sultan ; the peasantry are overwhelmed by burdens imposed on them in every shape ; trade is stopped. Such is the mode in which Russia fulfils her promises ; such, &c."

Such is the Government with which England has allied itself, and such are the acts, resistance to which is "positive infatuation " on the part of Turkey, because England and France are allied to their perpetrator. These lucubrations never took birth from the mists that envelope Blackfriars- bridge; they sprang up under a latitude more fertile in vigorous conceptions.

After Russia's faithlessness is established, the Porte is scoffed out of court for not confiding in the faithfulness of her allies, " as," it continues, "the Governments which have recommended this arrangement have publicly expressed their conviction that the immediate and entire evacuation of the Principalities must instantly ensue, and the very last words uttered by Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons were to this effect, ' The Porte may fairly look to these powers for the fulfilment of that condition.' ' So, then, it is the word of Lord Palmerston upon which everything rests, the word that all Emperors, and this Emperor in particular, possessed " character and honour." Lord Palmerston simply offers to the Porte the past as a guarantee for the future, and tells it that such conduct as the Emperor of Russia has hitherto

AND HONOUR OF RUSSIA. 85

pursued, is, in the eyes of the British Government, the type of character and the soul of honour. Was not Russia, then, right in avoiding every shade to her perfidy, in the naked- ness of which consisted the very essence of her triumph ?

But Lord Clarendon had also made a declaration. What becomes of it? He expressed his cordial assent to the opinion of Lord Clanricarde, that Eussia had committed an act of piracy. He asserted that the " evacuation of the Provinces was a sine qua non of any agreement whatever." Twelve days later the declaration of Lord Palmerston comes forth, on dismissing the dupes to the moors, that this very evacuation was to be abandoned to the " honour and cha- racter " of the Emperor.

What, now, is this word of the Emperor ? Simply that he will evacuate on the termination of " the differences with the Porte," that is to say, of any differences with the Porte ; so that " his honour and character" are, by Lord Palmerston's explanation, beforehand rendered perfectly compatible with the occupation of the Principalities for all time to come.

It wilj. thus appear — not that English statesmen yield by weakness to the difficulties of the moment, but that they prepare beforehand, step by step, the ways for Russia, not only with a perfect knowledge of her " character," but also with a perfect appreciation of England's " honour."

The evil lies deeper than the sore that is exposed : it is a malady that has fixed on the vitals, and pervades the frame ; it breaks out on different parts, and recurs from time to time ; it is only the symptom that appears, and it is only the symptom that is ever proposed to deal with. The reader will anticipate that we mean Ministerial irresponsibility, but even that is not the malady to which we refer. Again, he may suspect diplomatic secrecy. No, it is diplomacy itself. That is the poisonous tree that has to be cut down, and exterminated to its very roots. It shall be our task to describe to our readers this plant of exotic birth, drawing its sap from our soil, and now covering the earth with its mephitic shadow.

86

CONSEQUENCES OF SURRENDER.

August 30M.

Russia possesses the inestimable advantage of daily placing a note or a despatch on the breakfast-table of even- political man in the Empire, instructing him as to what he is to think, for it comes in the shape of judgment upon her acts. The Times of Saturday prepared the way for the Times of Monday. In the article of Saturday, Russia is represented as insolent and aggressive, but the case is reduced to the decision of the Powers, and he of the principals is meritorious who defers to those Powers, and he obstreperous who does not. This point established, it goes on, on Monday, to charge the Porte with a " disposition to prolong negotiation, or possibly to take steps which would lead to hostilities." This is not all. The Porte, if it now does not succumb, is positively to be treated as the aggressor, " because," says the Russian writer in the Tim*8y " the Four mediating Powers are entitled to hold that these differences were satisfactorily adjusted by the note they themselves recommended."

The Times having done its work — and having been uni- versally stigmatised, not only in this country, but in all others, as a Russian tool — would, if it consulted merely its own interests, be now soundly abusing Russia, to regain character. If not, there is further work in hand. The English Government having been compromised, it is now necessary to labour to justify it, and the nation must be emasculated by the same process as the Cabinet ; it must be talked to, day by day, after the event, as the Cabinet has been talked to, day by day, for a long time before the event. We are at the beginning only. It is not approbation only for the past that is required, but subserviency for the future.

A dangerous, a difficult, and a long career is now before her, and a danger has sprung up by no means anticipated. It was not expected that the English nation would care in this case any more than in any former case. Certainly the English Cabinet would not have been so ready with its assent, had it anticipated the storm of obloquy which that assent has aroused. Perhaps, too, Russia would not have been so ready in crossing the Pruth, had she anticipated the embarrass-

CONSEQUENCES O? SURRENDER. 87

merits, from this cause, of her friends in Downing-street, or of its reaction upon the people of Turkey.

The points of resistance are at present the indignation of the English and the Turks. The first is comparatively of little avail, because it has no means of action on the Govern- ment. Not so the second. It may prevent its Government from yielding, and the knowledge that the people of England are indignant at the conduct of their Government may have a weighty effect on them. In this respect their appreciation of the part played by the Times, of which we published a striking evidence a few days ago, will not be without its value. Let them then know that if they submit they will be held to be poltroons, even by those nations of Europe who have such terrible fleets and powerful armies, which they dare not use. But if, like men taking counsel from their rights and their courage, they expel the invaders from their soil, a burst of enthusiasm, from one extremity of Europe to the other, will hail that act — not through considerations of policy, but by the instinct of manhood.

Unless they adopt this course, it will not be a Russian occupation, and all its consequences, from which they will have to suffer, but from the hostile action of England and France. The warning is duly given to them in the Times of yesterday, published to prepare England for such a course. Let them cease the unspeakable infatuation of looking to the support of England and of France; — their sole weakness is their waiting for others. Even a weak Power that expects safety from abroad, has, by that alone, lost everything worth preserving ; but what shall be said of a powerful Empire, of a proud and haughty people, of a warlike State, and a race of horsemen, who watch the nods and hang upon the whispers of a Foreign Diplomatist ?

The Turks were wont to tell a story of 50,000 Jews start- ing on a pilgrimage, who came and asked a single Turk to mount his horse and be their escort. Now we behold the 50,000 Turks humbly beseeching the escort of the Jews. To the Turkish Government we say, bad to-day, worse to- morrow ; every day must make its position worse, alike in Turkey and in Europe. Not only will the spring of its people have been arrested, but the consciousness in that peo- ple of its own strength will bring down upon the Government contempt for its incapacity, and indignation for its cowardice.

88 AXATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST.

It is the very strength of Turkey that is now its danger, for you at once excite and compress it ; and that which was an unconquerable power against Russia, will become an explo- sive force at her disposal.

When it was proposed to the Sultan to surrender the Hungarian refugees, he exclaimed, " Perish the Empire, sooner than submit to such an indignity ;" and then and by these words Turkey took her stand alone, and no one dared to molest her. Had she so much spirit to save the honour of her hospitality, and none to spare for the protection of her existence ? No State can exist, no State ought to exist, that does not, if weak, do its best at least to repel an invasion, — far less one which, being powerful, is so despicable as to endure it

AXATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST.

August 30M.

A new element has been introduced into our state— an element not only new, but unknown, or known only to be repudiated. It behoves us to examine its nature ; it would be a study as a curiosity. When we speak of a banker, a merchant, a country gentleman, a member of Parliament, a lawyer, or a soldier, we render an idea that is distinct, and designate a character that is complete, engage in an avoca- cation, the rules of which are established, and the ends of which are known. When we use any one of these terms abso- lutely, we imply in an excelling degree, certain moral attri- butes, as those of integrity in the merchant, impartiality in the judge, intrepidity in the soldier, hospitality and courtesy in the gentleman, and patriotism in the representative. When we speak of a diplomatist, all is vague in reference to the office, save, indeed, its influence and emoluments, and a diplomatist KO.T Qo\r\v conveys no moral attribute. We picture to ourselves qualities, indeed, necessarily acute, but not necessarily reputable — a man who seldom speaks the truth and never does so frankly ; who pretends to knowledge wh?n he is ignorant, and to ignorance when he is well- informed ; who is always on the watch to mask himself and

ANATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST. 89

to surprise others; whose business is to practise on cre- dulity, and whose rule of morals is expediency ; and, in fact, the qualities requisite to enable a man to be a safe de- pository of a nation's interests are those which would dis- qualify him from being the instructor of its youth, and the very reverse of those that every man would require in the person whom he would choose to call a friend.

Every public function is associated with some species of moral quality. To this rule Diplomacy is an exception, for there is not one such quality which is inherent in it, nor is there one which is not in opposition. A Diplomatist cannot be frank ; he must not be sincere. It belongs not to his avoca- tions to display courage : sympathy for the oppressed would be indecorous and out of place ; patriotism would be held to be presumption ; and the profession of purity would subject him to the darkest taint of suspicion ; yet his character is neither a neutral nor a colourless one — it consists of the opposites of the virtues. He must be generous — but it is to the oppressor; obdurate — but it is to the oppressed; self- sacrificing — but not for conscience. Obedience is his worship, and -in its service he must be all things to all men. His virtues are unscrupulousness and cunning ; and while in other respects immorality comes as accident and aberration, it is here the excellence and the essence.

In the other walks, independence is fostered by the very conditions of success, and secured by the early care of the constitution. Distinction is obtained, in the great majority of cases, by the exercise of the mind ; functions are per- formed according to an established rule of law, and, in the eyes of men ; duty is enforced not by arbitrary penalties ; service is continuous, or its termination is fixed, and against departmental tyranny or official caprice there is a protection afforded, either by the law or the rule of service.

The diplomatic branch is, in all these respects, differently situated. A man in that career has no rule but the will of his chief. His fortunes depend on the favour or ill-will of his chief, — that favour unlimited, that ill-will unmitigated in their effects. The very highest posts are disposable according to the one — the most unbearable calamities follow the other.

Suppose a military officer, unjustly treated, displaced, passed over in the natural course of advancement, or even censured : he can demand, and must obtain, a court of inquiry,

90 ANATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST.

or a court-martial. He can thus put his superiors upon their trial by forcing them to try him ; and, consequently, there is a spirit of independence in the army and in the navy, and every man, being sure in regard to 'rights and honour, the profession is justly held to be the soul of honour and inde- pendence. And in this respect he is only on a level with the humblest subject of the Crown, who is exposed to the infliction of punishment only after trial and condemnation. A diplomatist may, of course, be wronged by a superior no less than a soldier, or a sailor ; but how, in such an event, does he stand ? He can demand no inquiry, and expect no redress. There is nothing for him, save to sink into the gulf, over the edge of which he is pushed by the stroke of a pen, never to rise again. He has entered the service as a dependent ; he advances step by step, through favouritism, justified, perhaps, at times, but always through favouritism ; and having before his eyes the doom of at least professional extinction, on the slightest deviation from the path chalked out, he must submit to wrong when, in the course of cir- cumstances, it overtakes him, with so resigned a spirit, that the conditions of his subservient life are never intruded upon public attention, and the nation is as wholly in the dark regarding the character of the man as they are in regard to the functions of the office.

But this is not all. Besides the inquiry and redress inhe- rent in every branch of public service known to the law (that of diplomacy is not), those public servants are under the protection of the courts, or at least of the court of honour, in that class of cases which affect men much more deeply than emolument or station, and in which honour and cha- racter are at stake. The diplomatic servant who has been in- jured in his profession, may with equal impunity be maligned and calumniated in his character. The courts of law are shut to him. He canuot demand personal satisfaction ; he cannot appeal to the public ; the matters in question are secret — they are diplomatic and confidential. This spirit and prac- tice of absolutism has been engendered by the separation of the service into two branches — the one initiative, the other ministerial. The design is exclusively political, the execution exclusively diplomatic. To the Cabinet belongs the decision, to the diplomatic body the execution. The latter has only to attend to its instructions and to carry them out. There

ANATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST. 91

would be nothing in this condition at variance with private honour or public spirit, if the course decided upon in the Cabinet was conformable to the law of the land, or the interests of the nation; but when those limits are over- stepped, when we deviate into the uncertain tracks of impulse and prejudice, passion and purpose, then, in reference to the very subject matter on which we are engaged, arises an incompatibility between decision and execution. The diplo- matist has not merely to act, he has also to judge. He is not merely a receiver of instructions, but he is also a reporter of intelligence. He has to furnish the data upon which the Cabinet has to take its course, and a large margin must be left to his discretion in the execution of his instructions. When we consider the immense scope and field open for reporting and executing, the number of rival and hostile influences brought to bear upon each separate spot, the deceptions that may be practised, the. obstruct ions that may be offered, the ingenuity that may be exercised, it will at once be felt, that without a system of pre-eminent excellence and unquestioned capacity, there must daily arise cases in which there will be conflict between the judgments of the individual on the spot, and the instructions of the Cabinet at a distance ; and that in this conflict will be involved ques- tions of public character, and thereby of individual inde- pendence, to be solved invariably by the prostration of the inferior.

The introduction of such a class of men cannot be viewed without alarm in any state pretending to integrity of cha- racter, or freedom of institutions. It could not be so even if positive gain resulted from it, and could be realised by no other means. It would be so if they figured upon an humble and restricted theatre, and were rendered comparatively in- noxious by a just estimate throughout the people of their condition and character ; but what does it become when it is employed not to overreach foreign nations, but to overreach our own, when it is elevated to the highest station surrounding and representing majesty, and assumes to govern, not this country only, but the world ?

" Is it not surprising that in one of the highest occupations of man, all that he knows of most elevated and beautiful, all that constitutes his true merit, can find neither employment nor place ? Is it not still more astonishing that no one

92 THE SCALES OP JUSTICE.

should feel surprised, or that the nation should behold, without terror, this absolute and invariable abandonment of all that they in their private life hold to be most meritorious and sacred, in the acts which regulate their public interests. How can public opinion tolerate and approve so flagrant a deviation from the eternal ideas of justice and morality ? Have diplomatists another code of morals, another faith, and another God?"

Such are the words of a diplomatist; not only a diplomatist, but a Secretary for Foreign Affairs — a Foreign Secretary of the Russian Cabinet. Penned in his retirement, years before that influence of diplomacy " over the future fate of the human race," that he foresaw and deplored, had manifested itself — in the fall of Poland, in the fall of Hungary, in the convulsion of the nations of Europe, and the prostration of the empires of the West.

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE.

August 2\st.

We published yesterday the Russian Note of the Four Powers, and the public at the same time were favoured with the commentary of the Times, in which it takes the trouble to attempt to reply to our former remarks — with what effect we shall see.

The case, as it stands, is an invasion of the Turkish ter- ritory by Russia. The case, as discussed by the Cabinets, as established by the Note of the Four Powers, and as pre- sented by the Times, has no reference to that invasion. The discussion, therefore, is the recognition of the right of Russia to invade Turkey. There can be no position more clear, and there never was an outrage on decency so flagrant. The Note is beneath contempt. It contains but a single line which we will condescend to refer to, because it is a false- hood : —

"THE GREEK RITE, WHICH is THE RELIGION OF HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR."

As well might it have been said, " The Greek rite, which is the religion of his Immortality the Delai Lama." We do not now require to expose this lie ; we have done so already.

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE. 93

Our columns have teemed with evidence that the Greek rite has nothing in common with the official church of Russia — a sacrilege and a blasphemy, with a human God for the object of its " faith " and " worship," and cavalry officers for its prelates. No refutation has anywhere been attempted of these statements. They have been re-echoed by the great majority of the press of this country ; they have been con- firmed from Greece, as well as from Turkey, from Vienna as well as from the Levant, in the universal denegation of the hitherto assumed sympathies of the Eastern Christians for Eussia. And now we have the Four Powers imposing on the Sultan himself a note, in which he is required to make a substantive statement of this falsehood, as the condition of not being bv them abandoned to the tender mercies of the Czar !

By the showing of the Times, the results obtained by Russia are awful. She has advanced to a position from which it declares that all the power of Europe is unable to drive her back, and of course the power of Turkey must be included in this mass of unavailable strength. It has told us that it would be as easy to stop the northerly wind as to arrest the southerly progress of Russia ; but now, enlightened by this note, it discovers that the gain of Russia is nothing, or rather, that she has gained a loss. It says —

" These are the only two points which Russia can be said to have gained, if the note is accepted by Turkey — the one that her Greek co-religionists are not to be worse treated than other Christians ; the other, that her old treaties are still in force. If anybody considers that an acknowledgment to this extent is an adequate gain for the enormous efforts of Russia, or for the loss of respect she has suffered in Europe, we can only say that he must suppose the Emperor Nicholas to be easily satisfied, for never were great preten- sions so elaborately and audaciously put forward with .a smaller or more pitiful result."

Pitiful result, indeed, which has given as one of its small items, the Danubian harvests to be devoured by her Baskir hordes, that has raised the price of the quartern loaf in London, that has filled the neglected stores of Odessa, and, as the Times itself announced yesterday, created so unwonted and astounding an activity, " That it had been found necessary to establish depots in the open air, which contained 850,000

94 THE SCALES OF JUSTICE.

hectolitres of different kinds of grain," and which, as it announced on the 27th ult., has determinned a current of gold from the Bank of England upon St. Petersburg.* A very pretty speculation this ; to feed her armies, bring back the corn trade, raise the price of grain, convulse the currency of Europe, attract the gold of England and France by the invasion of a neighbour — a fact which the Powers of Europe ignore in discussing the matter. Enormous sacrifices these, indeed, to make — pitiful results these to obtain.

"But," continues the Times, "The Philo-Turks are not satisfied." What a preposterous race these Philo-Turks must be ! The soubriquet is singidar. Russo-phobist has for a considerable time served the purpose ; but what can this new sect be ? Hear the Russian penman : — " They are ready for a declaration of war, which will abrogate all these treaties ; and they are willing to risk the existence of the Ottoman Empire and the welfare of the Christian population on the success of an army of Moslems, collected from Asia, collected from Africa, but now encamped in Europe, and already more formidable to the Turkish Government, and the inhabitants of the country, than to their enemies."

We can here identify ourselves as completely and exclu- sively as we identified the Times, by the unguarded expres- sions, a few days ago, of " eternal enemies " and " legal order." All other persons to whom the term " Philo-Turk " might possibly be applied, wanted England to go to war with Russia. We alone of that class denounced such a pro- position as absurd, and showed such a measure to be super- fluous. Our complaint has been, that our Government pre- vented the Turks from resisting aggression ; and we have declared that the Russians never would have crossed the Pruth unless they had the assurance that the English Govern- ment would play this part. We have also invoked the fact of war, in order thereby to obtain the abrogation of those anterior treaties down to that of 1841. Every other journal and every other party has taken its stand upon those treaties as if they were beneficial things. We also cheerfully and

* " The purchases of Eussian wheat have caused the rate of ex- change at St. Petersburg to reach a point which covers the expense of sending gold to that city, and a quantity of half- imperials have accordingly been taken from the Bank of England for immediate remittance."— Times City Article, Aug. 27th, 1853.

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE. 95

proudly plead guilty to the charge of being " willing to risk the existence of the Ottoman Empire, and the welfare of the Christian population, on an army of Moslems." And it is also true that we have asserted that " army of Moslems," collected from Asia and Africa, and now encamped in Europe, to be more formidable to the Turkish Government than to their enemies ; but the Times artfully excludes the link between the propositions, so as to make them contra- dictory. We have said, " If you restrain the insulted spirit of the Moslems, if you restrain the martial vigour and power of the empire, you convert it from an insuperable defence against Eussia into an explosive force at her command."

After this triumphant exposure of our fallacies, the Times explodes in self-gratulatory announcements. " When Eussia," it says, "assumed a menacing attitude, it encouraged Europe to the most energetic measures," and consequently " Europe was unanimous, and Eussia was reduced." It looks back on " no portion of its labours with more satisfaction," and it ventures to call its attempts successful, " since our arguments have been subsequently ratified by the deliberate judgment of the world." Mighty Times ! which, astride on its Black- friars Bridge, robed in mists, and glassing itself in the putrid waters of the Thames, launches day by day its thunders against the potentates and the nations of the earth, sending one day a hailstorm on America, on another directing a tornado upon France, on another smiting Denmark, blasting daily the Ottoman Empire with the whole artillery of the anonymous Jove, and finally driving back the north wind itself to its home across the Sarmatian plains — an achievement beyond the grasp of all the naries of the West, and all the armies of the Moslems !

But now a new task begins ; having curbed Eussia, it is necessary to hold the balance even by curbing Turkey. " It is as important to prevent the Sultan from making war upon Eussia as to prevent Eussia from making war on the Sultan." But this is a trifling affair. The Times will soon bring to reason the dressed up figure of a Turk with a turban, which it facetiously told us some time, ago that the statesmen of Europe, deficient in resources, took for an image of strength. Of course Eussia has not made war upon the Sultan ; we all know that, but we did not know before that this prudent

96 THE SCALES OF JUSTICE.

reserve arose out of the alarm in which the Czar stood for the Times.

The news from the East of the last two days is of a most surprising character. The Christian Patriarchs had for the first time been summoned to the Divan to decide upon an international question, and that with Russia. From the banks of the Danube we are informed, that Omer Pasha, yielding to the solicitations of the warlike Christian races, has consented to their forming the vanguard of the Turkish army, and a new levy has been ordered by the Porte of 30,000 men. In a letter from Constantinople, and of which we published extracts in our impression of yesterday, the contingents from Tunis are said to be 12,500, those from Egypt 7,500, whilst the mobilised force of the Nizam, " well armed and equipped," is rated at 275,000 men, with 350,000 more of Eediff and Bozouh Bashis, an inimitable irregular cavalry, at its com- mand. We know from other sources that the military report made to the French Government is to the effect, that the Turkish army is in the highest state of efficiency, and that it is animated with the most enthusiastic spirit. Thus, between regulars and irregulars, Turkey is in a condition to bring into the field 500,000 men, while Eussia is not asserted to have available a larger force than 150,000, amongst whom executions have already taken place for desertion, and on whom the climate, so deadly to Northern populations, has already commenced its ravages. Be it now remembered that, in 1828, Eussia had 200^000 men, and the Turks only 30,000 raw recruits. We are not certainly ashamed of con- fessing that we are still willing to risk the existence of the Ottoman Empire on such an army of Mussulmans, against such a force of Muscovites.

The letter to which we have referred, concludes its enu- meration of the Turkish force in these terms : — " If Europe had known this sooner, it would have better understood the advantage of supporting an ally who, independently of a good cause, possesses so imposing a force." We will not now be held as visionary for asserting that, possessing such a force, it is to the last degree dangerous for any Government to submit to be invaded and insulted.

But is this the only discovery that has been made too late ? Did not Europe believe Turkey bankrupt at the beginning of this matter ? WTe see her now supporting this enormous

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE. 97

expenditure without a new tax, and without a loan. Did not Europe believe that the Christian populations were ready to rise against their master? We see them now rallying; in his support. What elements of material strength is it possible to conceive which Turkey did not possess, in the highest degree, at the very moment that we interposed to protect her weakness ? When nations mistake the plainest facts, what must be their conduct, even if their reasoning be consecutive? But what shall we say of nations, ignorant of facts, stuffed full of error, overflowing with fallacies, and given up to meanness and cowardice ?

" At home from the beginning our rulers ever looked up to this great lady for relief." Thus wrote the first Lord Malmesbury in 1782. He continues — " Experience, how- ever, has taught them on how sandy a foundation these hopes were grounded." Experience, alas ! Is it experiments they are making ? It is habits that are described, and they endure to this day. The only difference is that the sex is changed, and that our Ministers have the honour of looking up to a " great gentleman."

THE TIMES AND THE UNITED STATES.

August 3lst.

The citizens of the Union have made up their minds that there is before them a great struggle. Glancing over the West, there is nothing to fix their attention, either by the warlike propensities of contest, or the prudent considerations of danger. In their ambition, which is great — in their geographic grasp, which is wide — they look to domineering extensively, and on Europe as the field of its exercise ; but the Atlantic is not their only passage: they lie on the Pacific as well, and as Columbus sought the East by the West, in his"exploration of lands, so they look to reach the West by the East, in their aspirations of domination. Japan is the step first to be taken, then the Sandwich Islands, then China, and so is obtained the Western Continent.

The pacific Cabinet of Filmore planned this expedition, not to open a commercial field, not to obtain a station for

5

98 THE TIMES AXD THE UNITED STATES.

the Xantucket whalers, but for objects of a very different order. It was the dread lest the Democratic party should gain the supremacy, and employ the navy of the United States, either against Cuba, or in the Mediterranean, to meddle in the politics of the Old World. To the new Pre- sident was thus left no disposable maritime force, and even the shores of the Union remained wholly unprotected. One fleet was sent to Japan ; another, on scientific pretext, into the Pacific ; a third to the Mediterranean, but too weak, as was then supposed, for any practical purpose : and thus there remained not a single vessel at home. The improvidence of this arrangement was not so great as might have been sup- posed, in consequence of certain arrangements kept at present profoundly secret, and which we are not going to betray ; but so absolute was this nakedness that when Mr. Walker was sent to China, there was not a public ship to convey him.

We refer to these circumstances to shadow out the ante- cedent connection of the native parties with the present diplomatic action of the States. Judging by ourselves, we should have concluded that it was not from the Democrats that could have proceeded such an impulse, but, on the con- trary, that from that party the resistance would have sprung. Considering its importance, higher value attaches to the movement ; but on this very ground it is exposed to peculiar dangers.

In diplomacy, to step on a rolling stone is fatal. The least violence or excess, extravagance of expression, or pre- cipitancy of act, vitiates any proceeding, however legitimate or necessary, destroys that confidence in foreign States which must be secured, for when respect vanishes abroad, reaction follows at home. It must therefore be evident, that the European press is a very powerful instrument in Russia's hands — perhaps the most powerful of all — to disturb the first steps in this new path, whether by deterring them from advancing, or hurrying them on at ruinous speed.

It is in the passage of arms with Austria, that this new knight is to win his spurs, or empty the saddle, and so soon as the lists are opened, the trumpet of Russia blows in his ears startling and distracting blasts.

The Times article of yesterday is devoted to exciting the United States against Austria, and the whole of the Conti-

THE TIMES AND THE UNITED STATES. 99

nental Powers against the United States. Kef erring to the circumstances at Smyrna, it introduces a story, or fabrica- tion of a fabrication that Kosta was tied to the mast of the Austrian brig, with a marine ready to blow out his brains. This, it says, is " the version of the story which circulates in America." Nobody but the Times knows anything of this version ; it is to be found in no American paper. It goes on to say, " this little addition greatly needs confirmation, FOR, if such an act of inhumanity had really been attempted, it would increase, if possible," &c.

It then proceeds to lecture the United States from its own law books, on the absurdity of the " novel and dangerous doctrine " it puts forward. It has, in fact, no legal locus standi, because a subject cannot renounce his allegiance, as if the United States were interfering in Austria between the Emperor and his subjects. Next comes the case of naturali- sation, the conditions that are attached to it, the period of time of domicile, on all which grounds Kosta is denied to be an American citizen.

Surely the United States may follow so good an example as that of Russia, who invests with her nationality the sub- jects of the Porte, without even residence in Russia, and then wrests them from their allegiance to their Sovereign even in his own territories. If this example does not carry weight, the Times ought to set right the Power which gave the example of the wrong. After this we Jiave the benevolent warning that " no wise government " would allow itself to be thus entrapped ; in being so, the Americans must hold the character of citizen " much lower than we do." Who are "We?" It may be read two ways ; and from the ambiguity we might infer, if we knew it not before, that an English citizen is no longer higher than a Russian serf.

Austria however is rapped over the fingers in a manner to induce the suspicion — one, indeed, which we have already expressed — that in this matter she had not referred to St. Petersburg. " We heard nothing of such things," says the Times, in 18 49, then ice were acting together; Austria then was a good boy, and did nothing but what was pleasing to us.

In the last paragraph the shade is removed from the portentous bust, the veil is rent, and the personality of the Times revealed. WE stands before us in his native aspect

100 AXATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST.

speaking his mother tongue. After denouncing the refugees as labouring to involve Europe in war, it says : — " For whatever war, or whatever disturbance breaks ' out in the present state of Europe will turn to the advantage of no party, but that of the ETERNAL ENEMIES of legal order."

Eternal enemies ! Was ever such a word written before in English ? Did such a thought ever enter the brain of an Englishman? In his ears the sounds are blasphemous. The expression is, however, familiar to Russian diplomatists — just as much so as " legal order." "With that valuable phrase Lord Aberdeen became acquainted in 1843, when he settled Servia thereby : he wrote it in an English despatch — • the very despatch and sentence which provoked a certain memorable exclamation from Lord Stratford de lledcliffe, of which the point was "Eussian."

THE ANATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST.

No. II. September %d.

" Who shall uproot diplomacy ? Who shall smite this Philistine, and deliver us out of his hand ?" perchance the reader may have exclaimed, on concluding our remarks of Tuesday. Let him read on, and he will see.

The system, as we have seen, is not calculated to develope talents — to acquire, or accumulate knowledge — to combine processes of action, or to elevate and ennoble the persons belonging to it. And these deficiencies, in fact, constitute its heaviest condemnation ; because, not realising the intended purpose, the misuse of the power follows merely as a conse- quence. Great errors are the perversions of great truths ; — an angel alone is fit to become a devil. Diplomacy being directed to no less an object than the maintaining of the law of nations — that essential part of the law of God which, in our times, his ministers have abandoned to the keeping, or t he breaking, of secular men, being no less than this, if they are unworthy of the trust, and unconscious even of the office, how great must the perversion be ! If you had a priesthood •vlii.-h had never opened the Bible, would Dagon not be set

ANATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST. 101

up in all your temples, and Moloch worshipped in all your streets ? If so perverted, the Levites of the faith would turn to the golden calf. Is it to be wondered at that the Levites of the law should in like manner turn to foreign gods and princes ?

But we have seen that there is something more than mere inaptitude for such sacred functions and such essential duties, and that the system was such as to degrade the members and reduce them to a condition of servitude and slavery of dis- position, and character, as fortunately stand alone in the political statistics of our time. It might, therefore, be sup- posed that anything that broke in upon the system would be a benefit for it, and an advantage for the nation. But this is by no means the case. The system has been breached and shattered, not to destroy its perverse vitality, but to let in calculated disorder. In so far as it was a system, there was a routine, there was a sequence of service ; but now, in addition to the subserviency of those within the profession, the Foreign Minister can bid for the services and subserviency of persons without the profession. To render intelligible our meaning ; — two naval commanders in the Greek waters were kept for several years in a fever of mutual competition by the hopes held out to both of getting the mission to Greece. In the same manner the service can be weeded ; inconve- nient, even though subservient, persons turned out, either to enable the Minister to double upon his past course, or to obtain a political effect which it might not be prudent to express on paper, or to convey by instructions. Thus, re- cently, at Copenhagen, the Government, apprehending that it would be compromised in the use made of the Danish Treaty signed in London to break down the Danish Consti- tution— in a word, dreading to break away from Russia, and ashamed to be seen by her side, displaced at once the Minister and the Secretary of Legation, both long settled in the country, and, so to say, identified with it. The end was realised. Doubts and uncertainties were spread through the public mind, and without the inconvenience of appeal or remonstrance, the impression was conveyed, that from Eng- land they had nothing further to hope. Yet both those in- dividuals were docile as lambs, and it was of notoriety at Copenhagen that the English Minister depended for his despatches on the services of the Secretary of the Uussian

102 ANATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST.

Legation. In fact, beyond the methods requisite to ensure subserviency, there is nothing that is system in diplomacy, neither as to its studies, its qualifications, its occupations, its ends, or its methods. All is chaotic, managing to subsist solely by the darkness that belongs to chaos ; but on this account all the more available for evil purposes, whether as emanating from a Minister at home, or from a foreign Power. In fact, it holds out temptations to corruption at home, and to ambition abroad. But, in truth, the vice of the system had not revealed itself till very recently, for the simple reason that it had nothing to do ; at critical moments, when an aggression was made, or apprehended, or a treaty of peace to be negotiated, the Foreign Department was busy, but the matter was decided in Council. The Foreign Department figured no more than as clerks. After the crisis was over, Diplomacy resumed its tranquil and complacent toils of giving and receiving dinners, dancing at balls, wearing a dress of a particular cut, and writing home tittle-tattle.

Probably, there never has been a man more unpopular, or a name more obnoxious, than that of Castlereagh. He was held in England, especially by the Liberal party, to be the tool of foreign despots ; and this obloquy attached to him as being, so to say, the representative to the English nation of Diplomacy. He appeared at the Congresses, defended their acts in the English Parliament, and thus came to be con- sidered the representative of a principle abhorrent to the natural instincts of man. Now, if we turn back to-day to the words, the acts, and the instructions of Lord Castle- reagh, we shall have the opportunity of rating the change which, in a quarter of a century, has taken place. It is a wonderful one : on the most fundamental of all matters we see a nation go right round, denouncing at the one period what it is practising at the other, and having shifted from side to side, without a reason assigned for the change, or conscious- ness of its occurrence.

The offensive feature in the action of diplomacy is that which regards intermeddling in the affairs of other countries, which is, in fact, an idea inconceivable to an Englishman. When he is told that England has been setting up a King in Persia, or putting down a House of Commons at Copen- hagen, he does not apprehend what is meant, because he cannot comprehend a French or Belgian minister, resident

ANATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST. 103

in Portland-place, or a Russian one in Dover-street, inter- meddling with so much as with the beadle of their respective parishes. Let him then picture to himself a meeting of the members of the House of Commons, called by M. Walewski : let him imagine a message sent by the same gentleman to the Bank parlour, in reference to the discounting of bills ; to the Court of Chancery, on the subject of some improper judgment given by the Lord Chancellor ; to Mr. Norton, to require the surrender of a forger or a murderer ; to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, in reference to some inappropriate expression in a charge, or improper exercise of his patronage. Let him further imagine the Irish members independent and brave, and resolved to betray neither their country nor their Queen, and a dozen of French steamers sent to blockade St. George's Channel to prevent those patriotic members from arriving in time for a debate, or a division. It requires no great stretch of the imagination to picture those things. Without having made that effort, no man can have the remotest idea of diplomacy such as it now exists. Whoever has made that effort will fully and completely understand it. We have not put hypothetical cases ; we have merely takes some of the incidents that have occurred, applying them to England herself. When we hear of Lord Minto shouting from his balcony, " Viva 1'independenza 1' Italia," and of Eng- lish officers landing to serve the batteries of the insurgents at Palermo, the idea conveyed is simply that of partisanship, and the Liberal applauds, and the Tory denounces, the courage of the Government. They neither of them see in this and such like acts a procedure at variance with all prin- ciples, and which would arouse the utmost disgust and indig- nation of their souls if applied in any sense, and by any foreign State, to themselves. This again is Diplomacy. We have seen the British Minister kicked out of Madrid, in consequence of transmitting imperious and insulting advice to the Government in reference to its own conduct ; but, had that advice taken effect, the fact would never have been known. In a recent debate, Lord Palmerston has avowed that he has been in the constant habit of giving advice to the Turkish Government ; and, indeed, the English repre- sentative in that country has long been held to be its riker. Thus, to govern or to revolutionise foreign States, comes upon us as a revelation so startling as to be next to incre-

104 ANATOMY OF A DIPLOMATIST.

dible, and we naturally suppose that this is a state of things existing ab antique, inherent in the very conditions of govern- ment and civilisation. Xow, if we turn back to Lord Castlereagh, we shall find him denouncing this very conduct in language unparalleled in strength, and nnapproached in comprehensiveness by the most vehement of the Radicals of the present day. He speaks of it, indeed, as a thing known to him, bat known in the practice of Foreign Governments, and as a practice which England coidd neither follow nor permit. " England has never contemplated/' says he, in a most important public declaration, " that the alliance of the great Powers should be converted into a confederacy for the governing of foreign States."

Our present Cabinet contains men formerly colleagues of Lord Castlereagh. The Prime Minister himself "was at Vienna, and took' part in all the evil deeds of that general nature which tarnish the name of Lord Castlereagh, in common with that of every other individual engaged in them, with the ex- ception of the agents of the Power who profited by the wrong, and of Talleyrand, who singly attempted to resist it. But Lord Aberdeen, at all events, must then have shared in Lord Castlereagh's scornful repudiations of those miserable pot- terings which have become the diplomacy of Peace, unworthy of the character of Englishmen, or of gentlemen — as injurious as they are base, and as weak as they are immoral. Tn the progress of this system Lord Aberdeen has himself denounced it, applying to it epithets which were startling as proceeding from a man of his gravity. To him, then, the nation might have looked for protection. How is it, then, that in the course of last year, when he undertook to form a Cabinet, he introduced into it the very Minister to whom those epithets had been applied, and who had called this system into existence ? One reason alone has been assigned, — that he feared that statesman in Opposition. He accepted, then, the infamy of England abroad, through fear — not the fear of Russia, but the fear of political intrigue, and a hostile majority. Having made surrender, the case was too flagrant for that surrender not to be complete; and therefore he announced, at the head of the programme of the principles of «the new Administration, the maintenance of the Foreign policy, according to the principles on which it has been con- ducted/or the but thirty years.

THE HONOUR AND CHARACTER, ETC. 105

If, before this event, there might have been a chance of rectifying the diplomatic system — after it, that chance has clearly vanished. Whether or not there be ar.y ^e to root out Diplomacy, it must be clear that it has to be rooted out before this nation can regain character, possess honour, enjoy freedom, or know safety ; and if, as we proceed, we establish these propositions, to the satisfaction even of a few of our readers, the commencement will have been made. It will be perceived that there is more in this even than in a Reform Bill ; and it will also be perceived that this corruption is not endowed with the warlike resources which were at the dis- posal of close corporations and rotten boroughs. The struggle and pre-occupation of parties has disappeared ; shameful and disastrous events call attention to this point : if ever there was an opportunity for throwing off the incubus, it is now. And what further inducement can be offered than the infamy which we are pleased to accept of familiarly calling this and that Minister, this and that journal, a " Russian tool ?"

THE HONOUR AND CHARACTER OF A GREAT GENTLEMAN.

September 3d.

We are now in possession of the last documents. We have now the complete case as under its present submission it goes to adjudication. Three days ago we had the con- clusion of the four Mediators ; the note on which they were prepared to take their stand. Yesterday we are put in possession of the last word of the Porte, and simultaneously informed of its adoption by the Mediators. The Russian Cabinet, has, on the other hand, in the most emphatic manner announced its decision not to admit of any modifications in that insolent, but habitual proceeding, of drawing up a note, for presentation to itself by a foreign Government. Thus the " honour and character " of the Emperor are irrevocably committed and staked upon the rejection of these proposi- tions ; but as the propositions make no reference to the in- vasion of the Turkish Territory, his "honour and character '* are wholly disengaged as to its continued occupation.

5 ft

106 THE HONOUR AND CHARACTER

We rejoice in this arrangement ; we hail it as the eutha- nasia of Diplomacy. Convinced, on the one side, of the in- domitable energies of the Mussulman people, and of the unbounded resources of the empire ; but being, on the other, no less firmly persuaded that the influence of Europe, whether it comes in the shape of opinion or of " influence," whether exerted to modify its institutions according to the spirit of the age, or to direct its policy according to the views of its allies, must lead to its convulsion and dismemberment. We hail this event as an emancipation, a protection, and a security. The loss, doubtless, is grievous, but what is it beside the gain ? what is the sacrifice of a few millions r what is even the sacrifice of character and honour itself, compared with the reconquest of self-reliance ? and that is reconquered so soon as the Turks cease to rely on others ; it would be so even if the reliance which they placed was merited by cha- racter, and justified by benefits. Now, at last, they know Europe, and the deadly spell is spoken.

As to Europe, the word Diplomatist is henceforth a name of contumely and scorn, and when hereafter men bestir them- selves to reform abuses, or to rectify forms of government, this branch will not as heretofore be passed over, either as a thing too insignificant to notice, or too mysterious to touch. They will apprehend that it is the master evil of every state, and the contumely of every system — the disgrace of those who are active, the ruin of those exposed to its infliction — the ridicule, or the curse, of the world. They have learned, too, that it is an incurable ; too worthless to be preserved, too rotted to be mended, and to be cut out and dug up, branch, trunk, and root. In the words of a Eu^sian Foreign Secretary, quoted by us a few days ago, and written in 1S21. the nations will ask themselves how they have so long "beheld without terror this absolute and invariable abandon- ment of all that they in their private life hold to be most meritorious, and sacred in the acts that regulate their public inten They will no longer "tolerate this flagrant

deviation from the eternal ideas of justice and morality." They will no longer suffer themselves and others to be dis- posed of by men for whom there is another code of morals, another faith, and another God.

Our remarks of yesterday anticipate the " modifications " of the Porte, and exhibit their full importance. They consist

OP A GREAT GENTLEMAN. 107

in the two points we have already dwelt upon, the additional sanction to be given to former Treaties, and the distinction between the Russian and Oriental Churches. We must guard ourselves against being understood as referring to the note bearing on the question at issue, beyond being the tub thrown to the whales. The emendations of the Porte are only of value as bearing upon statistical and historical facts, and as showing that it has sense left to wince under the Treaties, and has acquired knowledge of the religious distinction between its subjects and the Czar.

It has been considered that the chief advantage which a Government derives from having organs of its own is the opportunity which it affords of giving its comment and in- terpretation, together with the news, which it is the first, of course, to publish. This advantage Russia possesses in England. On Wednesday the note of the Four Powers was published without the modifications of the Porte ; the Time* has an article all ready to launch together with the note. Yesterday the reserved emendations are made public ; again the Times is ready with its article. It is, however, impossible to practise upon dupes without some exposure to the ob- servant spectator, should one be present, and thus the Times article always furnishes the key to Russia's position and pre- tensions. That of yesterday, therefore, requires a more especial notice than ordinary. It drops, indeed, entirely the editorial mask, and speaks with the tone of a Minister offering explanations in Parliament. It reviews, but with diplomatic caution, the proceedings of the Conference of Vienna ; touches upon the feelings of the members and their dispositions, and announces that without hesitation they have adopted the last Turkish modifications and despatched them to St. Petersburg, " with instructions to their own ministers to give them the strongest support/' Whose ministers, the ministers. of the Conference, or the ministers of the Powers ? Have things really come to that pitch that the British Am- bassador at Vienna instructs the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg ? But no, that the Ambassadors of France and Prussia, together with the Minister of Austria, instruct the 'British Ambassador.

However, the note so altered " has the united assent of Europe," although the Times doubts the " policy of making any alterations at all," although it finds nothing to object to

108 THE HONOUR AND CHARACTER

them, except " that they are of no importance. It com- ments however upon them, so as to bring into relief the ability with which the negotiations have been conducted ; clear indication that Russia feels and apprehends the conse- quence to her darling diplomacy of these transactions on the mind of Europe. After this introduction we come to the gist of the matter, and are told that " something has been said of further conditions annexed by the Porte, referring to the evacuation of the Provinces, all" along regarded as the sine qua -non of any settlement at all."

We have seen that the Times was in the secret of the past transactions of the Conference of Vienna ; we now find it to be the depository of the future intentions of the Emperor of Russia. It continues, " Upon the receipt of an affirmative answer from St. Petersburg, which may be expected in about a week from this time, the Turkish Ambassador charged with the renewal of diplomatic relations might proceed, by way of Vienna, on his mission, and it is to be hoped that the evacua- tion of the Principalities would in the meantime take place." So there is to be a favourable answer from St. Petersburg despite the " honour and character " of the " great gentle- man ;" so within the week, it is to be hoped that the Prin- cipalities will be evacuated, notwithstanding the "north wind " and the insignificance of an " army of Moslems," and of the navies of Europe. From this passage, we infer that it is at this moment the purpose of Russia to condescend to accept the note, and to continue for a while to live at free quarters in the Principalities. After this comes a most important revelation, nothing less than Russia's dread of Turkey. " If there be one consideration which ought to weigh with the Emperor Nicholas .... it is the knowledge that a powerful and mischievous party does exist at Constan- tinople in favour of war." Surely a Prince, who advances, 150,000 men into the territories of a neighbour, and who is at war, is not precisely the person to be influenced by such a consideration. It is not war that he has to dread, but resis- tance ; war he has made without experiencing resistance, and now it is a question of carrying off the fruits of a war, without the danger of a defeat. The time is fast approaching when winter will arrest any possible operation on the part of the Turks ; he has to protect himself during that period, and then he has three or four months longer of tranquil

OP A GREAT GENTLEMAN. 109

occupation. The Turks have six w^eks more during which they can conveniently act, and if they do advance the Russian array must retire, for it cannot risk the chances of collision ; therefore is now a week put forward, and then there will be another week, and so on, until the days of grace are expended.

The note will be accepted, but time will be gained. It is time that is the gain. At the hour at which we write, seven weeks of occupation have been completed. The evacuation will be promised and delayed; new difficulties will be started, if they can be ventured with safety ; and if the Turks cannot be held down, why then the " hope " of the Times will be realised. Might, we repeat, is on the side of Turkey, — but might only. Foolish nations, who talk of might being right !

But the Emperor is to dread war, not lest he should be beaten by Turkey, but lest he should beat Turkey ! The Otto- man Empire is to be "rescued from immediate peril," and unless "peace be preserved," "this generation is to witness the dissolution of this vast Empire." Such are the terrors which are to beset the nightly pillow of Nicholas — this the word to be suspended over the head of the confiding Damocles. But there are other Damocleses, and for them another sword. If Onier Pasha is suffered to drive the Baskirs and the Cal- mucks, the Tongouse and Malo-Eussians, the Cossack pulks and Muscovite hordes, across the Sereth and the Pruth, and to tear to shreds the treaties of Kutchuk, Kainardji, and Balta Liman, a war of principles is to be proclaimed in Europe, the Emperor will again have to fly from Vienna, Louis Napoleon will have to land at Brighton, the King of Prussia at Hull. Who suspected this conjunction of the fates of Europe and Asia, and this sympathetic chord linking the social doctrines of our saloons with evolutions of Tartar horsemen. Some reasoners had detected this peculiarity in a war in the East, that it left principles untouched and brought matters to issue on the grounds of interests and rights alone ; but, of course, they were visionaries, and Europe, which for a time believed that there was something in the idea, was, of course, infatuated. These same reasoners, and years ago, also uttered an equally preposterous proposition, that if the Powers of Europe co- operated with Russia so as to place her in occupation of Tur- key, there would be proclaimed a war of opinion, in which the Baskirs and the Bourutes would play their parts, and the Cossack lance would appear to restore order. Well, but if the

110 THE HONOUR AND CHARACTER

existence of the crowns of Europe depends upon the in- fatuated mob, or the fanatical Ulernas of Constantinople, have we not arrived at the same end, and have we not to thank for it the "great gentleman" who sent his troops to cross the Prath ?

"What are all the histories we study, to that which we are performing? "What the Dictators of early, the Caesars of latter Rome ? What the Tothmes and Essarhaddons who exercise myriads of brains and hundreds of pens ? "What a squirrcl-in-cage affair are the broils of the Peloponnesus, and the rivalries of Doric aristoracies and Ionic democracies ? Truly may we say, with the apostle of ' Progress ' — " there is more in one number of the Tunes than in all Thucydides." When we bestow so much care on what the dead have done, how should there be any left for what the live are doing ?

Another Russian organ has admitted that the Cabinets were willing to give Russia more than she had asked for, but it appears that the nations of Europe and the people of Turkey have not be*i so minded. We ourselves have ven- tured upon the bold assertion that Russia had somewhat miscalculated, and that if she had duly appreciated the latent change which has been taking place in respect to the judg- ment of Russian " honour " and the estimate of Turkish " character," she never would have entered on the adventure ; still less, if she had not been exposed to the danger which always attaches to a system working through revolutionary means, of mis-estimating the dispositions alike of the Turks and of the Eastern Christians. These symptoms are con- firmed by a Russian view of the case which lies before us, and which we recommend to the attentive perusal of our readers.

" An unfavourable answer from Turkey would be received as a very disagreeable contingency here. Before the emission of the circular note, the question of * war' or ' occupation' was anxiously discussed at this Court. The original decision was for war, under the" impression that the Christians of Turkey would as one man rise and join the Russians. After- wards, with the view of not placing a friendly Power in an awktrard dilemma, it was determined first to try the effect of occupation. Since that time the Provinces have been occu- pied, and emissaries sent to Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Roumelia, and a totally different opinion of the inclinations

OF A GREAT GENTLEMAN. Ill

of the Christians has been arrived at. The question now asked is, — c Does Russia or does Turkey gain most by delay?' At any rate, after enormous cost, Russia has but a weak force in the Principalities ; and in the unfavourable part of the year it will be difficult to send a second army, or even the heavy artillery, pontoons, &c., which the force now in the Principalities will require in case of war. If the mat- ter is not quickly decided, the Russians must winter in the Principalities, and retire, or begin operations in the spring. In case of war, neither Persia nor the Circassians will be idle, and the Western Powers /or very shame must support Turkey. Austrian calculations make out that Kussia could spare 200,000 for the Principalities, but this, we imagine, would require time."

In fact, the Russians, after the performance of the Te Deum, begin to suspect that they really have caught a Tartar, and, like Don Juan's friend,

" Taking a fortress by Suwarrow's bidding, Was ta'en myself, instead of Widdin."

Oh for an " old Montaigne," or a " downright Shippen" — Oh for the tongue of a Burke, or the pen even of a Junius or a Byron, to expose the trickery and to lash the cowards, who, after shuffling through the session, now skulk in the country, scoffing, perhaps, if not heedless, while the harvest of their treachery is being reaped abroad, and the pro- fundity of their infamy sounded and explored at home. Yes, they will appear again when the next session of Janus opens its portals of debate ; with a brazen smile they will stand up, with a patriotic lisp they will tell of the triumphs of peace which they have achieved, and then usher in some new invention of social improvement, pregnant with elements of party strife, to occupy, reversing the maxim of braver despots, the nation at home, that it may not take to heart its disgraces abroad. It is not, after all, the wrong that is done, the bitter draught is the chance that is lost. The matter is not ended. We are nearer war than ever we were, and that war will come from nothing but the cry of peace. The Turks do not dread war, if Englishmen do. In God's name, then, let them fight their own battles. Their battles are yours. If you persist in restraining them from fighting Russia, the day will come when you will have to fight them yourselves.

112

ANOTHER PEBBLE FROM THE BROOK.

"With his cubits and his brazen armour — Philistine as he was — Goliah could be hit by a pebble ; but how smite a phan- tom, aud decapitate an infatuation ? The phantom of Diplo- macy exists by the infatuation that it is necessary. That infatuation holds in despite of the evidence — nay, the uni- versal conviction that it is noxious : the draught is bitter — admitted ; poisonous — agreed ; but, alas, we must drink ii, and to the dregs. AYho told you to drink it, and what holds you from dashing it down ? We must, therefore, reverse the process of the Israelitish champion, and finish the infatuation before attacking the monster.

For the existence of this or any other nation or govern- ment, a diplomatic service may be a matter of superfluity or luxury, but it is not one of necessity or use. This has been proved not long ago in Spain. After Sir Henry Bulwer had been kicked out of Madrid, to which place he is again about to be sent back, and kicked out in consequence of the irrita- tion against England produced by his act, the interests of England in nowise suffered ; neither did England tumble down in the south-west direction, nor did Spain vanish below the Atlantic ; there was neither disturbance in the stars nor in the affairs of men ; the laws of nature pursued their course, and the world went on as usual. No, not as usual. Spain, under all the excitement of the French Revolution, presented an oasis period of tranquillity, and hastened, being relieved of the diplomatic incubus, to effect that change in its com- mercial legislation for which an English embassy and English influence had for so many years been exerted in vain. The foolish people in the House of Commons, who wished to attack Lord Palmerston's policy, but did not know how, alleged that a consequence of his injudicious interference and mischievous activity was the deplorable interruption of diplo- matic relations with that country. Lord Palmerston defended himself by stating that none of the apprehended dangers could possibly arise ; that the consuls residing at the different ports were the persons under whose cognisance would come any acts of the Spanish Government by which our trea- ties might be infringed, or the rights of our subjects affected,

ANOTHER PEBBLE FROM THE BROOK. 113

that they would have to report such acts, and that the Government of Great Britain could protect itself just as well without as with a representative at Madrid ; that, moreover, no such acts had taken place. It was remarked at the time, that this quarrel with Spain had given the death-blow to Diplomacy. But it is in the nature of bodies destitute of cere- bral volume and functions, to possess in each articulation its own reptile life, so that the polypus in this case, wounded and severed, continued to crawl in its several parts, which, moreover, soon reunited themselves, and the animal recovered, and continues still to overlie and beslime the world.

Now, let us take an instance from the other extremity of Europe. If there is one point in which we hold diplomacy to be requisite, it is Constantinople. If there ever was a moment when its protection was essential, it was after we had attacked arid destroyed the Turkish navy, and when war was impending with Eussia. On the one hand, the lives of our subjects, forfeit by the law of nations as belonging to a piratical State, were in jeopardy ; on the other the Ottoman Empire, exposed by our act to the greatest dangers, was in jeopardy. At this moment the embassy and the consular system are alike withdrawn; Lord Stratford de Redcliffe kidnaps the British merchants, and carries them off; he invites them to dinner on board the Blonde, which gets under weigh whilst they are occupied with roast beef and port, or vol-au-vents and claret. However, the whole "nation" is not enclosed in this ark of safety, and of course the ex- cluded sons of men will be overwhelmed with the deluge of Mussulman rancour and fanaticism, whilst a Muscovite cata- clysm, no longer held back by diplomatic quills, will burst over the abandoned Empire ! Not a whit. The senior mer- chant is at once invested by the Turkish Government with the representation of the " nation ;" not an act of violence occurs; all the difficulties which appeared inherent to the relations of our subjects with the State disappear, and, just as in Spain, a long-pending quarrel on a matter of local right is settled to the entire satisfaction of our merchants. The campaign that ensues with llussia, to the astonishment of Europe, eventuates favourably for the Porte, and, in the sub- sequent year, the war would have so eventuated equally, had it not been induced, in consequence of the resumption of diplomatic relations with England, to sign the Treaty of

Hi ANOTHER PEBBLE FROM THE BROOK.

Adrianople, when Russia had to the south of the Baltic, according to the report of the staff-surgeons of the army, only 2000 men capable of bearing arms.*

Again, in Persia, after an invasion of Central Asia by which we were to accomplish grand things in resisting Russia, our envoy, and that envoy no other than Sir John McNeill, was driven from Teheran, and on his departure placed the interests of Great Britain under the guardianship of the Russian mission. If ever there was a moment when diplo- macy was requisite in Persia, it was this. And what was the result ? — that from that hour there were no further projects for the conquest of India ; that the then almost completed arrangements for the cession of Astrabad were resisted, as they continue to be up to this day; that from that hour Persia has steadily proceeded towards the reconquest of a spirit of independence : the fact being, that without the co- operation of an English legation, the Russian was powerless.

Another instance has recently occurred in the North. When the Third Danish Diet was assembled, and the critical moment had come for the fate of that country, England sup- pressed her diplomacy. She displaced the individuals com- posing the legation, and avoided sending their successors until the catastrophe had been completed. Here Denmark was not saved by their absence, because that absence came too late ; but of what use can be the system which is sup- pressed at the moment that its greatest activity is required ?

It is habitual for the English Government, at critical moments, to withdraw its representatives. Sir Charles Vaughan, a distinguished diplomatist, was withdrawn from Washington at the very moment when the acceptance, or non-acceptance, of the award of the King of Holland, in reference to the Canadian frontier, had to be decided. At the moment of the iniquitous French attack on Mexico, Mr. Pakingtou was withdrawn. When the Russian descent of 1S33 was anticipated on the Bosphorus, Lord Ponsonby was detained for three months at Naples. When preparations were making at Teheran for the invasion of Herat, with a view to the subsequent conquest of India, Sir John McNeill

* See " Beitrag zur Geschichte des Feldzuges in der Tiirkei inden Jahren 1828 und 29, in Medizinischer Hinsicht ;" von Dr. Seidlitz, inserted in Medizinisch-praktische Abhandlungen, vol. 1, Hamburg, 1835.

ANOTHER PEBBLE FROM THE BROOK. 115

was not at the post, from which he was subsequently driven by the consequences of that invasion. At the moment that the Treaty of 1840 had all but produced a war with France, Lord Cowley had received leave to absent himself from Paris. On more than one occasion the Foreign Secretary has been called to account in the House of Commons for these strange occupations of British Diplomacy. He did not excuse himself on the available pretext of private affairs, or indis- position requiring change of climate : he boldly avowed that he acted upon principle, which was to save the " honour and character " — " I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word " — of Great Britain, for that after the event they " re-appeared with more grace and with better effect." Was not this to declare that they were useless ?

But representatives can be nullified by instructions, as well as by leave of absence. There was a representative, indeed, of Great Britain at St. Petersburg, on the three great events of our age — the extinction of Poland, the confiscation of Cracow, and the invasion of Hungary. These were the spots upon which Diplomacy must have burned with its brightest flame. On each the extinguisher is applied — our representa- tives are instructed to do nothing.

As to Poland, never has a word been published ; Blue Books are dead upon that matter. What must the nakedness be over which that azure mist cannot be spread ! But to this domestic negative is added from a foreign source posi- tive testimony. Lord Palmerston has declared to the French Government that the rights of the Emperor were "irrefra- gable," and that England would resist any measures, several or collective, for constraining that Emperor in reference to Poland.

As to Cracow, the same Minister declared, in the House of Commons, that English line-of-battle ships could not reach its neighbourhood.

As to Hungary we are rich. The Blue Books positively contain a despatch of three lines to St. Petersburg, instructing our representative to inform Count Nesselrode that England had " nothiny to say .•" at the same time Lord Palmerston was making in the House of Commons that magnificent oration, which charmed England and the world, respecting the dangers to which Europe was exposed by the continua- tion of that struggle, in whatever manner it might happen

116 ANOTHER PEBBLE FROM THE BROOK.

to end — an oration which drew down the plaudits of the assembly to which it was addressed, not only for the states- manlike views of the Minister, but also for the energy that ruled the councils of the nation, satisfying them that English Diplomacy was more than a match for .Russian arms.

But, indeed, all reference to special cases is superfluous ; the closing sentence of the last session of Parliament is the apotheosis of British Diplomacy. It is now our maxim that the Emperor of every great State is always possessed of " honour and character." What can we have further to do with Diplomatists ? Our "honour and character " can never be involved by the acts of Princes whose first care is to watch over their own. The tutors and confessors of the potentates of the earth have converted into sinecures our embassies at their Courts, and henceforward their presence becomes the only possible source of disagreement, involving a suspicion of their characters, and an imputation on their honour.

The maxims which we have advanced run on all-fours with the propositions of the great diplomatist of England ; we cannot, therefore, be charged with an insolent intrusion into recondite matters, far less with Radical vulgarism or economics. No one can impute to us coarse suspicions directed against aristocratic tendencies, or carping envy of professional distinction and superiority. Lord Palmerstori himself tells us that ambassadors are NOT required for main- taining the rights of British subjects against infraction, and that great governments require no supervision in their con- duct. His acts are the confirmation of his doctrine during a quarter of a century, and, in a course of events, the most momentous that ever have happened, without being resisted by negotiation or by arms. Invariably the British repre- sentative is either removed from his post, or instructed to efface himself. In maxim, as in fact, England repudiates Diplomacy.

And in this there is nothing contrary to reason, the expe- rience of past ages, or the established laws of this land. As to the reason of the case, it must be at once evident that we have nothing to do with foreign States, except when some individual, or some right is injured, or some attack in prepa- ration, and that, therefore, to keep at foreign Courts, and to receive at our own, permanent missions, is an absurdity. A*

LORD FITZWILLIAM AND RUSSIA. 117

to the history of the case, Diplomacy is a new invention. In former ages, and amongst all the nations of the earth, ambassadors have been employed, but it has been only on the occasions as they arose. As to the law of the case, it is no less clear. Our constitution no more recognises shifting Cabinets than it does standing Diplomacy. So far were our forefathers from considering continual whisperings with foreign representatives a part of state craft, that they held such acts to be amongst those which the laws were insti- tuted to put down ; therefore was a special warrant required for any communication to be made to the representative of a foreign Power. Without such warrant, the act was punish- able with the last rigour of the law, involving impeachment. We have now, we trust, made it clear that it is but an infatuation that Diplomacy is a necessary branch of Govern- ment, whether it be considered as a good or as an evil ; and to prove that infatuation is an infatuation, is equivalent for reasonable beings to set it aside. We will next proceed to show that England has possessed useful alliances only where she has had no diplomatists to create ill-will, or to pervert amity by the sense of dependence or the practice of intrigue.

LORD FITZWILLIAM AND RUSSIA.

September §tli.

We have heard it repeatedly objected that the people of England was indifferent to the drama now going on, as shown by the absence of any public meetings on the subject, and that, consequently, the lauguage of the press must not be taken as fairly representing the feelings of the nation. On the other side, it has been argued that the nation wants but a start, and that it was exactly the same thing in reference to Hungary, when an impulsive hatter, or other tradesman of the city, called a meeting proprio motu, which set fire to the explosive trains already laid throughout the land. The recent meetings of the Sheffield sons of Joktan goes a long way to confirm this surmise. It was not, indeed, one called to deal with Russian aggression, arid over its embers were placed not one, but a selection of extinguishers, under the names of Denison, Wharncliffe, Roebuck, &c. ; but what it would have become

118 LORD FITZWILLIAM AND RUSSIA.

had it been specially called for this object, and if Lord Fitz- william had been present, instead of writing a letter, may be gathered from the enthusiastic cheers which greeted the read- ing of that letter, and which must make that nobleman at once proud and mournful — proud that the eloquent expression of noble sentiment* was responded to by his countrymen, mournful that he had not been there himself to give to them by his presence and his speech that point and effect which might have made the Sheffield meeting a beacon amidst the surrounding darkness lighting upon the one side the features of dishonour, and revealing on the other the ways of safety.

One man of station, gravity, dignity, and character, has at length beem found to protect against the monstrous assump- tion with which Parliament was closed, that reliance was to be placed upon the/' honour and character " of the Emperor of Russia ; one practical statesman has been found to denounce peace as an end, and to assert that peace was peace only when honourable ; one man conversant with the transactions has been found to reduce the case before us to this propo- sition—

" Shall England connive at the extension of It ussian influence — of Russian domination ?"

There is not a line in the letter which is not perfectly coincident with the views which we have put forward. It goes, by implication, to the full extent of all that we have expressed ; — paragraph after paragraph was drowned in the cheers of the assembly to whom it was addressed. So much, then, for the opinions which pervade the mass of the nation. "What a contrast with the dreary desert of print which the eye runs over, seeking in vain for a verdant spot, in the remainder of the proceedings. But then, who were the speakers ? They were not of the people ; they were the fashioned men of Parliament. Lord AYharncliffe is the first to commence the pecking at the monument of Lord Fitz- william. He, forsooth, profound diplomatist, " cannot help being struck by the fact that the relations of nations are improved, and there is a greater disposition to listen to reasonable and conciliatory courses." The remark also struck the listeners ; but it struck them dumb. Mr. Denison follows with more success. " Deeply should I regret," says he, "to see an economical system in the navy and army prevent our being prepared." On this he gets cheers. Of

LORD FITZWILLIAM AND RUSSIA. 119

course he did ; the peace mania is fading ; but what has this to do with the matter? He would have been far better cheered if he had said, " AVe are prepared ; we have squadrons more than enough ; only we don't use them." Whoever speaks of requiring preparation averts the eyes of the nation from Russia and Besika Bay, and direct them upon France and Cherbourg.

Next follows Mr. Roebuck, with passages imitated from the Critic., well got up, and in the tragi-comic, melo-dramatic style — quasi Joseph Surface loquitur.

" The man who bears an injury tamely is him on whom all the bullies around will fasten, and if you give the world to understand that you will submit to insults and injuries, every bully in Europe will heap them upon you." — (Cheers.)

The clapping of hands was for the performance, not for the orator ; for the sentiment, not the application. Observe what follows.

" But that day gave the world to understand that England was prepared; and, believe me, it was a glorious sight."

What was this " day," and what this " sight?" Was it that on which the self-moving keels stemmed the current of the Dardanelles ? that on which the flag of England was gazed at from the tented heights that crown Sebastopol? Was it the day on which the echoes of the Caucasus answered the acclaim of a nation of brother freemen ? or the people of the Danube, sunk upon their bended knees, on their dusty plains, to call down blessings on the protectors of " social liberty and independence " throughout the globe ? Was the spectacle, perchance, the floating batteries of England defiling along the batteries of Elsinore, and teaching the Baltic to be free ? No, ye gods of ridicule ! it was the Portsmouth Parade ! Nothing was spared, save the Camp at Chobham, and we render thanks. We had only the naval drug j he let us oil' the artillery vomit and the military cathartic.

It is a strange but established custom on the stage to com- mence with tragedy and to end with farce. The habit is, however, a national one, and has to be followed in all dramatic performances. Here the scene, opening with the letter of Lord Fitzwilliam, is closed by Mr. Roebuck stepping beyond the curtain, and making his personal appeal (by the bye, the word " personal " was omitted in the Times' version of the conjoint note) in the following fashion : — " Great questions are

120 LORD FITZWILLIAM AND RUSSIA.

coming on next year, and I hope that the same policy that has guided the vessel of the State for the last few months will continue to guide it."

We here parenthetically observe that the " other side" has executed a corvee leader on the Sheffield meeting, exactly for the opposite reasons that we refer to it. It is filled with anxiety that the cutler craft should keep " faith" in its con- signments, and tells it that suspicion on its character, even " amongst the most barbarous customers," may compromise its dearest interests. The morality is as unquestionable as the originality of the suggestion, and so Lord Fitzwilliam is burked.

Now, then, we have had a test by which to try people and leaders. The system that has disgusted the country has compromised the partisans of every colour. The public sen- timent is for the moment compressed, but mark this, ye leaders, the field is open for the raising of a new crop. A Coalition Ministry, even if not covered with infamy, is but a shifting sand ; it may combine " talents," but it destroys confidence. The nation sees the men it has raised because of the principles they have professed, combining together, not to carry an object, but to gain a position. Every party feels itself betrayed, every man is looked upon as a traitor. They must turn to new men, so that the process adopted to settle votes unsettles opinions, and an Empire is disturbed to establish a Ministry.

At the present moment what a catalogue of new materials and elements are cast into the field of public discussion, all of which are taboo for the Coalition men. The fountains, so to say, of the deep are opened, the floods set in of public and international law, historical fact, diplomatic action, the configuration of the earth, the interpretation of treaties, the eifect of international acts upon our internal condition, the remuneration of labour, the balance of power, and over all these rise the great dramatic figures of a Tartary and a Muscovy. Gentlemen of the Coalition, do you expect to stem this tide of novel and attractive thought, of inquiry deep, reflection lucid, with your domestic mop, trundling in our eyes the dirty spray of poorhouse slops ? Will you tell us that next year great questions are coming — your questions of parishes and boards ? We tell you that great questions are passing — questions of empire and dominion. We do not say

LORD riTZWILLIAM AND RUSSIA. 121

neglect the one, but we say attend to the other. We do not say a fig for next year, and a plum for this ; but we say, " Attend to this and to that too ; attend to the present and to the great things, in order that you may not neglect the coming and the little. You would give us the one for the other; give us, indeed ! — -a stone for bread."

People of England, call public meetings ; men of heart, come forth ; men of worthy aspiration bestir yourselves. The time is now or never. A greater necessity England never knew; a greater occasion fortune never presented.

Soldiers not being fitted to fight, it becomes a serious matter that they should be suffered to exist, because being known to possess them, when we do submit to " injuries and insults," our nation incurs a considerable degree of ridicule. If Foreign States could say, " Poor England is bullied, but she cannot help it," this kindly pity would be some consolation in her sufferings ; but it is more than flesh and blood can stand, to be at one and the Same moment scorned as bullies and twitted as cowards.

Well, does the matter rest here? Is it not enough that we should neither be able to protect our rights and honour from " insult and injury," and our name and character from con- tumely and ridicule, but we must also pay for it £11,000,000 to purchase a damning reputation. £11,000,000 is a large sum under any circumstances. It amounts nearly to the aggregate duty on tobacco, tea, and malt. The statistical information spread throughout the people has put them in possession of this fact, so that every old woman, and every drayman, every cab-driver and every clodhopper, every factory, child, and every Spitalfields' weaver, knows quite as well as a doctrinaire, or a coalitionist, a political economist, or a financial reformer, that every time that he, or she, indulges in the whiff of a pipe, or the sip of a beer-pot, a contribution has to be made of hard-earned pence for the gentlemen in epaulettes and the ships with screw propellers. The subject is vastly popular and exceedingly domestic. It goes down to the roots of society, through the fertilising showers of ridicule, and nourishes its lofty foliage by the dews of absurdity. It may be very erroneously, but still it is universally believed, that we are bullied and done, and on this each individual of the poorer classes makes reflections when he pays his pence across a greasy grocer's counter, or into a beery pothouse till. While

LORD FITZWILLJAM AND RUSSIA.

this leayen is fermenting, the Government is infatuated to the point of rehearsing naval feats, never to be performed,-— telling it that they are scaring the Emperor of all the Russias. This cannot endure, or be endured. There will arise the crv either of retrenchment or war ; extravagance or dishonour is enough for one time ; both are too much to bear.

It is not only a current yearly expense that we lie under, but there is also the accumulated expenditure of past years. Since the last occasion when our troops were used in war, we have expended between £300,000,000 and £400,000,000 in order to be prepared for any and every contingency. When the contingency comes we can do nothing ! What' a train of reflections have the Government set fire to — what a gulf it has opened. It has done for England precisely what it has done for Turkey. Our territory is not, indeed, invaded; there are not Cossacks in Kent, nor pontoons on the Thames; but there is the reflection of the scenes of the Danube in the valleys of England, and each nation charges on its own Go- vernment the consequences of the cowardice of both.

In England the disgrace arises out of our naval and military means, but it is from the same source that springs the evil in Turkey. If we had no line-of-battle ships we would have no " moral " influence. Turkey would not look to us, and she would act for herself, just as she did in 1828, when, fortu- nately, instead of offering to back her, we threatened her with war. Turkey, then, accepted the duel single-handed with Russia, France, and England, and " was prepared to perish," rather than submit to coercion and indignity. To-day, with her enormous resources, against Eussia single-handed, what must have been the result had England been without troops and ships, and thereby precluded from interposing her word at Constantinople.

The first of the alternatives we have put is out of the question. Too many and too powerful interests are arrayed against reduction. Besides, the nation apprehends, not to say fears, and its mind is too obtuse to trace danger to its origin, not seeing that there is no danger save from its army and navy, or rather, the opportunity which the possession of them affords for noxious intermeddling. It will fall back upon these for its protection. The rush will therefore be in tl-e other direction : we will be all for war. But with wliom ? No war can be made with Eussia, because there is nothing

LORD FITZWILLTAM AND RUSSIA. 123

tfyat England makes up her mind to demand that Russia will not instantly concede ; but if it were otherwise, England will never make war with her, for it is she who

" shapes our ends,

Rough how them how we may."

The ferment maybe got up in her name, but the liquid will be poured over France. Do you think that this is not one of the ends which Eussia, in all these proceedings, has had in view ? She has often enough already brought about a war between England and France, and it is only now by a " hot one" that, in the words of a late Foreign Secretary, when speaking of the French war of the Revolution, she can " pro- secute her designs against Turkey." This, then, is the danger of peace ; it is no less than a war with France : it is no less than a war of opinion throughout Europe, of which you have allowed the framework to be shaken, alike as regards the practical delimitation of States and the maxims of eternal justice. You have opened at once the portals through which in all times the barbarian has entered Europe, and laid prostrate the rights of nations, by which alone any kingdom can stand, or any government subsist. If all that man has held sacred be not infatuation, you must be punished. On such conditions empires cannot and ought not to endure. The people that can endure such things cannot be saved, and would not be worth saving if it could.

THE VENETIAN CONCLAVE.

September bth.

We announced yesterday that Lord John Russell had been summoned from Scotland, and that on his arrival he had been " closeted for several hours " with Lord Aberdeen, Lord Clarendon, and Lord Palmerston. What could they have been closeted about ? The closing of the Session puts indeed Parliament out of the way, but we did not expect to be deprived of such protection as the outlying, and so to say, independent members of the Cabinet might still afford us in the deliberations of that body. The meeting, it is to be supposed, was occasioned by some communication from, or respecting, the East, and the Council assembled to deliberate

124 THE VENETIAN CONCLAVE,

is composed exclusively of these four members, precisely those whom public opinion has marked, and we have de- nounced, as the compromised men. There may be one exception to make. Lord Clarendon has, in his place in Parliament, given utterance to a declaration directly in the teeth of that of Lord Pahnerston, and of the policy pursued by the Cabinet. If, then, Lord Clarendon has not been completely crushed, then he is left in a minority of one to three, and against three thoroughly committed and perfectly resolute — not with the resolution of men who have reasoned to a conclusion, but men who are committed by their acts. Here, in fact, we have the four British Foreign Secretaries having everything to themselves, — nation, press, Parliament, and colleagues out of the way, and England and the world to dispose of at their pleasure.

With their colleagues round the board, the grotesque of the association is not so evident ; but what must be the feelings and faces of those four men brought together all by themselves ? What courteous recognition must have passed between the [" old woman" and the "mischievous inter- meddler," between the " victim " and the " executioner" — what significant glances between the actual Foreign and Home Secretaries. Could England have afforded such another partie quarre'e, — men not only opposed in home politics, but in foreign policy — men whose opposition in home policy- has gone the length of mutual charges of treachery — whose opposition in foreign policy has degenerated into the vilest and most indecorous personal abuse, or has led to years of secret scheming and malevolence. Now, we have them in one boat, and confided to such a crew the honour of England and the fate of Europe. When four men are thus combined, there is a fair presumption that they have not the same purposes, and that they are not of equal capacity, and consequently that one will rule the rest : but in the present case this is inevitable, seeing that some very strong bond is required to draw together men who have thus wronged and vituperated each other, and who must cordially detest each other. It is not to Lord Aberdeen that wre would impute such evil superiority, nor after his indiscretion of the 8th of August to Lord Clarendon. The display made by Lord John Kussell on his first and last appearance as expo- biter of foreign policy in Parliament, excludes him frcin the

«a:

2

THE VENETIAN CONCLAVE. 125

palm of dexterity, depth, and courage. What the four men assembled in council will do we must, therefore, conclude to that which Lord Palmerston wishes them to tlo ; and in far this is as it should be, as well as it must be, — the powerful mind must command the weak, and here we have united knowledge and experience as against ignorance or experienced common-place, and pre-eminent powers against mediocrity. The fate of England, therefore, is remitted entirely to the "' honour and character " of Lord Palmerston ; and the great majority of the nation might have held the fact as a ground, not of alarm, but of satisfaction, had it not been for the declaration which closed the session of Parliament, in which that statesman identified his " honour and character " with that of the Emperor Nicholas.

The events in the East have put England to the test. It has been a severe one. In the course of it there has been a frightful unrobing of idols ; in fact, the gods have been swept away ; the nation of worshippers remains upon its knees before broken altars and desecrated shrines. They have vanished, the race of giants, — they are gone to the land of Anakin and the men of yore. Who shall say there arc great men in these days ? No, there remains not one ; from Aberdeen to Cobden the test has equally failed — equally scattered to the winds promise and pretence, from Roebuck to Argyll.

A foreign diplomatist recently observed, " London is a desert."

There are circumstances which force men through the restraints of modesty and duty — there are circumstances and dangers that force them upon the wildest speculations and most romantic thoughts. Some years ago it was said empha- tically, " Thank God, we have a House of Lords !" We are now very much inclined to modify and repeat the phrase ; at all events, we have a QUEEN. That Queen we are all proud of, both as a pageant and as a woman. But might she not be something more ? One Englishwoman admitted to know- ledge of what is doing in that Venetian Chamber ought to be a protection to the State. The Crowns of the Continent are either the pensioners or dependents, or both, of Russia and therefore are they hateful to the world. Kingship, in its virtue and its purity, subsists in these islands alone, and what remains of it on earth is enclosed within that golden

126 THE VENETIAN* CONCLAVE.

circlet — we dare not proceed, it is as treading upon sacred ground.

Still, we have facts before us, not one, but two and three — facts showing that the Royal power is not extinct, and the Regal breast not callous. Let us recall one of them. On the 3d of February, 1S52, the following letter was read by Lord John Russell in the House of Commons : —

" The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what She is giving Her Royal Sanction. Secondly, that having once given Her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act She must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of Her Constitutional right of dis- missing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the Foreign Ministers, before important decisions are taken based upon that intercourse : to receive the Foreign despatches in good time ; and to have the draughts for Her approval sent to Her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off. The Queen thinks it better that Lord John Russell should show this letter to Lord Palmerston."

It would be superfluous to call attention, either to the character of mind which dictated these sentences, or to the quality of acts which must have provoked them ; but we do venture to point to one remarkable passage —

" Her constitutional light of dismissing that Minister."

It is not said that Ministry, but that Minister. The Queen, therefore, understands the Constitution, and does not share in the modern doctrine of party power. She looks to the conduct of the man, not the professions of the club ; and we see, from the rest of the letter, that she was not indif- ferent either to the honour of the nation or the business of the State.

That Minister is now become this Ministry, and the Queen has, therefore, to take measures more strongly than in 1850 for " knowing distinctly " — for preventing " arbitrary altera- tions " — for insuring " sincerity " — for " being kept in- formed " — and for " having sufficient time for making herself acquainted with the contents of despatches " — or, in other words, to guard herself against duplicity and fraud.

TOOTH MONEY ON THE PRUTH, ETC. 127

But, how is it that the Minister, against whom, by impli- cation, these charges have been brought before the Prime Minister of England by the Sovereign of Great Britain, after the exercise of the constitutional prerogative in the dismissal of that Minister, should be again in office, and be the con- trolling and directing spirit of the Cabinet. This is, indeed, a grave question — alarmingly grave, for every individual concerned, however lofty that individual's station may be. Would it not be astounding if a pamphlet were discovered to be the cause — and a pamphlet, not because it was published, but because it was suppressed ?

Such, then, is the Venetian Council that rules the land ; this is the name of the Coalition ; its " lion's mouth " is open to receive, not, indeed, the delations of informers, but the commands of a master. To-morrow, or the next day, they will come ; the response will arrive from St. Petersburg, and the Russian horn-band will again assemble to perform its con- cert to the honour and profit of the Czar.

TOOTH MONEY ON THE PRUTH AND THE EYDER.

September §tk.

To an Englishman, when you speak of the practical view of any case, the reduction is implied to pounds, shillings, and pence ; that is a matter upon which there is no mistake. Diplomacy and fiddle-faddle of that sort we are not up to, that is our weak side ; but come to real effects, balance-sheet, debtor and creditor, there the Englishman is at home. He stands no chaff, he is on the score and the nail ; it is clear chalk or down with the dust. Now, somebody has broken in a haw-haw, and robbed a hen-roost, and the damages are to be assessed ; when, behold, it is the trespasser who claims com- pensation. In such a case, the probability is that an ordinary Englishman would waste no breath, and that if he did further interpose, it would be by closing his fist and knocking him down.

There is, truly, a fund of morality in that art of self- defence. It has singularly classical positions, and wonder-

128 TOOTH MONEY ON THE PRUTH

fully restrains the habit of prosing. It sharpens the wit, enlivens the spirit, and does a man good in a thousand inexplicable ways. There is a radiant satisfaction that accompanies a man home after inflicting unmistakeable chastisement on a pickpocket, or ruffian of any description, that never ensues on the delivery of a sermon, or the enuncia- tion of a maxim, however orthodox the one, or unquestion- able the other. Besides, it keeps alive at once virtue and spirit, and connects the better emotions of the soul with the healthful exercise of the body.

In the great world without, the hedge has been broken down, and the hen-roost robbed, and England has interposed, but not to assess the damage : it is the fairplay Englishman who will ignore the fact of trespass — who is ready to knock down, not the trespasser, but the master of the house. Seeing, then, what England has done, we know perfectly what our Russian ally will do. England having said nothing of com- pensation to Turkey, Russia would be stupid, indeed, if she did not require compensation from Turkey. So soon as the matter of "note" is "settled," that of "compensation" will be started.

In the columns of a contemporary, it has recently been strongly impressed upon our minds how enormous have been the sacrifices incurred by the Emperor of Russia, and how perfectly inadequate to such sacrifices are the " pitiful results" which the " Note" would give him. AVe must, therefore, be prepared for a large figure ; and on this arise three eventuali- ties— either that the Porte should demur to the claimi- altogether, or that it should claim the right of taxing the account, or that the Bait i'.l mahl should be without " effects." Out of the three contingencies spring two alternatives — either Russia remains and consumes the Provinces, or she leaves them mortgaged for a debt incurred by occupying them. The reader stands aghast. There is here neither fancy nor invention. She has already got a mortgage, and is in possession of a similar bill.

It is now five years since the General in command of 50,000 Russians, stationed in Bessarabia, took it into his head one fine summer's morning to order his men down on flying bridges, established during the night, and so to pass over the turbid waters of the fitful Pruth into the territories of England's old ally, the Grand Turk, but whom at that time

AND THE EYDER. 129

we always cut when ourselves in decent society. The grand folks at St. Petersburg knew nothing of this little excursion ; but, of course, after the thing was done, they would not offend the military for a small matter, and so the military, cavalry and all, took their pleasure along the Danube, and lived there a rollicking life for the best of two years and a half. The poor people were sadly put to it for grapes in autumn, turnips in winter, arid mutton and wine at all times ; they toiled and sweated almost as hard as the Russians pleasured and devoured, but at last human hearts gave way — hands gave in. So they came to the Russian General in the way that English Ministers do to his master — they came on their knees,* and they said " Good lord, our crops are consumed, our stores are empty, — you have eaten us up. Our waggons are broken down under the loads of our own grain ; our draught oxen have perished dragging away our substance. Have mercy, and give us relief." "Oh," says the General of the Russians, " I'll do that and better — I'll give you credit ; you shall have a loan ; you shall have money. You shall buy with it Indian corn, and other good things for my soldiers, and at some future time we will settle our accounts."

But the country had a master who was not the Emperor of the Russians, and his soldiers were there too, and they had also to be fed, and these soldiers were not quiet, Christian- like men, as Russians are, but fierce and turbaned, or un- turbaned Turks. They, however, fed themselves ; they got money from their master, and with it they bought their Indian corn ; they did not beat the men, break the waggons, kill the oxen, or abuse the women. The Turks and the Russians went away — the one down to the south, the other up to the north. The people that went south were soon forgotten, but the people that went north were not forgotten ; and it turned out, after a time, that there was good reason not to forget them, for they had carried away with them a little bit of paper, on which a few figures were written, with a signature below them. It was only a four and seven noughts — meaning, of course, a coin. What kind of coin we do not pretend to know. However, in farthings, 40,000,000 would be a more

* When it was said that Sir James Harris was long on his way to a certain foreign court, Burke observed, " Of course he was, for he went on his knees."

6 §

130 TOOTH MONEY OX THE PllUTH

pleasant sum to receive than to pay, even when one has the money. But it so happened that these poor people, after feeding for two years and a half from 50,000 to 70,000 Russians, and at times some score of thousand Austrians, and transporting backwards and forwards, over 500 miles of ground, some half dozen Russian armies, had not got the money, and so they found themselves in fact " mortgaged."

When that little affair happened, the Emperor of the Russians and the Grand Turk were the best friends in the world, and it was all out of love and kindness that the General had come over the river. He only brought a few of the Russians with him ; he only left a little bill behind him. But now the Emperor of the Russians is very angry with the Grand Turk. The General has brought a great many Russians over the river; there will be of course a much larger bill, and now he has got four attorneys to put in the distress, and sell up the bankrupt. Such is the " Eastern question" of 1853, reduced to the level of vulgar capacity. In a word, our Russian ally will claim tootli-money . It is the practice of all Tartars. The tooth-money for break- fast is still owing, and how supper is to be provided God only knows.

There was a celebrated Guerilla, chief in the Greek war, by name Vlacho. That name designated his origin ; he was no other than a Wallachian shepherd. A body of Albanians engaged against the Greeks came one day to his mandra, or sheepfold. They came early and ordered breakfast — an arcadian breakfast of curds and cream. The situation was agreeable, the farce satisfactory — they staid dinner. A dozen of the fattest sheep were selected from the flocks ; they were spitted on poles, and laid down by fours around crackling tires. They dined, they drank, they feasted and were merry ; but before slumber overtook them, having an eye to business, they told their Wallachian host to get the tooth -money ready by the time that they awoke ; and, wrapping themselves in their capotes, their backs to the field, and their feet to the fire, they sank to rest — a rest from which they never awoke in time. Their blood was mingled with that of the sheep on which they had feasted, and the Wallachian shepherd and his band henceforward took to the mountains, and were ever foremost in that struggle which we need not pursue, and which history has related. Thus, we see a Wallachian is not a dog, and

AND THE EYDER. 131

the tooth-money has a reactionary effect — an effect which may beat even the craft of the four attorney knaves.

Speaking of millions, we should like to know how much, calculated in English money, is the 6,000,000 of coin which figures in the bill of tooth-money, which Austria has sent in to the King of Denmark for her pretty little excursion into the duchies of the Baltic. How wonderfully catching these Tartar habits have become ! Austria was not thus enlight- ened when she sent her troops to Naples, nor France when she sent hers to Madrid. Progress has made a mighty stride since those days ; civilisation a wonderful march. But we must say that it is rather sharp practice for the young Emperor, and if he has been behindhand with his accounts, he is not under the weather as to the sum.

6,000,000 of florins, or dollars, or something of the sort for a flying and friendly visit of 20,000 guests ! We have here, at least, some means of estimating the bill about to be sent in to the Sultan. The poor King of Denmark has been very much astonished, and, it appears, so much alarmed, as to think of retiring into private life. His uncle shares in his sentiments, and declines the liabilities of his succession. And well he may ; for he may have an execution put into Copenhagen, as well as an arrest executed in the seraglio. Notes of the "Great Powers !" It is " Notes of hand" that rule the world ; the boldest achievements of policy are but a pedlar's device. The balance of power has become a money- changer's scale, and the sword of empire is fashioned into the auctioneer's hammer. Kingdoms are now to be secured by a mischeat, and princes dethroned for the balance of an account. Shall history have to record of the practical affairs of Europe such words as sarcasm might have uttered against antiquated Indian delinquency — shall it be said that the diplomacy of the 19th century "has united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre with the petty traffic of a broker's counting-house, with one hand wielding a truncheon, and picking a pocket with the other ?"

132

DIPLOMACY MADE EASY.

September 1th.

We have made it, we believe, over and above measure, evident, that in the so-called system of Diplomacy, there is no system at all ; but it belongs to every organisation to engender for itself a prurient life, when the natural one becomes extinct, and so order resumes its sway over chaos. The phases of malady are as regular as those of growth ; the deep fountain of the resources implanted in us may be traced in the beauty of the texture of a sore, as much as in that of the petal of a flower, or the wing of an insect.

Diplomacy, as regards its end, is systematic as regards results ; its effects are quite as demonstrative as those of gambling or debauchery. Ruin pursuing inevitably the for- tunes exposed to this hazard, those not so exposed have so many more chances in their favour, that their prosperity come? systematic. So good-will towards England may be almost as securely predicated from non-intercourse, as ill- will from diplomatic relations.

In the war with Napoleon, England had but a single ally, and by the aid of that ally she was enabled, not only to triumph, but to maintain a contest. This was Spain. That people unexpectedly took up arms, and made war with the Emperor of the French. The Spain we speak of was not the Court of Madrid, but the people of the Penin- sula, of whom nothing was known in Madrid any more than in London, or at Paris. It only came into being after the governing system had been swept away. Spain deter- mined the issue of the conflict between England and France, by giving its whole power to England ; France, at the mo- ment, having entire diplomatic control over Spain. Because of France's " double-dealing," Spain rose against her, and allied herself to England, with whom there had been no "double- dealing."

In this unexpected revulsion, which brought an English army upon the Continent to the westward of France, giving to it the Peninsula itself as a basis of operations, and the sources of supply of a new war, Napoleon was driven to devise a corresponding war against England, which, adapting itself to the nature of her power, was made upon trade. This was the Continental system of exclusion, and had the

DIPLOMACY MADE EASY. 133

league been complete there is every reason to suppose, now that we have the results before us, that the calculations of Napoleon would have been crowned with success. It was no doubt an operation in which the difficulties were almost equal to the conception and the end. If we look to the counter operations of England, there appears a wonderful dearth of energy and resources ; in fact, through the whole war, England's acts, where they were vigorous, were at least but a reflection of the genius of Napoleon ; the pluck of her men, the equipments of her vessels, the spirit and capacity of her commanders, naval and military — these were England's riches ; but in grasp and spring of mind she was narrow and weak. The presiding element of thought and combination .was wanting, and as in the contest between Athens and Philip, the highest effort of her penetration was the spying out of the weakness in Napoleon's fortunes.

England did nothing to counteract the continental blockade; yet it failed. That failure has been set down to the credit of a suppositions British dexterity, or laid to the account of an equally suppositions presumption of Napoleon. But it arose from spontaneous acts of direct resistance at their own peril on the part of Potentates included in the French alliance — the Pope and the Sultan. With neither of these Govern- ments did England entertain diplomatic relations. Their territories opened to English traffic the ports of the Central Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Levant, and the Black Sea, and gave entrance to those goods across their territories into the whole of Southern Russia, of Eastern and Southern Austria, of Piedmont and Switzerland, and thereby into France herself, and this broke the continental blockade, and furnished England with the pecuniary resources necessary for carrying on the war.

The first of these declared that to coerce his subjects in reference to trade, and that under the dictation of a Foreign Power, would be an infringement alike of rights, conscience, and independence. In consequence of this declaration, the Pope was confined at Savon a. Supposing that there had been no act of premunire, or that a " Diplomatic relations with Rome Bill" had been passed in 1806, or at an earlier period, would not this event have been appealed to as a triumph of British diplomacy ? But would it ever have happened ? At all events, factum valeat.

134 DIPLOMACY MADE EASY.

As to the second, the buccaneering expedition to bombard Constantinople in 1806 fortunately drove away the British Embassy from that capital, and we remained in a state of de facto war with Turkey down to the Treaty of the Dar- danelles in 1809. No Government ever had such grounds of enmity, disgust, and abhorrence against another as Turkey then had against England. Nevertheless, despite these feelings, the endeavours and the menaces of France, and the fact of war, it allowed free entrance to our goods and free passage across its territory.

Thus, then, without our care, despite of our neglect, and in consequence of it, was England in that great struggle, furnished with allies by which to make the war, and the resources to carry it on. We know not which lesson is the more strongly inculcated, that diplomacy is useless, or that it is noxious. At all events, what aid England, in her need, has received, she does not owe to her representatives, and on a future occasion we will prove that need has never come upon her save by her representatives ; that as she has escaped from the dangers of defeat and subjugation by spontaneous support coming to her from quarters unexpected, so has she been involved in those wars, solely by the inferiority of her own men, and the secrecy of her own system, which left her an easy prey to the designs of others.

We have, however, to add some more recent instances, before quitting this head. Our Indian empire is no small portion of Great Britain ; it is a portion of it, just as much as Kent or the Tsle of Wight. The lands included within these seas are especially coveted by no foreign power ; none of them has ever planned or made preparations for detaching Yorkshire, Cornwall, or Wales. Not so Hindostan. We have considered the designs against that country, and their danger so great, that we have recently made a war in Central Asia, for its protection. This danger proceeds from Russia, and it consists in this, that if a Russian force were in presence on our north-west frontier, as it is upon the Pruth, all the power of the British empire could not preserve India for twelve months. The only reason why Russia does not stand in that position of menace is, that there are intervening nations and tribes. But this intervening population is not necessarily an obstacle : it may become a means. When the English forces landed on the coasts of Portugal, the distance

DIPLOMACY MADE EASY. 135

that intervened to the Pyrenees did not present obstacles to the advance of that force upon France ; but, on the contrary, furnished armies. The whole depends on the dispositions of the people.

The intervening space, consequently, between the Caspian and the Indus, is a barrier only because those populations are hostile to Russia, and remains so only so long as they are thus minded. But if they are hostile to Eussia, they are England's allies ; and yet, up to the mission of Sir Alexander Burnes, we had remained even in geographical ignorance of the condition of those countries. It was remarked by an Indian Director, that at least one good result had been ob- tained by the Affghan War — that we had obtained extended information — we now knew something about the countries themselves, and of what Russia was doing there. A Dutch- man, recently arrived in London, was asked, how they were getting on in Holland ? He replied, " Well, thank God, for the moment Europe has forgotten us I" And so it is for Central Asia . England's barrier there has been maintained by her knowing nothing about it, and caring less for what Russia was doing. With such a system, and such men, there is no safety where there is knowledge and activity. If you will have agents, pray God at least that they may be smitten blind and dumb.

For Hindostan and for the Ottoman Empire there is one, and a mighty, protecting barrier. Against Russia, to the south and west, rises a gigantic obstruction, covering the field of all ancient greatness — the Caucasus. In our times we have seen this new people arise — a people alone upon earth, noble enough in mind and brave enough in person to scout the contaminating alliance of Russia, and to resist her hordes. This people is at WAR with Russia. Hear it, Europe ! hear it, exhibitionary camps and parading squadrons ! — a few tribes, on their own account, and without revenue, loans, equipments, arsenals, hospitals, pensions, make war on the Czar, your master ! They continue that war year after year. They have no Parliaments for the eloquence of patriots, no Gazette for the renown of heroes, no press to. inspire virtuous deeds ; they have only hearts, and therefore they are as rich in their weakness as you are poor in your strength. While you are crouching at the feet of a Russian Ambassador, they are retaking the fortresses of which they have heretofore been despoiled ; while you are studying Russian articles in your

136 THE HAPPY FAMILY.

free and independent journals, they are in the field ; while yon are considering whether yon dare to allow your vessels to sail through the Dardanelles, and apprehending the dangers of war, they are beating her armies ; but they are barbarians, and you are slaves. How is it that the Ottoman Empire cannot do what Circassia does ? You have got there an Ambassador. How is it that Circassia is herself, and being herself, is actually the sole protector of Turkey, and Persia, and India ? How is she Russia's foe and your ally ?* For the same single reason — you have there no representative, and she has no diplomacy.

THE HAPPY FAMILY.

September 1th.

This domestic circle, besides a Cat, an Owl, a Monkey, and a Guinea-pig, contains also a screeching Mackaw. The vociferations of the latter call the attention of passers-by to the wonderful harmony within, which it did not disturb, bringing pence to the keeper who feeds them, so mollifying their several natures, and exhibiting the superiority of man's reason to brute instinct.

" The leading members of the Cabinet, who are concerned in our foreign relations, have not left town for a single day, and there cannot be a stronger proof of the entire unanimity prevailing in the Ministry, than the fact that at this important conjuncture Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston have returned to London to hold closer communication with Lord Aberdeen. Attempts to sow division in the Ministry and to shake the confidence of the country were never, in fact, more entirely out of place."

So shrieks Mackaw. " Step in, gentlemen, step in ; see what fine animals I have got all in one cage. It's no use your trying to make them quarrel, and as for telling the people that they are stuffed, it's all flam. Just see how I make this sleepy Owl start, and how I rap the Tabby. All alive, all alive, gentlemen, and harmless."

Wonderful times ! " tempora mutantur " is an old story ; will it ever be " et nos mutamur" also? The Conference at

* " The dread of the Tartars has been long extinct amongst the Russian people, but every individual has heard of the Circassians." Haxhausen's Russia, vol. ii, p. 74.

THE HAPPY FAMILY. 137

Vienna has got "its own Ministers." Why should not the Times have its "own Cabinet," and its selected one, and why should it not exhibit its own property as it thinks fit to the world ? What a juggler we have here. " His animals," he says, "have not one day been out of their cage," and yet he announces their return. The Monkey and the Cat have been roaming, but have got back to look after the Owl and the Guinea-pig — the happy Venetian " Four," whom we were scoring up on Pasquin's column at the very moment that the Times was printing them in large type on its play bill.

Let any man compare our article of yesterday with that of the Times, and he will not fail to draw the conclusion of a perfectly common apprehension of the subject, but of a dia- metrically opposite use of that knowledge. The Times is enchanted that the rest of the Cabinet is got rid of, and that affairs are left entirely in the hands of the " Four," equally implying a considerable degree of gratification at the Queen's being on her travels. It looks upon the unanimity of the " Four," as the point on which everything depends. Such is precisely the view which we took of the case in our impres- sion of yesterday, the difference only being that we held that unanimity to ensure the sacrifice of British interests and the dishonour of the land. So much for the new internal dis- tribution of power in England — for, in fact, a silent revolu- tion has taken place.

Now let us look to the subject matter. We separated that branch from the other, devoting an article to each. The Times has mixed them up together. We asserted that the answer, which will arrive probably to-morrow, would be on the face an acceptance, with a question of " compensation " in the rear. The Times prepares the public for both contin- gencies ; for the first, by making Russia's acceptance doubt- ful, so that it may be received with joy ; for the second, by bringing forward the great mcrifices incurred by the Emperor, that the public may be inclined to pass over the little case of " mortgage."

The document, on the whole, is a series of adjusted con- tradictions, in which everything that can be asserted against Russia, or for Kussia, is exhausted, and by perusing which the reader is left in a happy state of mental suspense and bewilderment, to carry away the sense of enormous diffi- culties which attend judgment upon a subject where so much

138 THE HAPPY FAMILY.

can be said upon both sides, and therefore disposed to rejoice in, and rely on, the " entire unanimity prevailing in the Ministry, — i.e. the "Four;" and, of course, to the total exclusion of all reference to the trespass on Turkey.

A significant hint is also thrown out that France and England are no longer acting together. " We have reason to believe that -the French Cabinet has already signified to the Sultan that ulterior steps * * must be taken at his oicn peril." Whence did the Times derive this information ? We are certainly not going to question its authenticity ; but it is curious to note, day by day, the indications of the nationality of the Corsair covered by its flag. It seeks distinction from the connection, and enters into competition with the Northern Bee. " We attach," says a cotemporary (the Morning Herald], " importance to what it puts forth, only as representing the Russian ' Finn.' " Only ! At such a moment as this, and on such a subject, what can give to the words of any paper greater importance P

We have scarcely ceased for a single day during the last few weeks to point out a difference with France, and, ulti- mately, war with France, as the result of what is now passing in the East, and as one of Russia's ends in crossing the Pruth. And here we have the announcement of a divergency between the two Cabinets by the Emperor's " own organ."

France has signified to the Sultan that any ulterior steps must be taken at his own peril. What are those ulterior steps ? " Those which he may adopt contrary to the advice of his Allies." On what point are the Porte and the Allies at issue ? On the very point on which Lord Clarendon and Lord Palnierstou were at issue — the Porte being of the same opinion as Lord Clarendon, and Lord Palmerston being of the same opinion as the Emperor of Eussia — the first, that the evacuation must precede the arrangement — the second, that the arrangement must precede the evacuation ; — the first, that the evacuation must be a sine qua non — the second, that it is to remain a " merit " of the Emperor, to be per- formed out of " due regard to his honour and character."

It further appears, by intelligence from the East, that the Porte has so far given* in as to consent to an arrangement before the evacuation, if the powers will give some guarantee on this head, and this had already been darkly hinted by the Times itself. This, in fact, was* the inevitable issue of the

THE HAPPY FAMILY. 139

matter, and it then was a simple question of convenience whether the troops should be withdrawn or not. It now would appear that the Emperor is strong enough to hold on, since Louis Napoleon is made to send a warning, and the Times to denounce the policy " rashly pursued at Constanti- nople." In what consists the rashness? Not surely in seeking a guarantee for the evacuation of its territory — not surely in daring the single vengeance of the Emperor — for, listen to what it says: — "The season is already too far advanced for the Russian army to undertake any operations beyond the Danube with the prospect of decisive success." * * * But the prospect of a prolonged occupation of the Principalities is not much less unfavourable. The troops have already suffered to a prodigious extent from the climate ; the price of provisions in Bucharest has quintupled, and the military hospitals are encumbered with sick. In a few weeks the rains will have converted the country for the most part into a pathless swamp, and it will become equally difficult to withdraw the army, and to keep up the necessary supplies, for the stores of the country are already exhausted.

" The Russian Generals are said to have given evident indications of a desire to withdraw from their miserable cantonments. The occupation of the Principalities has failed to subdue the resistance of Turkey ; it has, on the contrary, roused her to more energetic efforts. It has irritated Europe, by a breach of treaty (!), and it has placed Russia in a position which she cannot hold without immense sacrifices of every kind."

On the Times 's own showing, an attack on Turkey is out of the question, even without taking into account the " army of Moslems;" and, as to the occupation," it has answered the " question put at St. Petersburg," whether the Turks or the Russians gained most by delay. In fact, it admits the case as we put it two days before — " Taen myself instead of Widdin" However, Russia had no more idea of making war at present than she had in all the bluster of 18 49. Her discomfiture is not as regards her own real ends, but as regards Europe's suppositions. Disorganization in Turkey is her end, as may be seen by the pompous announcement of the London organ, of the Sultan's "intention to create an independent Wallachian kingdom;" and that of yesterday, that " the two Hospodars have promised to support one

140 THE HAPPY FAMILY.

another, if, the crisis once over, the Sultan should attempt to punish them for their conduct."

The " rashness" must, therefore, have regard to Europe, not to Turkey — that is to say, to the entire agreement of the Happy Family, not to the " army of the Moslems," the " pathless swamps" of the Danube, or the " united squadrons at Besika Bay." It may be here worth while to refer to a statement made in a recent work, under the clap-trap title of " The Frontier Lands of the Christian and the Turk," but which still contains some food for digestion. Speaking of the last war it says : —

"The Russians lost 150,000 men and 50,000 horses, a small proportion of these having been killed in battle, or having died of their wounds. When her armies have to depend on her own corrupt and incompetent commissariat, they melt away like hoar-frost before the rising sun."

But what 'signifies the loss of 150,000 men? What signifies an "army of Moslems" of 500,000 men? What signifies breach of Treaty ?" Has not the Emperor got the Times, and Louis Napoleon, and the Downing-street Menagerie ?

M. Brunnow, in the same leader, assumes as the grounds of his authority for flagellating the Porte with Blackfriars' type, its submission of the case to the Allies. " It began," he says, " by throwing its cause into the hands of its Allies, and obtained for several months the united support of Europe on these co>tditio//s." Now, what was the answer made by the Powers to its first appeal ? Their representatives on the 21st of May replied : —

In a question which touches so nearly the liberty of action and sovereignty of his Majesty the Sultan, his Excellency Eed- schid Pasha is the best judge of the course to be adopted, and they do not consider themselves authorised, in the present circumstances, to give any advice on the subject."

On this the Porte took its stand against the demands of Prince Menschikoff. When the occupation came, then they conceived that the " liberty of action and the sovereignty of the Sultan" was no longer in danger, for they interposed with an " opinion," that is to say, they artfully compromised Tur- key into acting alone, on the affair of the Holy Sepulchre ; be it also recollected that Prince Menschikoff had prior commu- nication of that step of the Porte upon which the subsequent

MR. ROEBUCK AND THE GALLEY SLAVE. 141

quarrel was made, and expressed no dissent — when the inva- sion arose out of the pretext, they interposed to prevent Tur- key from sending forward its own troops, by which Russia would have been at once checkmated. Such are the grounds upon which the Porte is now held to be bound by the deci- sion of the mediators, and to demur to that decision at its peril.

On the very day that the Russians crossed the Pruth (8th of July), the Times stated that " Russia could do but little against a people as military and as fanatic as herself," except through the " co-operation" of her Allies. So soon as they were in, it declared that all the navies of the West and the armies of the Moslems could no more drive them back than they could stop the north wind.

Now, then, what is the practical result for us ? It is this — that we are a degraded people. The opinions which we shall hold are promulgated from the Russian Embassy. Our governors are the nominees of the Russian Ambassador. The simple knowledge of these facts would yet retrieve everything at Constantinople, as regards the East, but would it restore " honour and character " to Englishmen ? It is the loss not merely of character and honour, but of sense and courage in England, which is the curse of the world. If England does not in its rulers put down hasi m-ss, cowardice, and treachery, every Englishrnan^Ja^cg^i A \ bast- man, a coward, and a traitor.

ME. ROEBUCK AND THE GALLEY

September StL

The Sheffield meeting took place on the 1st inst. The Times, after due deliberation, put forth an article npon the 3rd. We ourselves upon the 5th, and also after due delibera- tion, in which that article has its share, devoted considerable space to the same subject. The Times, after eight and forty hours' further consideration, in which our remarks had their share, publishes a second article. The Cutlers must feel very much honoured, and perhaps somewhat surprised, at such unheanl of distinction. We, though not surprised, feel equally

142 MR. ROEBUCK AND THE GALLEY SLAVE.

honoured. We are, moreover, flattered by the concurrence of so unerring a judgment.

On the 5th, we pointed out that the article of the Times was intended to "burke" (sic} Lord Fit zwilliam ; and iden- tified its purpose with that of Mr. Koebuck's speech, to which, of course, it had never alluded. Now it has disco- vered its importance, and re-echoes, after a week, the eloquent periods which it had contemptuously disregarded, and the meeting furnishes the occasion, on the 7th, for beating great drums about English honour, which had on the 3rd suggested no higher considerations than those of mercantile integrity.

On the 5th, we had dwelt upon the great importance of Lord Fitzwilliam's letter, as being the first authoritative denunciation of the indecent outrage with which the session was concluded. With this truly British, manly, and states- manlike letter we contrasted the craven spirit and the tinsel slang of the Member for Sheffield, and we parenthetically referred to the bombastic article of the Times as a piece of forced labour imposed by its master, valuable only as indi- cating that master's sense of the incident. Now will be understood the drift of the Times, commencing thus : —

ts Everybody must have admired the spirit which took Mr. Roebuck to the Cutlers' Feast at Sheffield, after a severe illness for many months, and after having//^ been pounded up with the Lord Mayor of London, the Bishop of Lincoln, and a dozen other notables, on the Great Northern Railway."

We have heard of men commended for the spirit which they exhibit in regard to some matters, but never before of that which takes them to a place. The spirit which comes over from so respectable a mash must unite the qualities of the ingredients in the mortar — a Bishop, a Lord Mayor, and endless notabilities, Mr. Roebuck included. Here is a perfect " Venetian treacle," composed of all plants, and a specific for all maladies. We only want a Doge, a Hospodar, and a Caliph, and then it would be " a dish to set before the Queen." Buffers of the Northern Railway ! for how much patriotism and poetry is not the world your debtor !

The text we borrowed from Mr. Roebuck was this : —

" But that day gave the world to understand that England was prepared, and, believe me, it wTas a glorious sight."

Our homily having furnished, in turn, the text for the sermon of the Times, we must extract from it also : — We

ME. ROEBUCK AND THE GALLEY SLAVE. 143

said, on the 5th, " what was this ' day,' and what this ' sight?' — Was it that on which the self-moving keels stemmed the current of the Dardanelles? — That on which the flag of England was gazed at from the tented heights that crown Sebastopol ? — Was it the day on which the echoes of the Caucasus answered the acclaim of a nation of brother freemen? — Or the people of the Danube sunk upon their bended knees on their dusty plains, to call down blessings on the 'protectors of social liberty and independence' throughout the globe ? Was the spectacle, perchance, the floating bat- teries of England defiling along the walls of Elsinore, and teaching the Baltic to be free ? No, ye gods of ridicule ; it was the Portsmouth parade. Nothing was spared save the camp at Chobham, and we render thanks. We had only the naval drug ; he let us off the artillery vomit and the military cathartic."

The Times re-quotes Mr. Roebuck's passage, giving it at length, and then goes on to say that such are precisely the reasons upon which it had always urged the necessity of being prepared ; and it further has the hardihood to eschew " dishonourable treaties, mismanaged conventions, peace- makings precipitated and marred !" Is not this the story of the gipsey stealing the child, and bringing it back disguised to beg at its parent's door ? However, Mr. .Roebuck, it avows, was " rather excited," and we must bear with him, in consequence of his having been pounded, " if he spoke in a tone somewhat too defiant."

No doubt the recollected Buffer suggested those wonderful thoughts about bullies and the other displays of animal spirit which fill the Blackfriars' clerk with complacent wonder and sympathising admiration. Heaven ! what would have hap- pened had the squeeze been a little tighter ? The Spithead peace-meeting must have been swamped, and " all the bullies of Europe" down upon the " screw propellers." However, we have escaped ; but, let us ask, does the Times revert to the subject because it has not done justice to Mr. Roebuck, or because it has to make an apology for him ?

Again, we must ask, does Mr. Roebuck stand in need of apology ? Did he ever say that the Portsmouth exhibition was a " miscalculation ?" Did he ever assert that it " had failed to produce the effect that was expected from it on the Northern Courts?" No ! Mr. Roebuck has been consistent.

144 MR. ROEBUCK AND THE GALLEY SLAVE.

He does not daily contradict himself; he believes that the " glorious sight" was a very alarming one for Russia. He believes that the " policy of the last few months" has been characterised by a spirit analogous to that which he practically admired on board the vessels, and had obtained results credi- table to the spirit of the Cabinet and useful for the well being of Turkey. Well may he exclaim, " Heaven defend us from such friends — protect me from such an advocate." The apology was therefore for itself.

If Mr. Roebuck was galled by our remarks, he was quite able to defend himself, and has plenty of opportunities for so doing. We shall be rejoiced to have him as an antagonist ; it is the next best thing to having him as a friend ; but in his name we scorn the discreditable mantle that would be thrown over him by the tool of a Foreign Power, already exposed and known.

We return to the subject, not in reference to Mr. Roebuck, but as pursuing the exposure of a journal which the instincts of self-preservation ought to exclude from every house, as well as from every kingdom.

No doubt that the Thu-es, persevering as it does after the other journals have exhausted their transient indignation and their slender stock, would have beaten them in the long run, and carried round opinion, fluctuating from its very nature; and, therefore, is it a necessity imposed upon us to persevere in like manner in our chase of this privateer, with two flags whose sails the " North wind" fills, and whose barques, like those of the galleys of Turks and Venetians, are manned by captive foes."

" We lean on the strong, not the weak, and require in protectors that they should be able and ready to protect themselves." Very true, O Times. Let us see the applica- tion. " England may not command the Continent, because she cannot cover the earth with h.er legions, but she can sweep from the surface of the ocean every plank of the State that presumes to come across tier in that element." Ad- mirable, O brave Times ! — only England avoids the occasion of coming " across." " We have the strongest conviction, and would not express it if we did not feel it [certainly not !] that she has the power of driving every boat of the foe, whoertr that may Le, far HV 'into rivers and lanoom, to skulk under batteries and breakwaters, and ensconce itself

MR. ROEBUCK AND THE GALLEY SLAVE. 145

behind sunk rocks and sandbanks.1" Insinuating Times, who will put dots to the i's and strokes to the t's — " far up the rivers and lagoons," "sandbanks and sunk rocks." Do say " banks artfully accumulated and rocks laboriously sunk." Here is the finger pointed at the Danube, the Blackfriars compositor has laid his open hand positively on the map of the Black Sea. Of course " it would not be pleasant to any power to see year after year an utterly unapproachable sea, and to behold in the line of the horizon the circumference of its world." Not the least doubt of it, and a great deal more ; but such is precisely the language we held in refuting the Times, when that veracious journal was telling us that " all the navies of the West could not incommode the Russians in the Principalities" — when it was telling us that the very contemptible " army of Moslems," backed by all the screw propellers of France and England, could no more drive out the Russians than they could stop the "north wind." That was the word — no mistake about it ! Boreas and Muscovy, Gog and Magog, equal giants, and, coming from the same quarter, equal strength and parentage ; and as they, not one, but both, blow down the Dardanelles ; " the-marching-against-wind-and-tide-magnincent-vessels- without-semblance-of-motion-save-their • onward- progress"- cannot get up beyond Besika Bay ; and being so unable to reach the " unapproachable sea" on Russia's horizon, we can shiver her timbers, submerge her planks, cut high up into rivers, dive deep down into " lagoons," and skim over " sunk rocks" and " sandbanks," all in the Times newspaper, without awakening an emotion in the heart of any peace meeting ashore or afloat, whether presided over by a Quaker or an Admiral.

But how suggestive the passage we have cited. Here we have the horizon again — that — " horizon fleet " that so delighted us in the latitude of the Isle of Wight, recalling all the naval emotions of those glorious days. We have also " year by year " (what can the Times mean by year by year ?) — Russia is year by year to look out upon a " horizon sea," as " unapproachable " as the sky. Well, we had forgotten it, until reminded in this fashion, that some two weeks ago we did ourselves speak about making the borders of that sea the limit of the Russian " world ;" a sea, hitherto, in the Black book of the Times, and always sunk by it ; and we spoke of

7

146 MR. KOEBUCK AND THE GALLEY SLAVE.

its being so not for a season, or a campaign, but for a series of years. In exposing the absurdity of the dread of a war with Russia, we stated that a squadron, or even a frigate, in the Black Sea, joined to the Turkish squadron, must her- metically seal up the Russian navy in their harbours, and that, if the Emperor chose to prolong the war, he might do so, as far England was concerned, "Jor centuries" as it would cost us not a single penny, and cost him, at the very least, £5,000,000 and 100,000 'men yearly, besides the loss of the corn and all other trades. Evidently this statement has rankled in the breast of the Times, and hence the pre- sumption about the unpleasant look-out "year after year on utterly unapproachable sea horizon." We will stake a pretty good sum that no man in London, save a born Russian, felt the point of that remark, and that no hand but a Russian's could have penned the comment.

We have repeatedly had to remark that the Times asserts everything, on all sides : not only one day one thing, and the next day the other ; but that it composes an article by means of a series of contradictious, and certainly there is no better device for bamboozling a nation. But amongst all the things, said and unsaid, and carefully avoided beins: said, is the simple point of passing the Dardanelles. Whatever is said, whatever is contradicted, there is always the occult inference that that never must take place. One day Russia is decrepid and powerless — we need not pass them. The next day she is terrific and irresistible — we dare not pass them ; and amidst that unceasing activity of illustration, and unbounded range of observation, the incident of the passage upwards of three American frigates, has hitherto wholly escaped.

We must give to the Times one credit — it is that of assiduity. If it twists like a snake, it toils like a hero. We, too, persevere ; but we are but creatures of circum- stances. There are such things as public character and honour, as public interests, as abhorrence of meanness, as indignation at sycophancy or venality, and when thev are visibly presented to any man he must toil. The Times finds its resources in its own character. It has no inducement either of motive or feeling; an all power- ful Government triumphantly pursues the policy it ap- plauds— the opposition to its views is beneath contempt

THE FABIAN POLICY. 147

and above reproach. Practically, it can harm nothing; morally, it can arouse no indignation by its anti-national leanings or its sordid ends. Nor have its animal spirits been super-excited by any railway pounding of its imma- terial self. There is but one resource and one explanation — it is a galley slave.

THE FABIAN POLICY.

September 9M.

The perusal of the note of the Turkish Government of the Four Powers further exemplifies the process of letting out information by driblets, upon which we have already severely commented. • We first had the suggested note of the Four Powers, with the opportunity of comments upon that singly. Two days later came the modifications made by the Porte ; new comments upon these. Now, at last, we have the ex- pository note of the Porte itself, and, of course, with the directing and disparaging comments of the Times.

No one can read the document without drawing this inference, that if the Turks had been let alone, they would have mastered the Russians at diplomacy no less than at arms. We do not speak either of the diplomacy of detailed machi- nation and cunning, or of that of far reaching foresight and comprehension, but that which consists in the argumentation of a case, where sense of dignity and right lends point to a sentence no less than strength to a conclusion. We quote a single instance. In reference to the paragraph of the con- joint note : — " If at all times the Emperors of Russia had given evidence of their active solicitude for the maintenance of the immunities and privileges of the Greek orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire, the Sultans have never re- fused to consecrate them afresh by solemn acts."

Redschid Pasha observes — "It would be inferred that the privileges of the Greek Church in the states of the Porte, have only been maintained by the active solicitude of the Emperors of Russia * * and would offer pretexts to the Russian Government to mix itself in such matters. * * Not' a single servant of the august Imperial Ottoman family would dare, or be capable to put in writing, words tending to impugn

148 THE FABIAN POLICY.

the glory of institutions which the Ottoman Emperors have founded by a spontaneous movement of their personal gener- osity and innate clemency."

This is precisely the point of the note which the Times now undertakes to impugn, after having formerly treated the modifications suggested therein as " insignificant." It charges " the critics " in London who have exercised their ingenuity in picking holes in this compromise, with " making out a far better case for the Turks than they have done for themselves." We will now see whether the Times makes out a better case for the Russians than they could venture for them- selves. At all events, it takes up grounds for which the Christians of Turkey will not thank it.

It meets directly the argument of Redschid Pasha by a negative : it asserts that it is owing to the " active solicitude" of the Emperors of Russia " on behalf of those privileges, that the Sultans have been ready to secure them." " It is notorious," it further says, " to all the world, that these privileges have been powerfully assisted, not by the active solicitude of Russia alone, but of all the Christian Powers."

Supposing this to be the case, would that be a reason for the insertion of the averment in such a document ; and would it not equally hold, that the consequence of its insertion must be the interference of Russia in the domestic concerns of the Ottoman Empire, to the exclusion of the other Powers. But what shall we say if the averment itself be false, than which falsehood there is at this present moment nothing more " notorious ? "

The unexpected fact of the refusal of the persons in whose behalf this Protectorate is to be established to accept it, still runs through Europe. It would be an insult to our readers to go back upon a subject on which we have so largely treated, but we point to the audacity of the Times, which we venture to predict will not be imitated by the Czar.

Alter this announcement, we might expect a rehearsal of the benefits which the " active solicitude " of the Emperor had conferred ; and what do we find ? Nothing. That audacious and venal penman is not able to adduce a single fact in corroboration, and takes refuge in an act of the English Government, which, if meritorious, never was adopted by Russia ; but, on the contrary, used by her for irritating the Porte against England. It goes on to say : —

THE FABIAN POLICY. 149

tc For instance, ten years have not elapsed since the in- fluence of Lord Stratford de Redeliffe obtained from the -Sultan, as a remarkable concession, that Christians who relapsed to their first religion, after having embraced, arid subsequently renounced Islamism, should not be put to death, as the Turkish law required."

The measure here referred to, it will be observed, affects Mussulmans, not Christians ; it gives Mussulmans the privi- lege of embracing Christianity, without incurring the penalty of the law. It was a direct attack upon the institutions of Islam, and of course served Russia by opening the way to interference on the part of foreign Powers. Its practical effect was null as regards the Mussulmans, for none of them have become converts to Christianity. The tendency is exactly the other way, and millions of Christians have be- come Mussulmans, the bar placed to the return to their ancient faith was a main obstacle to apostacy ; practically, therefore, the measure carried by Sir Stratford Canning had the effect at once of a blow at the institutions of the State, and of a blow at the existence of the Christian communities. Besides, had it not been a measure beneficial to Russia, would the English Government have proposed it and carried it ? Look at the whole course of policy within the ten years speci- fied, and for long before. Whatever the English Government has succeeded in, as in whatever it has proposed and failed in, the ends of Russia have been served. If the English Government could stop, as it did stop the Danube canal, and the Suez canal, if it forced the Porte into making a military road for Russia between Erzeroum and Trebizond, while at the same moment it thwarted the making of a commercial road for traffic in the centre of the Empire, if it has unceas- ingly laboured to impose the conscription upon the Christian subjects, at the same time placing arms in the hands of populations which it held to be disaffected, surely in every other measure it must have equally kept in view its invariable rule — " The service of the Czar."

The Times gives us credit for making out a far better case for the Turks than they have done for themselves. We do not deny the imputation. The note of Redschid Pasha is, after all, but a special pleading upon a point that ought to have been scouted out of Court. The admission of any con- nection between the matters debater) duriny the mission nf

150 THE FABIAN POLICY.

Prince Menschikoff and the invasion of the Principalities, diplomatically prostrates the Ottoman Empire. But that was the result of the position in which Redschid Pasha personally stood to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. The Turkish Minister had been displaced from his high office and great authority in consequence of the disclosures which followed upon the failure of the project of loan negotiated at Paris. The removal and subsequent flight of the Greek intriguer, who was the titular Turkish Ambassador at that capital; the detection of the Armenian banker who managed the funds of peculation and corruption resulting from the English Treaty of Commerce, gave hopes that these two inflictions of the empire — Greek Diplomatists and Armenian Financiers — would be swept away. Redschid Pasha, implicated in this system, fell. The first act of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was to obtain the re- appointment of Redschid Pasha, and, consequently, when the representative of England " advised the Turks not to con- sider the occupation of the Principalities as a casus belli, the advice was well received." It is, therefore, the English Go- Yerninent which has placed the Porte in this false position, — prevents it, consequently, from having any rights to stand up for ; and then we hear no longer of evacuation as pre- ceding a settlement, or of indemnity for the wrongs suffered : and it comes in ordinary course that the Powers should con- jointly interfere, and, as all such conjoint interferences have hitherto led to a common diplomatic act, we may rest assured that, upon the present occasion, we shall have, not the abro- gation of anterior treaties which had fallen ipso facto, if the passage of the Pruth had been held a ca^us belli, but some new treaty, little suspected at this hour, which shall involve the Powers in a more practical sanction of Russia's inter- ference than that already granted by their undertaking to draw up its note. With an independent Minister in Turkey — that is to say, with Redschid Pasha himself, before reduced into personal "dependence upon Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the mere fact of the redaction of the note at Vienna, irrespec- tive of its contents, must have caused its absolute rejection. The words above given within inverted commas, are from the Times itself, and from the Times of yesterday ; not, indeed, from its Leader, but from its Constantinople correspondent. We are glad to be able to give the fact from its own columns, that, without Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the Turks would

THE FABIAN POLICY. 151

have considered the passage of the Pru'th a casus belli. The correspondent explains, indeed, differently the motives for admitting the advice, and refers them to the desire of gaining time. However, we quote the remarks which follow as the most condign refutation of the opinions which the Titnes has been endeavouring to circulate for the last two months in England and in Europe : —

" The tamely submissive way in which the Turks accepted the advice of foreign Governments seems to have taught the latter to ignore the existence of anything like independent opinion on the part of the Porte, for when a note, prepared by the Four Powers, and assented to by Russia (since it gives all desired), has been sent to Constantinople to be signed, all the European organs of public opinion congratulate themselves that the difficulties are over. Since the occupation of the Principalities, however, times are changed, and now, with an army of 200,000 men under arms on the frontiers, with the Egyptian contingent and fleet on the Bosphorus, and every- thing in readiness for a desperate conflict, the Sultan takes higher ground, and is determined not to surrender tamely to a foreign Power his rights of Sovereignty over 13,000,000 of his subjects. For some months past the very fact of such enormous warlike preparations being undertaken, and such untold treasures expended, must have taught diplomatists that the Turks foresaw and determined upon a struggle, and as such preparations continue, the peaceable solution of the question becomes daily more difficult."

After getting in her troops, it is Russia's object to gain time. By it, in Turkey, she exhausts, without danger, the martial spirit, and imposes charges upon the Treasury, for which she has to make no equivalent expenditure, and eats up meanwhile the two richest provinces in the empire. She also monopolises the corn trade.* In Europe she has stood the blast of indignation, and now will come the reaction. The subject will be exhausted, the public mind fatigued ; anything that can be called a settlement will be accepted with joy, and her organs will continue with their galley task, and the anger to-day evinced at the strength of the Ottoman Empire,

* 120 vessels waiting to get out, and 400 to get in at Sulina. The corn in the former is getting heated, and must be tossed over- board. 1,000 vessels will be wanted to transmit the corn which has been unable to cross the bar.

152 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES.

will, before long, be converted into reasons of State, for curb- ing either Mussulman fanaticism or Ottoman ambition.

Russia's policy is therefore procrastination. She profits by every hour of delay ; her gain and game is TIME. It is easy to be a Fabius without a Hannibal. Who would not be a Russian when it suffices to send some hordes to feed on its plains, to convulse the whole of Europe, without suggesting even a thought of retaliation ?

A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES.

September IM/t.

Yesterday the Times having been silent, we have leisure to revert to matters belonging to the past, but eminently useful for the present.

Supposing that, in the early part of this year, the Russian Government had addressed to its representatives at London, Paris, Vienna, and Constantinople, a despatch ordering them to draw up severally a report, in which the five following points should be reviewed, namely, —

" First, — Whether any concert exists to oppose the views of the Imperial Cabinet.

" Second, — On the degree of intensity that such opposition might acquire.

" Thirdly, — On the part that England (France, Austria, or Turkey, as the case might be) might take therein.

"Fourthly, — On the best means of disconcerting this system.

" Fifthly, and finally, — In the double case of an insurrec- tion in Turkey, and the rejection of our demands in reference to the Principalities — on the nature of the means best calcu- lated to secure our rights, interests, and dignity, without compromising the peace of Europe."

If, we say, such propositions had been addressed to these Ambassadors, and they had accordingly drawn up reports, and by some accident these reports had found their way to the public press, with what avidity would they not be devoured by the politicians of Europe. Now it so happens that these very questions were addressed to its representa-

A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES. 153

tives at those Courts in the autumn of 1825, and that the reports themselves sent in reply were taken at Warsaw amongst the papers of the Archduke Constantine. They did not, however, appear when many of these documents were published in 1836, they have, therefore, the interest of freshness, as well as a direct application to present events. " Nothing changes," says Karamsin, " in our external policy." Never was aphorism more perfectly confirmed than by the present exposure. The circumstances, indeed, have altered, in so far, that in 1825 Turkey was in the last state of decre- pitude, and that Austria maintained an independent bearing, which, indeed, caused the scheme, as then propounded, to be adjourned for execution. As regards England, there was this difference, that the connection was intimate with Austria, and that Canning was at the head of affairs, and not reduced to the subserviency in which he closed his days. We will now allow the Kussian diplomatists to speak for themselves. Comment would only invalidate the effect of their words.

The despatch of Pozzo di Borgo, from which we shall principally extract, consists of 43 pages of print. He writes from Paris, but embraces the whole field, and, in fact, has laid down precisely the process of operation recently adopted. We can, of course, give but a slender outline of this remark- able State paper.

"The conference of St. Petersburg has acknowledged that it was just and prudent to propose to the Turks a collective intervention. The Imperial Cabinet has suggested, besides, the adoption of coercive means, in case the Porte refuses to yield to our friendly insinuations. This proposal the Allies have declined (within the year they were brought to adopt it), and the agreement which appears to be established amongst them, threatens to paralyse our action on' the East.

" It would have been the part of the Sovereigns who, in a great measure, have taken upon themselves the responsibility of the conduct of the Turks towards us, to have, on this event, adopted our views : but they found it more convenient to remain tranquil. It therefore belongs to us to see, by ourselves, to the execution of a plan already accepted by all, and to employ those coercive means which we have already declared to be indispensable.

" If the Allies had preserved the union for which we have made so many sacrifices, and in the case of their consenting

7 §

154 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES.

to coercive means, the Emperor would have caused the Turkish Provinces up to the Danube to be occupied, justifying the step on the provocative measures of the Forte, as well as on the necessity of maintaining the tranquillity and pre- serving the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.

" In occupying the two Principalities the Imperial Cabinet might declare . . . that the Porte never would evecuate those Principalities — (the Turkish troops having been sent thither to suppress an insurrection to cross over from the Russian frontier) — that she keeps there at this moment a corps of Bach-Beschys-Aga, whose presence and authority are in express contravention of the treaties with Eussia.

" That in keeping those troops in the two provinces, and in exercising their authority contrary to treaty, the Porte cannot put forward the pretext of protecting a country against internal troubles which had been appeased three years ago. Its object is, therefore, to change their political state, and to efface the stipulations which have defined and established it in the most clear and notorious manner.

" The Court of Russia, convinced that neither its own longanimity, nor the intervention of its Allies, can ameliorate a state of things become in all respects intolerable, has decided to cause to cease, in the two Principalities of Wal- lachia and Moldavia, the abuses of authority which the Turks exercise there in despite of treaties ; and, as neither remon- strances of the Sovereigns, its allies, nor its own, have been able to attain the desired end, it finds itself under the necessity of making use of the only means which remained to it — that of causing the aforesaid provinces to be occupied by its troops. In taking this determination, the Emperor does not intend by any means to change the political question.

" In supposing the adoption of this plan, it would be requisite to enter into explanations with the Porte in the most measured terms, and to assure it that if it did not wish to precipitate itself into a war, the Emperor was ready to terminate these differences by conciliation. It would be advisable to communicate -all these acts to the United States of America, as an evidence of the regard of the Imperial Cabinet, and of the importance which it attaches to enlight- ening its opinion and even to obtaining its suffrage. It would also be desirable to put Sweden, in a confidential manner, in possession of the facts, so as to flatter the self-love of him

A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES. 155

who governs it, but without neglecting defensive precautions in Finland.

" In regard to the other Powers, the evil that we would have to fear from them will always be in the inverse ratio to that which th-ey have to apprehend from us."

" In consequence of Mr. Canning's entrance into power, confidence in England is shaken. She is represented as suspicious and jealous, so that she may possibly become hostile. This presumption is not likely to convert itself into a reality ; we must, however, be prepared, otherwise the sur- prise would be too great if it came to be verified

A rupture with us would alarm the capitalists and manu- facturers to a certain degree, and so render money which they call ' circulating medium/ more rare and dear, and so ruin those who have speculated upon abundance and cheap- ness A deluge of riches, realised or fictitious, has

manured its treasury, and puffed up its pride.

" Such a war might do us damage, but would produce for them no compensation, because they have no positive hold on us ; their only advantage would be the pleasure of injuring us. In blockading our ports, they would exercise their pretended maritime rights in respect to neutrals. This the United States would not suffer; thence would arise bitter discussions and dangerous situations."

We may here add, to complete the subject, that Count Lieven, in his despatch from London, does not give an equal weight to the supposition of resistance on the part of England ; but, on the contrary, declares that nothing is to be appre- hended from that quarter. He answer the question in respect to any possible combination against Russia as follows : —

" Up to the present moment no such combination exists. England, at least, does not belong to it, and a league which does not include that Power is not to be feared. Nothing menacing can be formed without her concurrence or without her being opposed to it."

Austria is the point to which Pozzi di Borgo devotes his solitary attention. He looks upon England only as dan- gerous, in so far as she may be influenced by Austria, and mentions the fact of a meeting between Prince Metternich and Lord Castlereagh at Hanover in 1821, where they adopted in common the resolution to " arrest the intervention of Russia in the affairs of the East, whether singly, whether

156

A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES.

collectively of the other Powers." The measures he suggests with reference to Austria are not those of deception but of coer- cion, in which he indicates internal revolution no less than war, and thus concludes : —

" Our policy, therefore, commands that we shall show our- selves to this State under a terrible aspect, and by our pre- parations to persuade it that, if it makes a movement against us, the fiercest of storms that it has yet had to bear will burst upon its head."

In this dilemma Prince Metternich will be reduced to one of two alternatives : " either he will declare to the Turks that our entry into the Principalities is a resolution that they themselves have provoked, or he will throw himself on other provinces of the Ottoman Empire more to his convenience. In the first case we will be agreed, in the second ice will become so. The only chance that we have to run is that of an

open declaration against us If Prince Mettemich

is wise he will avoid War; if he is violent lie will be punished. With a Ministry placed in a situation such as his, a Cabinet such as ours will find in events a thousand ways of termi- nating differences."

France is represented in a state of prostration, her ministry in one of hesitation : —

" This state of things will endure until we adopt a step which will establish a crisis. France is far from nourishing sentiments of ill-will, far less of hostility, against Russia. The Minister who governs it may be able to tell a lie, or to concoct an intrigue, but never to pronounce the word war against us, without the Minister who had uttered it, or the King who had listened to it, being exposed within six months to a ruin almost certain."

If France against all probability were to adopt this course, " where," concludes the writer, " would she find a field of battle ? Her fleets would add nothing to the force of Eng- land ; and her armies, if they succeed in getting into contact with ours, know the fate that awaits them."

As to Prussia, it is represented simply as a subordinate ally, and it is stated that "if the Court of Vienna had yielded to its views and good intentions, the plan of the Imperial Cabinet would already have been accomplished — that plan not being limited to the occupation of the Principalities, but extending to that of Constantinople, and even to the expul- sion of the Turks from Europe."

A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES. 157

The writer again returns to Austria, or rather to Prince Metternich, on whom, he says, " everything depends." And this remarkable passage occurs — " If matters are driven to extremes, and the Turks are expelled from Europe, that course will be the conclusion least desirable for the Court of Vienna."

If the Allies do not prove sufficiently tractable, they are to be told that their refusal to concur in measures just and necessary, for the reason that they themselves might thereby be " inquieted," is " a proceeding which contains something insulting, not for us, whom it cannot reach, but to simple reasons and to common sense."

The report from the Ambassador in London is of similar character arid tendency. His voice is also and decidedly for war — a war which must be prompt, and which must take Europe by surprise.

However, that war was not made till three years later. The Russian representatives had all this while taken no ac- count of Turkey. They considered that empire entirely at their mercy ; the only obstruction was Prince Metternich ; and that individual Minister did arrest the operations during the years 1826 and 1827, in which Turkey was in reality at their mercy. After the destruction of the Janissaries, Pozzo di Borgo entirely recast his opinion. Then, in a despatch published in 1826, he more vehemently urges war than in that from which we at present extract. But it is on wholly different grounds. It is no longer the conquest of Turkey that is the object, but it is the necessity of breaking down the new system, and averting the " dangers for the future" which he thence foresaw for Russia herself. But in the mean time circumstances had changed in Europe; the Ministry of Mr. Canning had been so situated, that a Cabinet such as that of Russia did find in events a thousand ways of termi- nating differences. The co-operation of England and France was secured by treaty ; the coercive measures which the Allies had repudiated, were now adopted by themselves, and carried into execution; and the Turkish fleet having been destroyed, and the English and French Ambassadors withdrawn from Con- stantinople, Prince Metternich was gagged and chained, the 200,000 Austrians collected on the frontier could be laughed at with impunity, and the war was made. We shall, at a future time, give the judgment of Count Nesselrode upon that war, at the moment of its conclusion.

158 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES.

Some of our readers may have been surprised at what we have on several occasions said respecting the anxiety of Russia to involve the United States, in her sense, in the affairs of Europe. Those opinions did not result from any private intelligence as regards the present moment, but from the nature of the case. The United States have commerce and subjects on the soil of Europe, in the dominions of the Sultan, on the shores of the Baltic, and their inen-of-war navigate those seas. As Russia's plans are based upon infractions of law, which other nations tamely endure, or submission to international compacts drawn up for her peculiar advantage, to which the other Governments of Europe have meanly and traitorously adhered, it is essential for her to place the United States in a similar position, for otherwise the most trifling incident might blow up the whole scheme. How singularly is this judgment confirmed from the mouth of Pozzo di Borgo, in 1825, when he recommends making the Cabinet of the United States their confidant. Seeing how perfectly the plan of operations then suggested has been followed at present, is it not probable, if not certain, that the Cabinet of St. Petersburg has proposed to the United States that role of mediatrix, which Austria has been subsequently forced to accept ? For this conclusion we have more than inferential grounds.

One word as to Sweden. Besides the United States, that was the only Government whose " self-love " was worth nattering ; but nevertheless " precautions " were necessary in Finland, so that there was one insecure point throughout the Russian dominions.

Intelligence from the Black Sea, yesterday, reached London, to the effect, that from on board the Russian squadron the native Russian sailors and the Poles had been discharged, and that the crews remaining were exclusively composed of " Fins and Greeks" that is to say, that the fleet which holds in check the united navies of E'ngland and France, is manned by the inhabitants of a province, the tenure of which Russia herself holds to be insecure, and by those of a foreign country, in protection of which those squadrons of the West are assembled at Besika Bay. Again we say, who would not be a Russian ?

359

BUSSIA AND CHINA.

September \Wi.

At no moment can it be more desirable than at the present, to view the position of Russia, in reference to her world — not that bounded by the Euxine, but that of the globe itself.

Something has been said of plans respecting Little Thibet, but they have been treated as extravagant and visionary. It is not however contested, that communi- cations have been made by the Court of St. Petersburg to that of Pekin, with reference to the insurrection ; — that these consisted in offer of support upon conditions, and that the conditions were, the cession of Little Thibet. They were made in the month of October last, long before our residents in China had any suspicion of what was in progress. That the Indian Government has received com- munications from Thibet itself, bearing upon the same matter, is equally true, although it could not clearly understand or believe what they meant. We have therefore this inference at least to draw, that Russia is not indifferent to the extra- ordinary events now occurring in the Chinese Empire, and that she is seeking to take advantage of them to extend her own dominion over the stupendous plateau of Western Tartary and the Inter-Himalaya, or the mountains of Tsong- Ling, Pamer, and Kien-Lung, the real Indian Caucasus of the ancients — the country of wild horses and camels, and there- fore of conquerors, and probably the cradle of the human race.

It is from the side of these mountains that in all times have descended the subduers of the world, but along their flanks have been marked " nulla vestigia retrorsum." China on the east, India on the south, Russia and Europe on the west, have thence, from the dawn of history, been periodically replenished, colonised, and devastated; such events must have likewise occurred before there were pens or chisels to relate them. But the sources were hidden, the effects were patent, the causes unknown, and the Tartarian lands remained gene- ration after generation, a marvel and a mystery,

However, in the course of the last century, and while England was establishing her rule in Hindostan, the Chinese, or their Mantchu rulers, were making their way upwards towards these fabulous summits, and the great Emperor Kien- Lung established his authority in the ancient Tartar capital of

160 - RUSSIA AND CHINA.

Ouguz-Khan, Kashgar. Incredible as it may appear, the force under the command of the Chinese general who effected this conquest did not exceed 400 men ; and it increases the surprise which such a feat was calculated to excite, that these Western Tartars were Mussulmen, while the Eastern Tartars were Buddhists. At the time, they appealed to Russia for support, but it was denied them. Amiot declares his con- viction that Russia might easily have frustrated the Chinese invasion, and seized the opportunity of establishing there her dominion, or, at least, her paramount influence. It seems, however, that she only bided her time.

These past circumstances will throw light upon those mys- terious communications which our statesmen are pleased' to disregard, because they believed the supposed end impracti- cable. How would they have treated, had they lived at the time of the expedition of a few hundred Cossacks under Yerma- loff, which ended by putting her in possession of Siberia ?

The possession of Siberia has made Russia and China neighbours, and brings the frontiers of the former all round Tartary. She has even encroached upon the proper Tartar territory, and established her city of Albasgna in the centre of Mantchuria itself. This district had indeed never belonged to China, but was considered the private domain of the Imperial Mantchu family, after it had succeeded to the throne. The Chinese, after various failures, succeeded in capturing Albasgna, carrying as prisoners to Pekin, its Cossack defenders. But this disaster has become the foun- dation of the action of Russia upon the whole Chinese empire. The Cossacks were settled at the capital, where their descend- ants are to be found to this day, and furnished the pretext for the establishment of that Russian monastery at the capital, where no foreign establishments of any description are admitted.

In the wars and negotiations from the year 1688, Russia will be found, under the greatest disadvantages, steadily pursuing two ends — the opening of the Chinese trade, and the obtaining possession of the district of the Amour, both of which are directly connected with the development of the resources of Siberia. The Chinese trade confers no benefit on Russia Proper. " The Government,", says Haxthausen, " supports it for the future, and Russia herself is sacrificed in order to elevate Siberia." The great want of that country is water communication, and the main channels of that

RUSSIA AND CHINA. 161

enormous district pass by the Amour to the Pacific. Now, the early conquerors of Siberia had gained possession of this district, but Eussia had been forced to cede it back. ." The loss of the Amour," say% the same authority, "is so serious for Siberia, that it is easy to see that Russia, by fair means or foul, will soon get possession of it. What the shores of the Baltic are for Russia itself, the district and mouths of the Amour are for Siberia. When this is gained St. Petersburg will easily be connected by water communication with the Pacific, and the grand idea of Peter to open a way to India, Japan, and America, will be carried out." An English authority — Cottrell — confirms the same view, stating that a canal of 300 miles' would enable vessels to pass from St. Petersburg to the Pacific, a distance of 10,000 miles.

We have italicised the word Japan, as indicating the con- nexion with those projects of the movements of the Russian vessels actually in those seas, the only ones of Europe there to watch the operations of the Americans.

In the meantime her measures are pushed in the intervening districts with sequence and comprehensiveness. The Persian flag has been excluded from the Caspian ; she is actually engaged in forcing the cession from Persia of a district on the south-east of that sea and of the fort of Astrabad. Steamers are being constructed, or are already completed, for the navi- gation of the Aral and Syraria, which will bring her in direct communication up to the neighbourhood of Kashgar. On the other side, she is in possession of Okhotsk, into the sea of which the Amour enters ; both which positions may very possibly fall to her through the present convulsions of the Chinese Empire.

It would be indeed not very " pleasant" if at such a moment any circumstance should constitute the Euxine " the horizon bounding the circumference of her world," the neces- sary effect of any incidents in the Levant which might shake the treaty of 1841, and enable an English squadron to appear in the Bl*ack Sea. In the meantime, we may well ask how it happens that nothing is done to promote the cutting of a canal at Suez, by which the whole of these ambitious projects would be quietly laid to rest ; as also why, wholly irrespective of the Ottoman Empire, and entirely for the security of our own possessions, we do not insist on the free entrance into the Euxine ?

162

COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY.

September \W>..

There have been two ancient, Respectable, and standing maxims in England — the first, to abstain in India from con- quests ; the second, to avoid in Europe continental alliances — maxims which have been honoured in the breach and not observance. In respect to the first, there may have been, up to a certain point, justificatory reasons and profitable results. The most dexterous special pleader would be hard put to it to show a reason for any alliance which we have contracted, or any war which we have made for the last three-quarters of a century, and still more so to discover the advantage we have gained. It is in consequence of this maxim that England has always abstained from treaties of guarantee, a rule departed from only on three exceptional occasions — Portugal, Den- mark, and Persia — which had reference to the curbing of the ambition of great States — Russia and France. But even from these bonds we are now disentangling, and by a curious process, not the abrogation of the treaties, but their violation by England herself, who, in 1813, took to herself a portion (Heligoland) of the territories she had guaranteed to Den- mark, who, in 1827, violated her treaty with Persia, refusing the stipulated aid in her war with Russia ; and in the events of 1847, by interposing to support in Portugal internal despotism, passed by the obligation of supporting her against external violence. There remains, therefore, no political sys- tem of alliances for English diplomacy to prosecute ; and, in fact, by the repeated violations of the treaty of Vienna, there is no public European law even to maintain. Laboriously searching for what possible legitimate object there may be in keeping gentlemen at foreign Courts to have interviews with its Ministers, and to entertain the society of the place at dinners, we are reduced to Commerce. Here indeed we have a wide field.

England is the workshop of the world, but, with the ex- ception of iron, she draws from other countries the raw materials ; cotton, silk, hemp, hides, &c., come to her from the distant regions of the earth ; so also do dye-stuffs, tanning, oil and tallow used in their preparation ; the sugar which she refines, the timber for her navy, as well as the principal ob- jects of consumption for her people, including at present a

COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY. 163

large amount of grain. She stands, in reference to the world, in the same position as Venice to the Levant ; and here no doubt is open the vastest field for diplomatic action directed to obtaining the reduction of the import and export duties of every land , and having this as its ultimate end. England's riches depend upon the nations, its customers, being wealthy, and the countries which supply her raw materials being pros- perous. The amount of her trade, and the sense of her power and policy, thus place an enormous influence at her disposal : on the one hand, she supplies the capital by which the fields of poorer countries are worked ; on the other, she can control their Governments by the use she can make ef her own tariff, holding, as it were, the commercial balance between the four quarters of the globe ; such, at least, would be her position if turned to account in the same spirit and with the same capacity by which were raised the palaces of St. Mark amidst the marshes of the Adriatic.

Such is the end, such the means at the disposal of British Diplomacy. Has the one been attained or the other exerted ? The answer must be — No. Indeed, one condition was re- quisite which has not been fulfilled : that condition is, neu- trality in political opinion. Unless it was known that Eng- land took no part in forms of Government, every party in every State must look with aversion on our commercial pro- sperity, and turn a deaf ear to our economic theories ; and as she has signalised herself — (without effect it is true, or only with the most disastrous effect) — as a political partisan, now on the one side, and now on the other, she has positively furnished to every State an internal inducement to introduce a restrictive system, upon the grounds of thereby weakening her authority and arresting her interference, and to this under- current of feeling may be attributed in a great degree the restrictive system which, in the last quarter of a century, has developed itself to that point, that the Minister of England has himself avowed that our trade has been cut off with all our old customers. We might content ourselves with this declaration, as proving in this particular that general nullity of Diplomacy which we assert, had it not been that the same Minister, whose words we have quoted, has taken credit for eminent usefulness and activity in this line, and asserted, in respect to its pre-eminent claims to distinction : —

" There never was an Administration which in the same

COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY.

space of time devoted more attention, with more success, to the commercial interests of the country, than the Administra- tion which conducted affairs from 1330 to 184-1."

Such were the words of the chief of the diplomatic depart- ment up to the year IS 41. We have, however, a different view of the case from the chief of the commercial department, Mr. Labouchere, who, treating: the whole matter with merited contempt, but not very decent jocularity, told the British Par- liament that " Tariff treaties were delusive and tantalising things, reminding one of those lines which mathematicians mention which were always approaching but never came in contact ; that, however, they were now at a discount ; that when he was last at the Board of Trade — Sir Robert Peel was at the time in office — he had found such treaties com- menced with France, Naples, Portugal, and other countries, and had done his best to advance them, but had had no reason to congratulate himself upon his success. He trusted that the expectation of the Eight Hon. Baronet to conclude such treaties, if he ever entertained them, would be doomed to dis- appointment." The ex-President of the Board of Trade, in this wonderful statement, was repeatedly cheered by the House of Commons ; he was more than cheered, he was laughed at — four times was he interrupted by " laughter ;" and it was evident that, in the opinion of Parliament, in respect at least to commerce — Diplomacy was a joke.

It was, however, but a very poor joke, and there are docu- ments within the reach of any man, which prove that those commercial treaties, so extolled by the chief of the foreign department, so ridiculed by the chief of the commercial, not only could have been carried, but were prevented from being carried solely by British diplomacy.

It is a singular fact, that the more important of those measures, whether as to the principles which they contained, or the countries to which they applied, did not originate with the Government, but were urged upon it by persons standing without the service, namely, the treaties with France, the Austrian and Turkish empires, and the Italian Peninsula ; and we have the testimony of every one of the gentlemen engaged in these negotiations to the effect that they were frustrated by the interposition of the foreign department. In regard to that with France, in particular, the allegations were made in the strongest manner in the House of Commons, and

COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY. 165

on the authority of Mr. Porter, of the Board of Trade, who, before he accepted the mission to Paris, made it a condition that the Foreign Office should not be allowed in any way to interfere, being satisfied, from his previous experience, that if it did, the matter would fail. The promise was given and violated. It did interfere, and did break oft' the negotiation after it had been brought to a final and perfect adjustment. This has been stated in the House of Commons, arid has not been denied.

The trade which would have been opened by these treaties, the object of which was the mutual reduction of duties, has been estimated at £20, 000,000 yearly — the laugh was on the wrong side of the face.

But there is a matter graver even than this — it is the having endured violations of both natural and treaty rights, to the interruption of trade. Thus, while, in consequence of our positive acts, obstruction has been successfully placed to the opening of new channels of trade, the old ones have been suffered to be blocked up by endured violence.

"Tariff treaties," in the words of Mr. Labouchere, "are now at a discount ; " but worse has now happened — they are forgotten. But some ten or twelves years ago, it was one which possessed interest for the nation ; and that interest prompted the activity of the Government, by which activity the nation was disgusted with the subject. We cannot, however, do better than borrow from the contemporary dis- cussion an estimate of the sacrifice; up to that time, incurred by frustration of treaties and infraction of rights.

CIRCASSIA.* — By sacrifice of rights of com- £ £

merce since 1831, yearly export lost, say 100,000 — 1,100,000

POLAND. — By sacrifices since 1831 of com- mercial rights, secured by the Treaty of Vienna, yearly 500,000 — 5,500,000

GREECE. — By sacrifice of rights of British bondholders of two first loans, say £3,000,000. By payment of subsidy in violation of Act of Parliament, say £600,000. By fraudulent accounts pre- sented to Parliament, say £370,000. By sacrifice of anterior right of export and import, at 3 per cent, duty, yearly 100,000 Aggregate 5,000,000

* Morning Herald, July, 1842.

166 COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY.

Ersso-DuTCH LOAN.— Payment of, after

declaration of law officers of the Crown

that no obligation to Russia was bind- ing, Russia having violated her treaties

with England, aggregate 3,500,000

COAST OF AFRICA. — Sacrifice of the right

of export and import, at 5 per cent.,

from 1834. GUM TRADE. — Submission to interference

from 1835. PRUSSIAN LEAGFE. — Submission to the

establishment, and transference of, to

the small states of Germany, of the tariff

of Prussia

PERSIA.* — Neglect of the establish- ment of a commercial treaty in 1836,

affecting the trade of Central Asia.

Yearly loss 200,000 — 1,600,000

TURKEY. — Sacrifice of commercial treaty,

from 1836,t and imposition of special

restrictions on British commerce, since

signature of the changed treaty, in 1838.

Yearly loss 400,000 — 2,400,000

AUSTRIA. — Sacrifice of treaty with that

country, which was to have been fol- lowed up by a treaty for the navigation

of the Danube for the provinces of Wal-

lachia, Moldavia, and Servia, and which

projected treaty was frustrated through

the signature oi'a falsified Turkish treaty.

Effects of this treaty enormous and in- calculable. Yearly loss 1,400,000 — 6,000,000

NAPLES* — Sacrifice of treaty since 1839,

say " 500,000 — 1,500,000

FRANCE. — Absence of commercial treaty

since 1840. Say annual loss . . . ". 1,500,000 — 3,000,000

* A treaty has recently been established, after Persia has been entirely given over to Russia, and after England has been brought back there for her own ends.

t The loss it is convenient to calculate in all these cases, only from the period when a practical measure was prepared.

J Three hundred and eighty-four British ships were at once thrown out of employment by 'the differences with Naples (See Mr. Macgregor's Report/ p. 4). * Russia benefited to the amount of above a million sterling by the existing of the difference between Naples and England, as affecting the price of her tallow and the amount of her export.

COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY. 167

£ £

CENTBAL ASIA.* — Loss of trade since commencement of warlike operations. Yearly loss 200,000 - 800,000

CHINA.— Loss of trade since 1838, say . 1,500,000 — 6,000,000

THE PENINSULA. — Diminution or preven- tion of trade since 1835, by warlike ope- rations, or by the neglect or frustration of commercial advantages, say ... 500,000 — 3,500,000

MEXICO AND BUENOS AYBES. — Submis- sion to an illegal blockade, loss inflicted on British eommerce, or augmentation of the cost of produce exported from those countries 3,000,000

Annual sacrifice of exports £7,000,000

Aggregate loss £43,000,000

Shipping thrown out of employment, tons . . . 500,000

Seaman ditto 50,000

Loss OP LABOUR. — In diminution of yearly exports, equivalent to 2,500,000 quarters of grain burnt or thrown into the sea.

This calculation was made in the year 1842 ; some of the items are excessively underrated, such, for instance, as that with France and Turkey. But taking the annual sacrifice at £7,000,000, we have from that period down to the present £77,000,000 of sacrifice upon the export trade alone, and adding to that the aggregate results of the Administration which have been so busy and successful in commercial diplo- macy, we have an amount of £120,000,000 cast into the sea.

Be it however observed, that the point we aim at estab- lishing, is not the noxiousness, but the iuutility of Diplomacy. We do not want to have it mended, but rooted out. In a former article we have shown, on the authority of Lord Palmerston, that in regard to political objects diplomacy is a nullity. He takes his stand exclusively on commercial diplo- macy. We may discard the statement above cited, and rest our case exclusively on the counter-statement of Mr. Labouchere.

There is, however, another view of the case suggested by

* Russian trade in Central Asia has doubled, and £7,000,000 of sju'cie has been carried into that country and deposited there, to assist in carrying on the trade.

168 COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY.

the above items, that is, the cost of diplomacy. Financial reformers have always been eloquent upon this head, but they have looked no farther than salaries, house-rents, couriers, French cooks, and secret service money, and while intent upon items thus frivolous and contemptible, their minds have been dark in regard to the great features of the case ; not com- prehending the system, they could not entertain that intelli- gent " terror " at its endurance which must fill the mind of every man who apprehends its power and its character. The cost of diplomacy is not some tens of thousands, but it is the silent undermining, as we have now seen, of the very props of national existence, which again, as we shall presently see, is but a small matter compared with the deadly superin- cumbent weight which it has placed upon the fortunes of this empire — nothing less than the NATIONAL DEBT.

Now, let us make a practical application. Public opinion rules this land. If there is any branch upon which public opinion is informed, and therefore fit to rule, it is in matters of trade. AYas ever such an exhibition as this — not the exhi- bition of figures, but of statement and of maxim ? The two ministers, members of the same cabinet, and specially engaged in the transactions referred to, severally declare, the one that it has been successful in those measures, the other that it has not ; the one lays down the principle upon which they were undertaken as of the highest national importance ; the other treats it with ridicule, and opposes it in the persons of their successors. Thus it may be that individual ability may coincide with aggregate imbecility.

AYhat then are we to expect in the present pending matters in political diplomacy, where public opinion is not informed and is not permitted to have a voice ? Of course it is, that two ministers shall be enunciating contradictory maxims and making directly opposed statements. Nor will we be dis- appointed. Also, we may expect that the public capital of honour shall be lavished exactly as has been lavished the capital of trade. Thus, too, it may be, that individual courage may result in aggregate cowardice, and that friendship for an ally may practically resolve itself into the service to a foe.

169

THE SAFETY OF TURKEY AND THE HONOUR OF ENGLAND.

September \Wi.

There are two points involved in the pending negotiations — the one the safety of Turkey, the other the honour of England. The second is implicated in the first, and neither ought to be matter of uncertainty, even were it attended with difficulties and dangers. We may even go the length of saying, that, were there difficulty or danger, there would be no uncertainty upon either. Difficulties of fact would call forth faculties — presence of danger awaken courage. If, there- fore, doubts do impend over either solution, it arises from a confidence in the strength possessed by the one nation and the power possessed by the other.

We have here a debate upon a matter of right. The parties are nations amenable to supreme tribunal, and seve- rally dependent on their respective might to maintain their right, or to push their pretensions. The discussion has been displaced from this basis, and withdrawn from this arbitra- ment. The question of right is excluded, and the power and disposition of the aggrieved party to protect itself overruled and suppressed. In this consists the ambiguity which im- pends over the security of the aggrieved and the honour of the umpire. The case is that of a match of bodily strength referred to the decision of a game of dexterity, or that of a litigated case in a court of law remitted to decision by a game of chance. It is, in fact, both. A war and an adjudi- cation are severally suspended, and the matter is referred to an anomalous procedure, in which enters chance and dexterity, — chance being the lot of the one party, dexterity the attribute of the other.

Thus to remit the matter is however to decide it, and to decide it against the safety of Turkey and the honour of England, severally compromised to the other, in the decision by which both are sacrificed.

If Turkey alone were in a condition to guard its own security, and England in a condition to protect its own honour, how much more were each in a position to ropd aggression, destructive to the one and dishonourable to the other, when interests were united in the same point as

170 THE SAFETY OF TURKEY, ETC.

strength. It is therefore to the overwhelming preponderance of that strength that must be attributed the security by which both have been compromised.

There are two processes of superior mental combination which have constituted the internal springs of pre-eminent success — the one contempt, the other admiration ; not feel- ings to be entertained, but suggested, — a disposition of mind to be superinduced, and to obtain which must be adjusted acts, words, and gesture. The employment of the one or the other process depends upon the perfect appreciation of the character of antagonists. Those in whom the sentiment of admiration can be evoked are not available to be le 1 into error by self-esteem, and therefore through contempt ; whilst those who are exposed to the latter failing, are incapable of being inspired with the sentiments of admiration.

T\vo conquerors furnish in their lives and fortunes illus- tration of their respective processes, and at the same time demonstrate the diversity of the characters to which they apply, in two different quarters of the globe. The maxim of C.nesar was, to cause himself to be mis-estimated by his antagonists — that of Alexander to make himself the object of admiration to his foes. The one dealt with a material intellect, the other with an imaginative disposition; — the one conquered Europe, the other subdued the East.

The qualities of Caesar were also those of a material intellect, highly organized, perfectly disciplined, but inca- pable of incurring hazard, or, except from necessity, of risking life. Those of Alexander belonged to the imagination, based upon the practical part, but ascending beyond it to the sphere of genius, playing with fortune as his competitor for fame practised upon illusions, and dazzling at once the imagination by victories, by designs, and acquirements, by results and daring, compelling fate and defying chance.

Systems are personalities. The man, to be great, must have system ; systems, to be successful, must have qualities. In our days, Csesar and Alexander have a competitor in fame and fortune, and that competitor acts simultaneously upon both the fields to which severally their study was applied, and upon which their greatness was achieved. Russia stands between the East and the West; she operates upon both; transfers the reflections accumulated in each to the other; uses them reciprocally against each other. That solemn

MASK AND ANTI-MASK. 171

inquiry — not hurried by events, nor narrowed to the space of a single life, but matured by centuries — has led her to a common judgment with both. She presents two faces, making herself, like Caesar, despised in the West ; seeking to make herself like Alexander, admired in the East.

The grade of mental power differs, however, widely in re- spect to the attainment of those objects ; and consequently, while equalling the dexterity of the Roman Dictation, she has not attained the standard of the Macedonian Prince ; it thus is, and thus only, that the Taurus and the Paropamisus have remained virgin to her armies, whilst the great military and naval power possessed by Europe is seen to be incapable of the slightest movement to paralyse her action, or to con- trol her will; Europe, despising her, is managed by her strategy ; Asia, not dazzled by her genius, is refractory to her arms.

MASK AND ANTI-MASK.

September 14^.

So says the Times — "If Lord Clarendon's despatch had been produced at an earlier period, and before Parliament closed, it would have made the position of the Government perfectly plain and unassailable ; and it would have relieved the public from some uneasiness." Why, then, was that publication left for the " weekly paper of Sunday last," to be given, " abounding in gallicisms and inaccuracies of every kind." The Times was in possession of the document from the beginning. "As, however, the import of this important State paper has been-thus imperfectly made public, we proceed without further delay to lay a correct copy of it before our readers."

The first question is, from whom did the Times get the original ? If from its English Government, it surely must have published it before ; if not, then it must have had it from its Russian Embassy. Where, in that case, is Count Nesselrode's reply. It is careful to inform us that it does not know " whether Count Nesselrode attempted to r< ply to Lord Clarendon's argument, which, in many respects, admitted of

172 MASK AND ANTI-MASK.

no refutation." Clearly the Times is in the confidence of the British Government, or of the Russian Embassy, which, after all, is one and the same thing.

The next question is, how Lord Clarendon's despatch comes to render " perfectly plain and unassailable the position of the English Government." That position, if we remember aright, as taken up at the close of the Session, was that England confided entirely in the " honour and character" of the Emperor of Russia. Now, the Times tells us that Lord Clarendon's argument, in many respects, admits of no refu- tation. It does not tell us in what respects it does admit of refutation, but it specifies those in which it does not. " It establishes" (these are its own words) " beyond the possibility of doubt that it was not because the fleets were Sijnt to the Dardanelles on the 2d of June that Russia invaded the Prin- cipalities The date alone suffices to convict the

Russian Ministers of gross inaccuracies." Gross inaccuracies ! Are these the terms that would be selected by an indignant denouncer of such conduct, or by the advocate of Lord Clarendon's "views," or those of a perfidious apologist? How could Russia be " inaccurate" in such a matter? She did not require to look at the date of despatches to know what she herself had done ; we collate those dates to discover what she has done, and we find therein evidence of a falsehood. She did not misdate, but she deceived. It is falsehood that Lord Clarendon charges — a falsehood covering a fact, and made use of as nn insult. Does this statement, however glozed over by the deprecatory epithet of " grossness," administer any amount of plainness and unassaihibility to the position of the English Government — that position being that the honour of the Emperor was " plain" and " un- assailable?"

The Times goes on to say, in regard to the substance of the dispute, that the despatch of Lord Clarendon had " equal force," and commends it for denouncing the "invasion of the Principalities as a violation of territory, and an infraction both of special treaty and of public law, £c." But this covers the whole ground. In what, then, are the "respects" in which Lord Clarendon's despatch does admit of a Russian refutation ? However, again we ask, what is there to render the " position of the Government plain and unassailable," or to relieve the public from "uneasiness?" Far more is it

MASK AND ANTI-MASK, 173

difficult to imagine how this publication can be construed into " the most complete and decisive answer conceivable, to the attacks of those who had misconceived or chose to mis- represent the line of policy adopted by this country."

We, on the other hand, are of opinion that a more com- plete and decisive answer can scarcely be given than the despatch of Lord Clarendon to those who adopt and approve the line of policy pursued by this country, being in direct opposition to all the motives which must be supposed to influence men who have concurred in Russia's recent acts, and have come forward to vouch for her " honour and cha- racter;" and if such had not been the conviction of the Times, as well as the conviction of the Russian Embassy, and of three out of the four Foreign Secretaries composing the Cabinet, its publication would not have been delayed until the Session was closed, the occasion passed, and it could come only to accumulate a new load of dishonour on the nation, and of infamy on the Cabinet. Here we have the official declaration of falsehoods employed by the Russian Govern- ment, and submitted to by the British. Had the publication been made during the Session of Parliament, could that Session have closed with the Ministerial declaration of Eng- land's reliance on the " honour and character" of the Em- peror. " Dates " now show that the despatch was communi- cated to the Russian Government before the declaration was made in Parliament, vouching for the veracity of the Russian Emperor. Is not this to drink the very dregs of humiliation ? Hence the reason of suppressing it then, and publishing it now.

But did the Russian Government ever expect to deceive the British ? It would have been a very silly Government if it had. Qui est ce que Von trompe ici ? Was it necessary to prove to the Russian Government that it was " inaccurate ?" There was but one course for the British Government to take — and that was, to break off all intercourse. Any course save this, was to give to the insult its effect, and, above all, to prove the falsehood without requiring the necessary repara- tion, and taking the consequent steps, was to do precisely what Russia intended you to do — it sealed and published the bond of your servitude. You argue the case forsooth, and the man who has insulted you does not condescend to reply. Why should he ? His object is not to establish his truth, but

I

174 MASK AND ANTI-MASK.

your meanness. You have taken the burden of his " honour" on your shoulders. Strange indeed if he were to come to the rescue and relieve you of the load.

Again, this is not all. By this falsehood you are put for- ward as the cause of the invasion of the Principalities. You argue, indeed, the contrary. But is this a case for argu- ment ? This is a matter of will and declaration. It is so when Russia states it. She says — " 1 invade Turkey because Turkey is too great friends with you ;" and you say — " Oh, you did no such thing ; you intended to do so long before a certain date, and therefore you say what is false." Nevertheless Turkey is invaded, and the falsehood is not retracted ; and yet the policy pursued upon this occasion is rendered " plain and unassailable," by the avowal of the fact !

Oh, it is not our cheek that smarts — it is our friend ! Well, and if you are content, what will your friends say to your " plain and unassailable" policy ^

The Times goes on to give us the detail of the stupendous results obtained bv this note. " What," it says, collecting its energies for a great effort, " was the effect of this despatch ?" Listen, attentive world. " We know not whether Count Nesselrode attempted to reply." On the first point, therefore, the question which the Times puts to itself it leaves where it puts it. But something grand is now coming. " But we have positive evidence of a more important result." The first impor- tant result of Lord Clarendon's despatch is, that it should not be answered ; in fact, that it should be unanswerable. The next is, either that the Principalities are evacuated, or that the Czar has shot himself; and all that we have heard from the East since the middle of July must be a dream. But, no, the facts are facts ; it is the reasonings that are incredibilities. It goes on, " Namely, that after the Prussian Government had been told in this unequivocal manner, what opinion was en- tertained in Europe of its proceedings, and what resistance trotild be offered to its attacks, it instantly accepted the very first terms of compromise offered to its consideration."

The words italicised are its own ; yet, in its own corre- spondence from Constantinople, in a passage which we our- selves inserted from that paper, this note, so instantly accepted, is described as " giving to Russia all that it desired, " We again quote the passage. After speaking of the tamely sub- missive way in which the Porte accepted the advice of Lord

MASK AND ANTI-MASK. 175

Stratford de Redcliffe, the Times' Correspondent asserts that the European Governments had been tempted into ignoring " the existence of anything like independence on the part of the Forte : for, when a note proposed by the Four Powers, and assented to by Russia (since it gives all desired}, has been sent to Constantinople to be signed, all European organs of public opinion congratulate themselves that the difficulties are over." How does the Times not establish a more effectual cen- mre for its Foreign Correspondents ? It has often been charged with concocting letters ; probably it will be more guarded for the future.

We have not, however, done with this wonderful despatch. It seems that it has balked Russia completely and at all points, for, " far from being a step nearer to her object, she has retracted, &c." Her object, therefore, was not to occupy the Principalities, not to disgrace England, not to bully Europe, not to extinguish the Turkish corn trade, not to prolong her occupation in the Principalities until she can convulse or invade Austria or Turkey, or both. She has, of course, done none of these things ; and because an unex- pected unanimity, spirit, and power have revealed themselves in Turkey, it is all owing to this despatch of Lord Clarendon's, which does not touch the subject matter, which only stamps disgrace upon England, and, in so far as the opinions of the writer are revealed, is in direct opposition to the acts of his colleagues.

We have more than once foreshadowed a proposition which has now taken body and shape ; we have said that, failing to drive the Porte, into acquiescence, through its weakness, Russia would next seek to alarm the nations of Europe by its power. We have used these words — We shall be called upon to " put down Mussulman fanaticism, and to resist Turkish ambition." See now how closely the game is played on both sides. The Times of yesterday has the words, " We have no inclination to back the passions or the fana- ticism which may one day let loose a Turkish army upon Europe" Just so. We ended an article the other day with these words :— " If you prevent the Turks from fighting your battles against the Russians, the day will come that you will have to fight them (the Turks) yourselves."

The Times does not know "whether Count Nesselrode attempted to reply to Lord Clarendon." Now, we do know

MASK AND ANTI-MASK.

that he did not ; and, without the penetration and information of Printing-house-square, we find that fact in the document itself. Could we, indeed, have in our Foreign Office such a breakers of windows, as a man demanding an answer from Russia, when it was not convenient, to give one ? We trace in the despatch signed " Clarendon," two hands -. the one a lc<s, the other a more practised one.

The novice furnishes Opinions, the veteran rounds them into shape. The method adopted might appear ingenious were it original, but it has been rehearsed over and over again. In 1838 there was a dreadful quarrel with Russia, about her doings in Central Asia ; a magnificent despatch was then written (20th October); it contained four times as many paragraphs as the present one. It charged Russia with, at least, four times as many falsehoods, and that not merely for the purpose of injuring an ally, but for that of assailing our own territory. The assertions were made as of the Government's positive and certain knowledge it possessed the very intercepted documents. It was, in fact, an " un- answerable" despatch, and, what was more, it left no possi- bility of accommodation. However, all things went smoothly on, as if it never had been written, and that by a very inge- nious process adopted by the Russian Government, which was, not to notice it ; it was in fact answered, by being left without reply. But the Russian Government had no merit in this discovery — it was put in its way, for the English document concluded by the statement that the English Government conceived that it had a right " to express its opinions." That expression having taken place, of course the matter was ended.

Again, in 1849, there was a furious despatch written about Hungary to Austria. That despatch also remained without reply. It was, indeed, never presented ; but if it had been, care was taken to obviate that inconvenience ; it also con- cluded by representing itself as " reflections of the British Cabinet on one of the most important events that Europe has of late year? witnessed." These " reflections " were to be read to Prince Schwartzenburg, and a copy of them given.

Having thus become familiar with the "fine Roman hand," we will at once recognize it in the following passage : — " It is with deep regret that her Majesty's Government find them- selves compelled to record their opinions with respect to the

MASK AND ANTI-MASK. 17?

recent invasion of the Turkish territory." They are further of opinion that, by withholding- them, they might render it difficult hereafter to interfere in defence and support of treaties." Really ! But this says nothing. The offensive despatch is written after the matter is made up. Listen to these incomparable words from the last paragraph — " Her Majesty's Government receive with sincere satisfaction the renewed assurances that it is the policy of his Imperial Majesty and the interest of Russia to maintain the existing order of things in the East."

What existing order of things? The "invasion of the Turkish territory," or, " the interference, in .defence, or sup- port, of treaties ?

No. This is no Lord Clarendon : the signature appended to this document, which the Times holds to be more than a match for Russia, ought to be that of a man the match to Count Nesselrode, In the opinion of the TIMCS, there is one such man in England, and that man is actually a member of the Cabinet, In an elaborate review, inserted in Septem- ber last, in the columns of the Times, of the transactions in Central Asia (in the course of which the despatch already referred to, was written), after dwelling on the bootless sacrifice of life, and objectless display of heroism, it turns round in disgust on the authorities at home, expressing itself in these words : —

" With what feelings did the authorities in this country first prompt the exposure of those lives ? What feelings, in other words, predominated when the issue had made itself plain ? On the 23d June, 1842, upon Mr. Baillie's motion, the then Sir J. Hobhouse and Lord Palmerston asserted, in the House of Commons, that Lord Auckland had adopted, and could not have done otherwise than adopt, the views of Sir Alexander Burnes. To support this theory, and throw their own blame upon the memory of a man who was no longer alive, and who was not then known to have left behind him duplicates, and even triplicates, of all his official letters, a blue book was presented to Parliament, in which every por- tion of every document was diligently cut out which could implicate the really responsible persons. Even the first few lines of one letter were expunged, leaving just enough of the commencing clause to convey the impression that Burnes was speaking of his own opinions, when he was, in reality, reply-

178 MASK AND ANTI-MASK.

ing to ideas thrown out by Lord Auckland. Lord Palmerston when at the moment he received from Nesselrode a complete disclaimer of Russian interference in Central Asia, had in his possession the instructions with which Yiikievich went to Affghanistan. To maintain a good understanding with the Court of St. Petersburg, the British Government consented to overlook this discrepancy, and, Bartering lie for lie, cemented the bond of union by disowning the proceedings and blacken- ing the character of its own subordinate agents. As diplo- matists, the Russian and the English Minister rivalled each other ; but the conduct of both may be best estimated, ac- cording to the law of honour and morality, by the act of him who was less scrupulous, only because he was more powerful."

For two days, namely Saturday and Monday last, we have not pursued the monstrosities in the Times, but we note the fact of its perseverance — the filling up the interval of time before the arrival of the answer from St. Petersburg — the turning of that time to profit for the perversion of public judgment. Those articles otherwise present nothing new.

After bamboozling by contradiction, it now tries to nauseate by repetition. However, there is one novelty — the dignified resistance of the Divan is represented as a " Russian intrigue."

The English Government, at the moment we write, still avowedly stands opposed to the Russian. The Times is at once the advocate of both — supporting the English Government, as opposed to Russia — supporting it in its concurrence with Russia. Again, it denounces a modified endeavour of the Turkish Government to effect what the Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the English Cabinet has declared to be absolutely requisite for any settlement, as a " Russian intrigue." Con- sequently, Lord Clarendon must be in its eyes a Russian agent, and the majority who have adopted a course exactly opposed to his declaration must be its English members. Who, then, is " Russian," and who is " English ? " The organ of Lord Palmerston calls the Times " Russian," for urging the sub- mission of Turkey. The Times calls the resistance of Turkey " Russian." " Yenal city ! " exclaimed Jugurtha, " if only the purchaser could be found." England has found her purchaser, and with her own coin ; she has found the worst of conquerors by having " made a shameful conquest of herself."

179

THE POCKET CRISIS.

September \$th.

The Emperor rejects ; and the Sulina dredging-maehine is at work. Such are the new features supplied by telegraph and steam to the audience of the mighty West. But yet, a delightful haze of uncertainty envelopes the facts, and we are left to our old ruminations on the character of a " great gentlemen," and the qualities of a sorry machine. Let its begin with the latter. We will take our intelligence from an unquestionable source, no other than the Times itself: —

" The accounts from the Sulina are as sad as ever. Vast quantities of corn are lying prepared for exportation ; but the bar is, as before, almost impassable. A Galatz letter speaks of the losses ^incurred by the commercial firms and shipowners as ' incalculable.' The captains of the vessels detained first presented a memorial to the Russian Consul, and then entered a protest against the inactivity of the Russian Government. On the 22d of August the dredging- machine began to work ; but in the course of a week or two we shall certainly hear, that, owing to bad weather, it has been obliged to suspend its operations. One is at a loss which most to admire, the indifference of Russia to the remon- strances of the Powers, or their forbearance."

The "indifference of Russi<i," and the "forbearance of Europe" are not antithetical terms, but, on the contrary, very closely allied, — the expansion of the one is the limit of the other. " Is it supposed," said the Thunderer of the Brazen Badge, on the llth of last month, "that because Admiral Dundas has not passed the Dardanelles, or Admiral Corry the Sound, the Russian Government is the less un- conscious of their influence ?" Nothing of the kind is to be supposed, as evinced in the operations of the dredging- machine. Our information, from an undoubted source, goes to the effect that the services of the dredging-machine have consisted, not in removing mud, but in depositing stones. The Austrian Lloyd's newspaper expresses peculiar views on this head ; it speaks of the enormous rise in the price of grain in the ports of Russia within the " last fortnight," and predicts an increase of the national prosperity of Russia, so long as France and England remain her tributaries,"

180 THE POCKET CRISIS.

How does it happen that, previously to the year 1853, these measures were not adopted for increasing the national pros- perity of Russia ? Nay were they not attempted during the late occupation of the Principalities? The answer is evident, — Then there was a conjoint occupying force, and that force Turkish ; there was consequently no Vienna conference, and no joint note. You have enabled her to browbeat Turkey, and she is thereby enabled to browbeat you. She can interrupt your trade j she can raise the price of your bread ; she can convulse you with corn seditions, and ultimately bring upon you a monetary crisis. From which, if you escape, it may be, as last time, at the expense of some hundred millions ; and all this, notwithstanding the unproblematical existence of Admirals Dundas and Corry, and even of their squadrons. It is no marvel, therefore, if the Emperor rejects the conjoint note.

In a secret Russian despatch of the year 1825, from which we made copious extracts on Saturday last, the plan now realised is sketched to the letter, and several remarkable maxims of policy are there laid down. One is, that when the Foreign Powers hesitate to adopt a decision of the Imperial Cabinet, it is advisable "to adopt a step which will establish a crisis." Another, that with Ministers placed in the situation of those of Europe, " a Cabinet such as ours will find in events a thousand ways of terminating differences." Now, if " nothing changes " in the foreign policy of Russia, so also is nothing changed in the character of Foreign Powers. Their Cabinets are still just what they were twenty-eight years ago, liable to be startled and con- founded by any " crisis " sprung upon them, and always reducible by the reaction of events which they pretend to lead. It is still a contest of a seeing man with a blind one — of knowledge and capacity against ignorance and mean- ness ; — and the value of these circumstances, which have rendered these respective characters so plain, consists in affording us the opportunity of remedying an organic mal- formation which must prove ultimately fatal. An English- man is not naturally inferior to a Russian, and indeed it is not Russians who direct the policy of Russia ; but we have been indifferent, because conscious of strength. The fleets and screw propellers have done all the mischief, and if we are wise, we will forget for a time steam and Minic rifles, and

THE POCKET CRISIS. 181

think a little of the commonplace matters of " character and honour."

At an early period of this discussion, we pointed out that the essential feature of the case was this : that Russia was enabled simultaneously to prosecute hostilities, and to avert collision. She keeps, in fact, the " crisis " in her pocket ; she can advance at any moment ; she can at any moment withdraw. Her antagonist stands before her like the English unicorn, rearing and chained, according to circumstances. She can give him a fall backwards, if he shakes : if he springs, she can bring him down on his face. She is not going to lose this advantage with Cabinets so qualified ; she will be in no hurry to resign so pretty a game. Whoever does, who plays on velvet ?

Ten days ago we fixed at six weeks the obliged limits of the Fabian policy, as towards the end of October, operations .on the part of the Turks would become exceedingly difficult, and soon after impossible. Results so far confirm the judg- ment of the position of the parties on which this estimate of her course was founded. We further said that the acceptance or rejection of the conjoint note would depend on the degree of subserviency of the Cabinets of England and France. Since then, the Times has announced a divergency between them. Now lets us consider the courses open to Russia ; she has an ample choice of advantages.

First, she accepts the note unconditionally.

Secondly, she accepts it conditionally.

Thirdly, she rejects it unconditionally.

The First case involves the withdrawal of her troops. Then she gains — 1, the restoration of the corn trade ; 2, the increased prosperity of the Empire ; 3, the destruction of a rival trade ; 4, the prevention so far of the emancipation of the Turkish export trade; 5, a right of interference in the affairs of the Oriental Church sanctioned by Europe ; 6, the right of infringing, so far as regards herself, the Treaty of 184-1 with the Powers, while maintaining it as regards their exclusion from the Black Sea; 7, the maintenance of her treaties as obli- gatory upon Turkey, together with the right of violating them as regards herself ; 8, the acknowledgment of her right of violating the general European law as regards the navigation of rivers; 9, the humiliation of Europe; 10, the humiliation and injury of Turkey; 11, the animosity of Turkey against

182 ""THE POCKET CRISIS.

Europe ; 12, the Hea in the West that Turkey as a military Power may become dangerous, and requires no longer the union of England and France for supporting it, leaving the germs of separate alliances to curb Mussulman fanaticism, and Turkish ambition.

In the Second case, she prolongs the crisis.

By the Third, she defies at once Europe and Turkey.

By the last she is involved in the second, but even if re- stricted to the first, she will be hugely confirmed in tte doc- trine of crises, and in some one of which a revolution must lay open to her Constantinople.

In fact there is, at the present moment, serious alarm of such a contingency. Should an attempt be made to displace the Sultan, the arms of the Moslems would be turned against each other. "What part would then play the Conference at Vienna ? what part the Russian army on the Danube ?

Of the atmospheric pressure in northern latitudes we have, however, an index in the barometer established in the neigh- bourhood of Blackfriars-bridge. The Times of yesterday inserts the following announcement in capitals : —

" THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA HAS REJECTED THE TURKISH MODIFICATIONS OF THE NOTE WHICH HE HAD ACCEPTED AT

THE SUGGESTION OF THE FOUR POWERS."

After which, that journal proceeds, not to deal with this important fact as regards Russia, Turkey, and Europe, but as regards Austria. There is to be, on the 23d of this month, a conference between the two Emperors, at Olmutz. The ZZd of this month! What does this mean? Time. Forty of the days of grace are so knocked off. To this end Austria is put* forward as a Power whose " traditional policy " has been marked by superiority to Russian arts and opposition to Russian aggrandisement. She is " determined to prevent the inroads of Northern armies." And she can do it, too ; for " she takes in flank the whole power of the invader." But if, alas, she falters, then Europe is lost ; for " no direct interference of other States could rescue these countries from invasion by the two greatest military mo- narchies of the continent." As, therefore, everything depends upon Austria, so the "rejection of the Turkish mo- difications by the Emperor of Russia," will decide nothing till the Olmutz Conference comes off. How gratified Austria must be to find herself of such importance, and such consi-

THE POCKET CRISIS. 183

deration, to the Times. Of course, in the twinkling of an eye, vanish the long years of malicious abuse and perfidious vituperation. But Austria is only to effect this great result by " remaining firm to the principles of the other Powers." Well, how happens it that, two paragraphs before, Austria is stated to have called upon the Eussian Government to " name a day for the evacuation of the Principalities ?" Name a day ! Is this an offset to the " eternal enemies," and the "legal order?" Does the Times expect to establish its nationality by balancing a cockney ism against its detected scrap of bearskin?" However, we have not seen the prin- ciples of the other powers carried out in this fashion, or to this extent.

After this, we have a magnificent exposition of the great- ness of the fortunes that will attend the State which would claim the high prerogative of asserting the rights of nations and the interests of Europe. " The most popular and powerful Sovereign of our times will be the Prince who will convince the people of Germany that he is proof against the temptations and the perils of a Russian alliance." Beau- tiful discrimination. The people of Germany ! There is no people in England and France — no people, at least, to applaud such resolution, or to visit with perils surrender to such temptations, whether it be in a Prince, a Cabinet, or a Newspaper —

" Doff that covering where Britannia shines, And hang the Bearskin on those recreant lines."

Truly, to quote those very lines, " while our attention is devoted to the negotiations of the day, it must not be for- gotten that there is at the bottom of these discussions the greatest question which the statesmen of this age have yet to solve."* Only it was all solved beforehand. Now time alone is played for, and you are the dice ; you are occupied with the negotiations, while she reaps her harvest. Nego- tiations forsooth ! What negotiation is there with men who are kicked in one place and slapped in another! Giants bearded by a pigmy — five Goliahs by one dwarf. Down then with your fleets ! or if not, down with your negotia- tions. Be at least slaves, if you will not be freemen. Do not rattle together " character and honour " with servitude

* Times, June 27th.

181 A BYZANTINE IN LONDON.

nnd chains. Is there really, after all, no People in Englantf ? Does there remain nothing but a " closet ?" Is Party to be extinguished at home only that a Foreign Despot may rule ? Shall a nation of freemen be united only to show that it is powerless, and millions be expended only to purchase infamy ?

A BYZANTINE IN LONDON.

September l$th.

T\\& Illustrated Neics promises us a grand pictorial illustration of the Eastern question. In the catalogue there is one item which raises at once our curiosity, and prompts us to anti- cipate its pencil — this is no other than " the Turkish Ambas- sador" We confess to an extraordinary degree of remissness in having forgotten the existence of such an individual, and yet he must be, of all others, the man of importance where everything rests on the decision of England, and when we know that the opinions, or at least the expressions, of the English Cabinet are divided. We have seen how events at Constantinople have been decided by the influence exerted by the English Ambassador, and if ever there was a moment when Turkish diplomacy could be serviceable in England, it is the present. Here, not on the Danube, are poised the fates of Russia ; in London are concentrated the energies of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg. So it is here that Turkey has to meet her, and on the argumentative talents of her represen- tative is there more at stake even than on the military capacity of her general at Shumla.

By the disdain of Turkey for diplomacy, and the contempt of Turks for Europe, the foreign representation of that country fell, in former years, into the hands of the Greeks of the Panar, the descendants of the diplomatists of the Lower Empire. The events of the Greek revolution, and the con- sequent recasting of Turkey, produced, in both respects, a total change — the eyes of the Turks were opened to the treachery of the Greeks, and they themselves became ambi- tious of posts of distinction in Europe. Resident represen- tatives were established, in 1835, at the Courts of Paris and London ; and the Embassies were composed exclusively of

A BYZANTINE IN LONDON. 185

Turks, much more with a view of changing the social estimate of their country, than of carrying out any scheme of policy. The first that came to England was Nainic Pacha. He had, however, a special object, that of obtaining the support of England against Mehemet AH, and thereby to prevent the Eussian descent on the Bosphorus. And this, indeed, was an extraordinary mission, and it utterly failed. He was followed by the first ambassador in ordinary, Nouri Effendi, also charged with a special mission, to obtain the co-operation of England in emancipating the Turkish export trade. To this plan England also turned a deaf ear. From that time we have seen in England most of the Turkish administrators pre-eminent for station and capacity : — Sarim Pacha and Rescind Pacha, both subsequently Grand Viziers ; Achmed Pacha, brother-in-law of the Sultan ; Ali Pacha, late Minister for Foreign Affairs ; and, finally, Mehemet Pacha, the present Governor of Aleppo. To the presence in this country of these distinguished men and gentlemen, is doubtless a great measure to be attributed the altered estimate which we entertain of the Turks.

After the removal of the latter, the Embassy remained vacant for a considerable period. It was at one time a question of filling the post with one of the most distinguished men of the Ottoman Empire, and the delay was occasioned by the importance attached to it. At length it was decided that the Private Secretary of the Sultan, as the individual best acquainted with his master's views, should be sent to repre- sent him at the Court of Queen Victoria ; but suddenly, and between night and morning, this decision was overruled ; and M. Mussurus was appointed, to the utter astonishment of the capital and to the infinite disgust of all the well-wishers of Turkey.

This impression was produced, not so much by the ante- cedents of the man, than by the fact of his being a Greek. It will be evident that the object, as above stated, of Turkish Ambassadors in Europe was not only perverted but entirely reversed, nor could fidelity be possibly expected from a person placed at home in the social position occupied by his class. It would be felt at once if we were to suppose the case of an Irish Repealer representing the Queen of England in Paris at a revolutionary crisis, or a Wapping Jew in Judea. Besides, it was reverting to the old system which

186 • A BYZAXTIXE IX LOXDOX.

had been exploded, after the occasion had disappeared, as Turks of distinction no longer, disdained Embassies, and were qualified to fill such posts. It might further have been interpreted a slight, if not an insult, to the Queen of England, had it not been that the nomination was attributed to the influence of the English Ambassador.

There are in Turkey some Greeks of a certain distinction, equivocal though it may be, but M. Mussurus was none of these. He owed his elevation solely to his having married a daughter of Stephen Yogorides, a Bulgarian by birth, who had attached himself to the English party, and, as such, considered the antagonist of Logotheti, the Greek representative of the Russians. His influence at the Porte depended upon this connection ; and, consequently, when the Allies established a distinct government in the island of Samos, he was named its Bey, an inferior administrative title to that of Pacha. With the dexterity of the Fannriols, in turning all things to account, this title, purely administrative, was translated " Prince," and usurped by all the descendants of any person who had filled such administrative office. Yogorides thus came to be called Prince of Samos, although the princedom, such as it was, had passed away. In consequence of reiterated revolts, his patrons were obliged to sacrifice him. Since then another Greek has been set up as Prince in Samos : he has fled. These incidents will give some idea of the Fanariot hierarchy.

This Stephen Yogorides is, perhaps, the best specimen extant of the class ; but nevertheless, his talents for cunning, and his habits of intrigue are admitted by his warmest friends, and held even to be his claims to distinction. It may well be imagined that, standing in such a position in reference to the English Embassy, a Fanariot, however upright, would not lose the opportunity of advancing his family interests ; and thus, through Bulgarian nepotism, the Sultan finds himself at this moment represented in England by a Fanariot adventurer — or, in other words, a Byzantine Greek.

In an argumentative point of view, the fact is not, however, without value. "What shall we say of the alleged oppression of a race and faith, numbers of which are representatives of the Sultan, filling the highest offices, and entrusted with the management of the gravest interests ?

There is, however, another point of view under which the

A BYZANTINE IN LONDON. 187

matter is to be considered, and that is, the particular interests of the Fanariot class, with reference to the Principalities.

These governments were formerly confided to them, and it was their great distinction. The Greek revolt opened the eyes of the Forte to the danger of such nominations. Natives from that time were appointed, and the Fanariots ceased to be " Princes" of Wallachia and Moldavia; but the system of election has been varied on every new election, so that is any- thing but stable, and a door is open to every ambition. These changes in the mode of election, which have now occurred no less than five times, have always been imposed by liussia, in order to increase the chances of her candidate. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent the re-opening of this office to the Greeks of the Fanar, and it will be at once perceived what hold this gives Russia over the leading Fanariots ; and that, independently of such hopes, this class, as a class, has a permanent interest ; and it is their leading one in shaking the authority of the Porte in the Principalities, and for arousing its animosity against the naiive Hospodars, through whom they have been excluded. It will, therefore, be readily appre- hended in what an embarrassing position a Greek must be placed, if honest, as Turkish representative at this moment in London, and also what little chance there is of his dealing fairly by his master.

There is, however, a further complication in this case ; the Prince of Moldavia was named in consequence of his marrying another daughter of Vogorides, which was considered as a guarantee of anti- Russian tendencies. On this occasion the son-in-law adroitly overreached the Fanariot father-in-law, by making him pay the expense of the election. The two Hos- podars being at present compromised against the Porte, the public news report a secret treaty between them for their mutual protection, in case of either being called to account, on the retreat of the Russians, for their present disobedience. Vogorides, at Constantinople, and Mussurus, at London, are equally compromised ; the one for his son-in-law, the other for his father-in-law and his brother-in-law.

So it must ever be when secresy prevails in matters of state, the greatest events will be determined by intrigues. It will no more be might than right that will rale the world, and that Cabinet will prevail, the diplomacy of which is the most dexterous.

188 A BYZAXTIXE IX LOXDOX.

Since the foregoing was written, intelligence has reached London that Lord Stratford de Redclifte has sent home his resignation. Where will humiliation cease? Colonel Rose has made no secret of his disgust at the proceedings at Con- stantinople. He asserts that even-thing has been ruined by the unfortunate advice of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. Mr. Layard has thrown up his situation in disgust, he attributing all the evil to Lord Stratford de Redclifle reinstating in power Redschid Pacha. Now, at length, the great diplomatist of the Times also throws up his situation. We receive the intel- ligence with extreme satisfaction, not merely as the relief of Turkey from an intolerable incubus, but as possibly aifording the opportunity of relieving the name of Canning from the obloquy which otherwise must attach to it. May his good genius in the struggle acquire the mastery — may this man, so dignified, so conscientious, while the season of action is still left to him, be awakened by the sense alike of the humiliating part he has been made to play, and of the evil of which he has l}een the instrument, alike -for the country which confided lo him its powers, and for the nation which so generously and so long has yielded to his guidance. May he return to Eng- land to resume that station which he so nobly occupied some years ago, resisting that dishonour and disgrace, of which he has allowed himself for a time to become the mask and implement.

It seems that the instructions regarding the withdrawal of the agents of Great Britain from the Principalities, mentioned by Lord Clanricarde in the House of Lords, have been carried into effect, and it is stated, in the news from that country, that the subjects of Great Britain have been placed under the protection of the Greek ConmU. So that, in the Ottoman dominions, Great Britain places herself under the patronage of Greece to protect her against a " Greek of the Lower Em- pire," as Napoleon epigrammatically designated the prede- cessors of Nicholas. A Byzantine Empire is evidently no longer a dream, but only the Romans are wanting.

189

HOW TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY.

September 16/7*.

" Patres conscript! took a boat to Philippi, Stormaque consurgit, boatumque sub sequore mergit, Omnes drownderunt, qui swim awpy non potuerunt."

lEnnius.

The telegraphic announcements from Berlin and Yienna have inspired our contemporaries with the apprehensions of war. They are positively alarmed lest the squadrons 'at Besika Bay should receive orders to sail through the Darda- nelles. There are people for whom experience is of no use. Have they not cried " Wolf! wolf! " often enough ? and do they not shriek " Peace ! peace ! " loud enough ? What have they been crying out but " War ! " for the last two months ? and what have we been crying out in return but " Ye are mad ? " How can there be war with five against one, and, we may say, seven against one ? — because, so sure as the five move, Poland and Circassia will move also.

Of the five great Powers, Turkey included, there is not one that is not a match for iiussia in strength, when she is the aggressor ; but there is not one that is a match for her in intelligence. An aggregate of strength is, indeed, very formidable ; but what is an aggregate of weakness ? It is not the sword, but the sense — not the hand, but the brain — by which the contest is to be decided. Of what Use, then, the temper of the one or the number of the other? Billions and billions of legs and arms, multiplied by billions again, will not make a complete body, or be a match for a single head ! No one doubted that you had plenty of Kne-of- battle ships : can you doubt now that you have not got a man ? The issue is changed, the case goes for trial to the other Court. You have assented to the transfer, and therefore you have lost your cause.

It has been remarked by a recent writer, that " in such a Government as that of England, the opinion of the nation has no influence on the conduct of the Government, but the i'allacies of the people are represented in its acts." All that has happened is traceable to one fallacy — a monstrous and fatal one — included in one word, and that is " Peace " — a craven and dastardly cry, that must, as it ought, extinguish the nation where it becomes general. A weak nation is some-

190 HOTY TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY.

times constrained to make peace an object, and gains by it — at least, is excusable for it ; but a strong nation that does so, destroys peace, not only for itself but for the world ; holding out the temptation to others to qualify themselves in those destructive arts which we see daily succeed in the persons of knaves, in proportion as the class of dupes abounds.

"When the Eussians crossed the Pruth, Turkey had only to send forward her troops alsD, instead of leaving 500 miles of country open. Again and again, and ten times more we repeat, that it was the ten thousand Turks which, in 1S51, made Eussia withdraw from the Principalities, because she could do nothing with them there. This was assigned at the time as the reason for their withdrawal. It was predicted that she would return again and alone. She has returned, and alone, but she is only alone through England's help. "When the Eussians crossed the Pruth, the Turks, as we now know of absolute and positive certainty, would instantly have crossed the Danube, not with ten thousand but with jivc-aud-tici-nty thousand men ; and, had a hostile shot been fired by Eussia, the whole Nizam was ready to follow at their back, to say nothing of the populations — the Hungarians, the Cossacks, and the Circassians.

Their advance was through the open ground of their own territory. It was the simplest of operations, as well as the wisest of precautions ; it was no less easy than it was neces- sary ; it saved everything — honour, strength, territory, allies abroad, and public feeling at home ; it exposed not a life, it cost not a farthing. It was, besides, according to the Treaty of Balta Liman. It may have been very erroneously, but it nevertheless is the fact, that, from the Commander-in-Chief down to the drummer, none were aware of the inferiority of the Turks to the Eussians, or doubted their own triumph in the contest, if once engaged. What then prevented this movement ? — Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe, and he alone. He was without instructions : the Government did not know what instructions to send, and they sent him a charged shell of experience and discrimination, with a self-acting match ; and unless the projectile had been so launched, never would the Russians have ventured across the Pruth. The Secretary of Embassy in charge was a military man. He would have made short work of the matter, just as he did with respect to Montenegro, where, if Omar Pasha had been

HOW TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY. 191

held back, the crisis would equally have been started, but only with Austrian in the van. The mass of human suf- fering actually incurred, with the incalculable dangers open for the future, have therefore depended simply upon the arrival of one Englishman at Constantinople, imbued with the peace theory of his age and country.

Even after the folly of the proceeding has been exhibited by the haughty announcement from St. Petersburg — after we are informed from Constantinople of the utter unassailability of the Ottoman Empire — the same cuckoo note continues to reverberate from shore to shove. " We should not fear," says the Standard of the night before last, " the event of a single-handed struggle between the Russian and the Turkish Empires, but such a struggle cannot be permitted without danger to all, and it is therefore the duty, &c." The Times of yesterday says — "The main policy of the Four Powers remains as clear as before — their duty is, the preservation of peace ;" whilst in the very same paper it prints these words from its Constantinople Correspondent. — " Indeed, more than double the force now occupying the Principalities would be required for operations to be undertaken, with any rea- sonable hope of success, on the right bank of the Danube." The Morning Post of yesterday tells us that the Powers of Europe had put a stop to the " iniquitous course of Russia."

" One thing," says the Daily News, " is certain : the Czar is sure to push forward, if he feels strong enough ; and he will feel so, unless England and France are true to the Sultan, and to the interests of peace, commerce, and pro- gress. The Czar, who began by war, is still for war ; but happily the duty and the interest of the other Powers are alike bound up in peace ; and peace we may yet have, if St. James's and the Tuileries do their duty."

Do their duty, indeed ! and thus it is everywhere. Every- where the fallacy of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. " Peace, peace, peace ; cheat me, but peace ; lie to me, but peace ; insult me, but peace ; kick me — still peace." Well, we are for peace, and we avow it ; but shall we impose it on others ? Shall we say, " You shall be robbed, and smile ; you shall be bufletted, and make a bow ; your doors and windows shall be broken, and you shall walk into the coal- hole, we will then settle matters for you?" "Mother, mother," says Clarissa Harlowe, "what have you not

192 HOW TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY.

done for peace, and what have you gained by it ?" Oh ! this is our glory, this peace ; it is our comfort,' too, and our security.

\Ve*pay £11,000,000 a year for it; the grand peace- meeting of tame propellers and ludicrous ships of the line. " Thank God," exclaimed Lord Brougham, on one occasion, "we are bound in securities of £800,000,000 to keep the peace. " I dare any man in this House," said Lord Derby, on another, "to utter the word war!" M. Guizot invented the formula of " peace everywhere and peace always," and down went the dynasty. " The supremacy of Russia," says Pozzo di Borgo, " is now established on the peace of Europe."

" Any war," says the Times, " every disturbance, must turn in favour of the eternal enemies of legal order." The man into whose hands is confided England's flag and Eng- land's trident, has now at length effaced the glowing colours of the one, to replace them by these pallid letters, and so lays down the other by the side of Poland's broken spear. The conscious one dares to utter the word WAR ; the imbecile one dares to answer with PEACE —

" whilst covert enmity,

Under the smile of safety, wounds the world."

You are peaceful to Russia, but are you peaceful with Turkey ? Is it peace to hold down the victim and expose it to the sword — no, the dagger of the assassin? On the last occasion, you destroyed its fleet ; your vessels were then sent to the Levant to impose peace, and when you had struck this dastardly blow — three to one, recollect — a frantic cry resounded through the vales of England, and she swelled with martial pritle. Now what are you to do with your Besika squadron ? The Times of yesterday tells you. First, your duty is the " preservation of peace." As to this, how is it to be perfonned ? The Times is at issue with all the other journals of this capital. They are of opinion that it is by resisting this "insolent aggression." The Times oracularly speaks thus : " Russia is in the wrong, yet riot more so than when the Four Powers pronounced their opinion. To this decision Russia may now point. In accepting the award of the Conference she may require, with some show of reason, a like decision from the Conference itself."

Clearly Besika is become henceforward an untenable position. The-inarching-against-wind-and-tide-magnificent-

HOW TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY. 193

vessels- without -semblance- of -motion-save-their-onward-pro- gress of Mr. Roebuck and the Master Cutlers, are placed in what, in vulgar language, is termed a cleft stick. They will have to march either against the "North wind," and the equally impulsive Muscovy, or they will have to march into a storm of jeers and hisses ; Gog and Magog beset them on the North, laughter and ridicule on the South. Are they to remain "for centuries" and the winter? Are they to remain "year after year " looking out on the "horizon?" What on earth can we do for the unfortunates ? What god from a machine can relieve the unhappy Four ? Shade of Ajax, look out from your tumulus on the vast performances of modern invention, and the mighty meanness of civilised man.

This is what you will do : you will neither attack Russia, nor face laughter? you will have a dig at Turkey. This is what is left to you to save your credit, and thus will you perform the service of enforcing peace.

Now, a word for the Naval mind. How do you like the anchorage, lively middies, sober masters, lieutenants, com- manders, captains — Admiral Dundas? Epauletted, laced, cocked-hatted, and besworded, finned, and scaly brood, how do you like the sport ? A dog's life in the cockpit, a wolf's on shore ; steam down ; canvas up. How did you feel when the Yankees went by ? Did the band play " Rule Britannia ? " You came for a brush ! Prepare yourselves for the worst walloping you ever had. There is something worse than fisticuffs ; taking your departure for a sea of glory, your dead reckoning has been dreadfully dead, your observations out by a few degrees. The variation, too, has been somewhat Northerly, and so you have entered the Bay of Ridicule, arid are about to be swamped and smothered in mud. Observe your magnificent line ! Mark your ludicrous position ! We, as newsmongers, can offer you no consolation, for " yesterday Lord Palmerston came up to town from Broad- lands," of course to give, if necessary, courage to Lord Aberdeen to be sufficiently cowardly.

" And now, Sir, with your drawn sword and cock'd trigger, Pray don't you think you cut a pretty figure ?"

Now, then, what would you do, or what would you not do, to see the Blue Peter ? As you cannot have a hit at the Russian, would not you like to have a rap at the Turk ? You had it before, and it was glorious fun ! Some of you recollect,

9

194 HOW TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY,

and all of you have heard, how Ingestre, now Lord Talbot, dashed along the^turnpike roads of England in a post-chaise, with a Tnion Jack at every window, and a Royal Standard at the top, and how the people cheered and huzzaed for " heart of oak," and the "tars of Old England." That was for Xa- varino ! And then came the prize-money — Xavy Rhino yclept since that hour. But then you were only three to one, — now you will be fee. Good heavens, if there be in that squadron one noble heart, what must it feel !

There is a passage in the celebrated despatch of Lord Clarendon, which has singularly escaped notice ; it is this — " On the 1st of June a despatch was forwarded to Lord Stratford de Redeliffe, authorizing him in certain specified contingencies to send for the fleet, which would then repair to such place as he might point out."

Now, the English Government has taken its stand, and induced the Porte to do so likewise, on the treaty of the Dardanelles, which fell by Russia crossing the Pruth. By this passage, England has violated the same treaty. She has put the fact within the official knowledge of the Russian Government, by communicating the despatch and giving a copy of it. From that hour she could take no grounds against Russia, and by the very act which lays her prostrate does the Government get credit from its undiplomatic, that is to say, senseless nation, for energy and decision, " Oh," says the straightforward tribe of Bulls, " we have a brave Ministry : they stand no chaff : we are all for peace, but forbearance has its limits, so if the Russians dare to budge, mercy on them, shan't we have a splutter in the Black Sea ? " Tawdry race ! catching at words, heedless of deeds ; ever ready to take the word one way, for the deed the other ; hound-like, biting at the stone, and running from the hand that cast it.

But you had already, even without this piece of refined double dealing, furnished Russia with justification. In 1849 you pretended to bluster about the Hungarian Refugees, and you sent a deputation of tall masts and sub-marine screws to the Trojan coast, but you did not stop them at Besika Bay ; your blood boiled higher ; you positively cleared the barrier, broke through the enchanted ring, and walked right into the Dardanelles. TVhen you had got there, you however found yourselves in a fix. Ton did not dare to go on, and you were ashamed to come back : but force needs when the devil drives,

HOW TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY. 195

and so out you slipped, and to cover your shame, steamed away to the Pirasus, there to perform classical feats. Again you got trounced, and to prevent scandal — the frightful scandal of the departure of M. Brunnow from London — you signed a protocol, by means of which, in the following year, was framed a title for the Emperor Nicholas to the succession to the crown of Denmark, and consequently to the possession of the Sound.

" Oh, but," says the deputation receiver, " we did the trick as bottle-holder; we saved the Poultry from the Bear, and the Magyar from swinging on the tree." Eeally ! Now, listen to Lord Stratford de Bedcliffe— poor Lord Stratford de Red- cliffe :—

" With the deference which is due to your superior judg- ment, T would venture to suggest as the more advisable course, that you should leave your present anchorage, unless requested by the Porte to stay, and transfer the squadron to some neigh- bouring station, whence it may return, should its valuable services be wanted again, without any inconvenient delay"

This was. written on the 4th of November, 1849, and is addressed to Sir William Parker ; and thus the squadron was got away this time, without any damage done to Turkey. But then it must be recollected that the negotiations were secret, and the public made to believe that the energy of England, in sending that squadron, had decided the question.

Here then is the dilemma of the Government — how to withdraw the united squadrons from Besika Bay, without the withdrawal of the Russian army from the Principalities ? how to withdraw the Russian army from the Principalities without annoying the Emperor ? It cannot do the first without the second ; it cannot obtain the second without the third ; and the third implies independence. The Russian Cabinet has thus got new means of negotiation. As her 100,000 men in the Provinces were hostages to you with your squadrons in the Black Sea, so, while you dare not pronounce the word war, is your squadron in Besika Bay a hostage in her hands.

Who would compare the wealth of Russia with that of England? Yet Russia's poverty makes its way whilst England's riches do not. Her gold runs in the Continent, and in England itself. She has amongst us partisan?, spies, agents, organs, faction, and traitors. England has no

HOW TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY.

faction at St. Petersburg; there is there no "English" Foreign Secretary, no " English " Times ; far less an " English " Premier and an "English" Cabinet. There is no " English " cousin of the Emperor, and no " Ionian " representative of Turkey to surprise the Imperial confidence during romantic excursions, and to profit by some passing vetteUt of Ministerial bon-hommie. Must not precisely the same thing happen with respect to all other matters ? And must not our superiority of influence and of arms be equally dangerous to ourselves and serviceable to her '? If you give the command of a line-of-battle ship to a sucking child, the consequences are apparent — similar consequences must ensue from confiding the management of a vast empire to anility. But even this is trifling as compared with an unobserving spirit throughout that nation as to facts, a servility as to words, an indifference as to honour, and the currency of flimsy fallacies and perverted terms, taught as maxims and substituted for truth. The fortunes of a nation must always He in its own breast — events but reveal it. Power has been given to the Czar of Muscovy to put England to the test, and she har. been found wanting — wanting in true greatness ; wanting in private worth.

The article in yesterday's Times is devoted to preparing the public for a new Conferencial award in Russia's favour, but it was preluded by one the day before, which has had a serious effect already on the public mind. Accepted as the exponent of the policy of Lord Aberdeen, and containing a ministerial revelation, respecting the Austrian proposal for fixing a day for the evacuation of the Principalities, it has been inferred that by the intelligence from St. Petersburg, the policy of Lord Aberdeen, has been " completely changed" and that he has been at length, " awakened by a cry of alarm from his Austrian patrons." Xow, if we look back for the .ast thirty-two years, we shall find invariably that this Happens-— whenever Austria is abused by the English press, she is acting against Russia ; but, whenever subdued by English perfidy, "whether proceeding from the Russian agents in the British Cabinet, or the Russian agents in the British press, then by those very persons is she lauded to the skies. Of this the Titties itself is a notorious instance. AVt- may therefore rest assured by this t^st alone, that Austria has per- fectly succumbed ; in tact, hei position, in reference to the

HOW TO GET OUT OF BESIKA BAY. 197

United States, suffices to ensure this result. No doubt there is a Prokesch in Austria, but if he had succeeded should we not have learnt it by the denunciations of the Times. This view is coufa-med by yesterday's intelligence, as published in the Times, from the seat of war — no, the seat of aggression. It says — a remarkable change has been effected of late in the military position of the army of occupation. Until lately every military movement seemed to be directed towards Giurgevo, and at that place it was supposed that the Russians intended to pass the Danube to attack Ruschuck and Tirnova. Since the Turks have carefully fortified the line of the Balkan, between Shumia andTirnova, the corps of General Daimenberg has received the order to establish its general quarters at Crajeva, and the line of operations, in case they pass the Danube, will be by WidcJin, Nissa, and Sophia. The 'lurks will not fail to fortify the passes on this side, as they have done the line of Shumia and Tirnova. It is expected, in that case, that the Russian troops \\ill ascend the Danube and attack Servia."

The counter moves of the Turks will not suffice to explain the shifting of the Russian pieces ; something more is wanting — perfect security on the right side of the board. But it is rot the Turkish counter-moves that would displace westward the Russian attack. Turkey is vulnerable, and the Russian forces moveable, only on the eastern flank. The point dan- gerous for Turkey is the plain eastward of the Danube : Russia has never yet been able to force an entrance through the centre of the Crescent. In L810, in 1828, she commenced operations by crossing the Danube near Ibrail ; the general quarters of Kisselief in the one case, and of the Emperor in the other, were at Trajan's Wall, between the Danube and the Black Sea. Thence only could the vulnerable points of Turkey be reached ; here alone can be stopped that Turkish point that would take the Russian armies in the rear. This vital position, hitherto invariably abandoned by the Turks, is now occupied by a strong force. If, therefore, Russia leans to the west, she feels secured in two conclusions- — the one, that the Turks will not break out ; the other, that Austria will not hesitate — in a word, she is assured of "peace" and " negotiations."

Now, what a splendid opportunity for the Porte. To- morrow, or next day, it will receive the intelligence that it is

198 HOW TO KEEP THE PEACE.

relieved from lledschid Pasha's base admission of signing the conjoint note. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe has sent home his resignation ! If it does not seize the moment, then under the most favourable contingency that can be imagined, comes down upon it the Tooth-money. Compensation will be demanded ; the policy of the golden bridge will be approved ; to the old escheat will be added the new mortgage ; the general will disappear ; the bailiff will take his place ; the Provinces of the Danube will come under the auctioneer's hammer ; they are — "going — going :" they will be — " GONE." The Hammer will have come out of the Truncheon; the Truncheon has been fashioned from the Keys of the Holy Sepulchre. TVith those Keys will have been opened the gates of the Sound and the portals of the Dardanelles ; with those Keys will have been broken the Saxon Trident and the Gallic Sword.

" Now let us sing, long live the king,

And Gilpin long live he ; And when he next doth ride abroad,

May we be there to see."

HOW TO KEEP THE PEACE.

September \lth.

" The people ! that blind Colossus without discernment, who begin by making a great noise, and heavy movements, and who threaten at first to devour everything, finally stumble over a straw." —Schiller.

Chalmers held that the most powerful figure of rhetoric was repetition. It is a figure, however, which requires on the one hand a definite proposition, and on the other an earnest mind ; it is needless to repeat what is not clear, and no one will go on repeating what he has not very much at heart. But what shall we say to a process of repetition, continued day after day, with a solitary and unwilling exception of the seventh, not of a proposition, but of a string of contradictious, uncalled for by any ostensible motive of the rhetorician ?

The Times of yesterday says — " Russia has violated public law and infringed special treaties, by marching bodies of troops, &c." This has been said very often ; the fact is known, and therefore, has no need to be repeated, unless as

HOW TO KEEP THE PEACE. 199

exhibiting to the nation their shame, and to the Government its infamy. But the Tunes is the advocate of the policy of the;Government — commends the " ability" which has con- ducted the " negotiations" — asserts they have entirely " suc- ceeded"— is proud of the high spirit shown by the people, and is confident that the demonstrations of our well-equipped men-of-war have had the most startling effect upon foreign governments. But having said all this about " public law" and " public treaties," it also says, " The Porte has impeded a settlement otherwise at hand, and has thus endangered, as we think, unnecessarily, the peace of Europe.'* If we had nothing but this single fact, any observant man would conclude that there is here an underhand purpose ; that the purpose is not that of any British faction, nor of any English Government, except in so far as it may have been suborned ; in fact, that this journal is working for Russia, and that, con- sequently, it is preparing the public mind in England for the next turn which she is about to give to events. Every line therefore which it writes must be considered of importance — indeed of the very highest importance, as, on the one side, exhibiting the process employed for deception, and on the other, the direction of future events.

The present position is this. The \Tienna Conference for- warded to St. Petersburg a note, modified or corrected, it matters not how, but which they approved of as a settlement of the question, instructing " their own representatives," said the Times, to enforce it on the Russian Government. That Government has refused : consequently, the Porte is relieved from its concession, and at the same time the " authority" of the arbitrators is disputed, and their "award" rejected, and at this moment the organ of the British Government tells us that it is the " conduct of the Porte that has impeded a set- tlement and has endangered the peace of Europe." Now let us look to the practical state of things. A Russian army was marched into Turkey. It was suffered to do so unopposed, because the Turks were influenced by the advice of the English Ambassador. The Times itself says, yesterday, " It has even allowed its own provinces to be invaded without resistance, in deference to the advice of the mediating Po wers." Sup- posing that these Powers chose to overlook the character of the act, and their own position in reference to it, there were the consequences to be considered ; not a day, nor an hour,

200 HOW TO KEEP THE PEACE.

nor a minute, could have been lest ; no pretext for gaining time could have been admitted. Supposing a bondjide nego- tiation, on the mere basis of consequences, could they have allowed hour after hour, week after week, month after month, to roll by '? Every pretext, any pretext has been good enough ; the most frivolous seem to have been purposely and carefully selected. In the meantime Russia puts every hour to profit by advancing more men, by concentrating towards the frontier her disposable resources ; extending herself over an advanced line from the neighbourhood of \Viddin to Ibrail, forming a segment of no less range than six degrees of longitude, the centre of which is no less than four degrees in advance of her own territories — four degrees of latitude into the territories of the Ottoman Empire. The space thus covered exceeds the area of Ireland. Throughout it she has selected the available points to occupy and to fortify. She has been accumulating stores, preparing pontoons, introducing small vessels of war into the waters, consuming the food of the people, and the stored harvests prepared for exportation ;* and, finally, the last intelligence brings us an order of the day of the Com- mander-in-Chief, calculated to arouse the most frantic spirit of fanaticism amongst the Russian troops and their co-reli- gionaries, subjects of the Porte. She has completed all these preparations without the slightest hinderance on the part of the Turks, they being restrained by the mediating Powers, not only from attacking the Russians, but from occupying their own territory even when not occupied by the Russians. As far therefore as Russia is concerned, the Conference has taken her by the hand and led her on, placed its shield before her, and enabled her under its cover to accumulate and to fortify an enormous army in the centre of her neighbour's empire. Now let us see as to Turkey.

The Conference interposed upon the plea that Russia was so powerful, and Turkey so weak, that without their inter- position, the latter would be overrun and subdued by the former ; they believed (we will suppose they did believe) that

* " All the merchants of Ibrail and Galatz (capitals of Moldavia a*id WalJachia) are ruined. In consequence of the news from England, in the early spring, they had bought vast quantities of the standing crops in the interior. * Since there are no vessels to ship off the corn, which is daily arriving, and no granaries in which to deposit it, immense heaps are lying in the streets, uncovered and wasting." — Times, Sept. 15th.

HOW TO KEEP THE PEACE. 201

the Christian subjects of the Porte were ready to rise on the appearance of the Russians ; that the Turkish Treasury was destitute of resources ; that the Turkish army was weak and inefficient ; and that there was no national spirit capable of being aroused by an invasion. Day by day, these illusions are dispelled : in proportion as Russia strengthens herself in the provinces, Turkey strengthens herself at home. The accumulation of the d'efensive force proceeds more than part passu with that of the aggressive ; the elements and the spirit of war develope themselves at least in an equal degree in the one country as in the other, so that the effect of the inter- position of the Powers in restraining Turkey, is parallel to that on the other side, in shielding Russia. The point to which the war-spirit has been raised in Turkey may be inferred from the telegraphic announcements in the London papers of yesterday ; that, for instance, of the Post is as follows : —

" SMYRNA, Aug. 27th. — Almost all the troops coining from Asia, pass this place, and display the greatest enthusiasm. The Sultan would lose his life if he were to accept dishonour- able conditions."

That of the Times is still more significant ; it is this : — " Large bodies of troops (Russian) are being concentrated on the Moldavian frontier. This fact is not considered as alarming, since Turkey continues her armaments, and since the Ottoman army on the Danube is superior, in point of numbers, to the Russian army in the Principalities."

Thus, then, has the action of the Conference resulted in preparing the elements of a terrible war, whether by compro- mising Russia into a position from which she cannot recede, or evoking in Turkey a passion which its Government will no longer be able to restrain ; the pretext having been the weakness of Turkey, and the effect having been the strength- ening of Russia.

There is, however, another alternative. The passion of Turkey may be diverted from Russia to its own Government. Fts troops, instead of crossing the Danube, and driving out the Russians, may be marched on Constantinople, to dethrone the Sultan. This is the service which is now required from the deference of the Conference. The Times explicitly stated it on the 1st of this month, when it said, "In the interests of peace, and in the real interests of Turkey, it is as important to pfe vent the Sultan from making war

9 §

202 HOW TO KEEP THE PEACE.

on Russia as it WAS to prevent Russia from making war on the Sultan." Now, the Conference did not prevent the Russians from making war on the Sultan, and as they have commenced the war, it is not the Sultan that would make it in any case. The Conference has hitherto, by peaceably practising on the Sultan, prevented him from defending himself ; the proposal, therefore, is no less than the use of coercive measures, to obtain, despite of the rising spirit of the nation, the prolongation of that exasperating submission.

The Times of yesterday continues, at the interval of a fortnight, and in the very paper in which it publishes the above-quoted telegraphic despatch, to enforce the same view, and undisguisedly as the organ of the British Government. It says, — "the Four Powers are ready to take these points into immediate consideration ; and if they guarantee the evacuation of the Turkish territory, and provide for its immunity in time to come, we think that no friend of the Ottoman Empire could advise the rejection of such terms." It further says, — " It may be perfectly true that, according to the strict law of justice, Russia ought to give some compen- sation for aggressions committed. This, however, was not the decision of those four Powers."

Here we have a change in the views of the English Govern- ment. They are now ready to take into " immediate consider- ation,"— they are thinking of guaranteeing the evacuation, and providing for future immunity : but they will not go to the length of compensation — that is to say, they will come to what the French call a " transaction" by which the Russians shall retire, and the Porte shall be held to the payment of the expenses of the war. This is precisely what we said yes- terday— it is the auctioneer's hammer ; for if Russia is not to pay an immunity, of course the Porte must. But, we would ask, what guarantee there is for immunity, unless Russia is made to pay damages ? and if Turkey has to pay the damages, what means the guarantee of evacua- tion ? But what value can attach to any treaty, seeing that the " transaction" will arise out of the violation of the last treaty, and this " transaction" is only to be obtained by the Porte's signature being appended to a note which gives Russia the right of interference between 12,000,000 of the subjects of the Porte, and every local tribunal throughout the Empire. For such, if not in the terms, lurks in the effects, of the proposed arrangement. It

THE RANSOM. 203

Is only a willing dupe that can be a dupe at all in such a case, and the object of the proposal is precisely the same as all those that preceded — to gain time ; time, till a convulsion takes place in Turkey — time, till the winter comes to ttussia's aid — time, in fact, for both.

Such, people of England, will be your work ; your mighty energies are tilted — tilted over by a straw, and as the child unborn you are unconscious of the burning and just indigna- tion and abhorrence roused in the heart of your victims. It is not given to a nation to be at once, with impunity, powerful and mean.

THE RANSOM.

September 17^.

Let us take the case — a possible one — of the English Government, under accumulated embarrassments, and from the ridicule to which it is exposed by its squadrons at Besika Bay, becoming restive, and forcing an " immediate " settle- ment, on the terms of compensation, on Kussia. We cannot expect, from the past conduct of the Porte, that it would be possessed of sufficient spirit and character to resist. The question would then be the amount of the indemnity.

The evacuation could not take place before the middle of October; the occupation would have so lasted a hundred days. During the first fortnight, the expense was calculated at £13,000 a day; it has since then very much increased; the movements of the troops in the interior have also to be taken into account, and the materials of war sent forward ; and, perhaps too, the loss of men by the climate, which, a fortnight ago, was already calculated at 15,000. In round figures we may therefore set down the charge at £3,000,000. Let us say that the demand is limited to £1,500,000, — is Turkey able to pay that sum, after the enormous expenses to which she has been put ? Clearly not.

Besides, the Turks will make sacrifices for war, or they might endure to pay a contribution after being conquered ; but to impose a contribution to purchase the retreat of an enemy, which they had been by their own Government restrained from fighting, and as they believed, from driving, out, is quite another matter. If there could be a measure

204 THE RANSOM.

calculated to ensure a universal insurrection, it would be an impost such as this, after the enemy had retired. Has Russia not considered this point ? If she does retire, this will be her calculation, and that golden bridge which the Cabinet of England, at the expense of Turkey, is anxious to cast over the Pruth, will melt into a torrent of blood to tide the Russians into the Golden Horn.

But let us put aside this contingency. There is abun- dance of other matter involved in the proposition, Turkey having acknowledged the debt which she is unable to dis- charge, and Europe having passed the accounts, Russia must take security for payment. It will either be by continuing to hold military possession of some points of Turkish ter- ritory, or by bonds of another description, or both. Now let us turn to past transactions.

In the war which terminated by the Treaty of Adrianople, Europe took no part; practically indeed England and France lent to Russia their full support, but nominally they took the other side. England protested against that treaty, and specially reserved to itself the faculty of "judging of the sacrifices imposed upon the Porte." Nevertheless, an indemnity Was imposed upon Turkey of 10,000,000 of ducats for the expenses of the war, and 3,000,000 of ducats as indemnity for her merchants, whose trade " may have suf- fered" in the previous events arising out of the Greek Revolution. The English trade, with all other trades, had suffered, but to an immeasurably greater extent than thM of Russia. England advanced no claim for compensation. The war itself had been an aggressive one ; and, besides the com- pensation in money, Russia gained territory in Europe and in Asia, and notably the mouths of the Danube, in direct violation of her engagements to England and France; — another instance of the futility of all treaties as binding Russia, or as supporting Turkey. England however did not exercise the faculty she reserved of judging of the "sacrifices imposed on Turkey," and therefore suffered the former, having herself forced the peace, at the moment that the Turks were recovering, and the Russians melting away, to establish this debt of 13,000,000 of ducats, or say £6,000,000. The Turks being unable to discharge it, it was arranged that it should be paid by instalments ; the Russians successively to evacu ite, as these were paid. The Porte imposed a con-

THE RANSOM. 205

tribution, and the Turks, with a wholly unexpected facility, raised the money, such a step being perceived to be a neces- sity, and the only means of freeing their territory ; it was paid under the sense of absolute weakness, and with the hope of future recovery ; it was, in fact, the first demonstra- tion of Fhat restoration of public spirit, which at this present moment manifests itself in a manner so inconvenient and annoying to the English Government.

In exacting this sum, the Russian Government did not look to the profit of the money ; it, on the contrary, believed that it was out of the power of the Turks to pay it, and that thereby it had secured the mortgage and reversion of the Ottoman Empire. Five months after the conclusion of the war, and when the Cabinet of St. Petersburg had had full time to consider the results and to judge of the position, Count Nesselrode, by orders of the Emperor, addressed to the Archduke Constantino a despatch, summing up the one and the other. Of this important document we are in pos- session : it leaves nothing unsaid that we actually require to know : notwithstanding the high estimate which, at that period, the Russian Diplomatists, as compared with those of Europe, had formed of Turkey, we now see how far they had fallen short of the truth, but we also see that the plan devised for its subjugation was financial, rather than military. The Treaty is described by Count Nesselrode as the crown of the most glorious and most legitimate of the wars of Russia, as having consolidated her preponderance in the Levant, for- tified her frontiers, freed her commerce, guaranteed her rights, and assured her interests. After detailing the cir- cumstances which led to it, this Minister proceeds : —

" The objects contained in this relation are those which we have proposed to ourselves in the Treaty of Adrianople, and by the restoration of peace with the Sultan. It was in our option to march on Constantinople and to overthrow the Ottoman Empire. No Power would have opposed us, and no immediate danger menaced us had we proposed to give the finishing blow to that Empire in Europe. But in the opinion of the Emperor that monarchy reduced to exist no longer save under the protection of Russia, to listen no longer but to its desires, suited better our interests, political and com- mercial, than any new combination which would have forced us, either to extend our frontiers, or to substitute for the

206 THE RANSOM.

Ottoman Empire, States that might have become our rivals in power, civilisation, industry, and riches. It is on this prin- ciple that are now regulated our relations with the Divan. * * * In all these objects the Porte has yielded with as much docility as zeal (empressement) to all our demands."

" One grave negotiation however remains to be termi- nated ; it has for its object the mode of payment of the war indemnity. The occupation of the Principalities, during ten consecutive years, was originally intended as the guarantee, but the Emperor judged that such occupation would expose us to numerous inconveniences, to considerable expenses, and would be equivalent to a taking of possession by so much the less useful, that without keeping troops there, we can dispose of those provinces at our pleasure, both in time of peace and in time of war. Besides, it would have been a deviation from our declaration, and would have drawn upon us the just pro- testations of the Powers of Europe. These motives and the appeal of the Sultan to the generosity of his Imperial Majesty, enable m to stipulate for other guarantees. * * * But, to fix our ideas, we await the communication of a memoir to be presented by Halil Pasha. * * His Imperial Majesty will then fix his determinations." They will not lay on the Ottoman Empire a load, the weight of which would bring its fall ; but they will place in our hands the keysof the positions, " whence it will always be easy to hold it in check, and will consecrate the existence of a debt wjiich will make it feel for long years to come its true position towards Russia, and the certitude of its ruin if ever again it dare to brave her."

From out this noose, Turkey however speedily withdrew her neck, refusing even a loan offered to her most unex- pectedly by English capitalists for discharging it ; but at all events we have got at the bottom of Russia's thoughts on the subject.

In 184-8 the Russian troops again appeared on the banks of the Danube. There was now not even the pretext of a quarrel : they came in professedly without orders, and re- mained there avowedly to protect the authority of the Sultan, practically from thence to make war upon Hungary. Never- theless they lived upon the inhabitants. In the course of an occupation of nearly three years, the sum thus taken out of the country was enormous. The Wallachians calculated that, between supply and destruction, it amounted to £10,000,000 ;

THE RANSOM. 207

and, in fact, it was by this means that Russia was enabled to operate on Hungary. In the war expenses of 1828 and 1829, no reduction had been made for what had been fur- nished by the Principalities ; but, on the contrary, the whole was charged as a Eussian debt. When the troops retired in 1851, the Porte not only had a right to claim, but was bound to claim, the reimbursement of the charges incurred, in- demnity for services rendered, and damages for injury inflicted ; and, moreover, if it chose to waive that claim in reference to Russia, it was then bound itself to indemnify the Provinces. But, instead of this, the Russians on departing had imposed a debt upon the Provinces by furnishing to them money to purchase provisions for their troops, after the resources of the country had been utterly exhausted ; so that Russia, in addition to the profit she had made during the occupation, held in her hand a bond, but without any specified period or process of payment, and which therefore had that value for her ulterior objects, which the war indemnity of 1829 would have had if the Turks had not discharged it.

This bond was however only for a trifling sum, if we con- sider the increased resources of the Empire between the years 1829 and 1851, during which the revenue had more than doubled ; but the Turks did not choose to pay it, and the Porte, from different reasons from those of Russia, concurred with her in adjourning any decision. Here, then, we have the fact of a bond over the Provinces already in Russia's hands. It is indeed of an iniquitous character, but that does not matter, so long as it is tacitly admitted. Now we come to the present case, when a claim of a similar nature is to be instituted under the sanction of Europe, which, in increasing the sum of the unliquidated debt, covers the laches of the iniquitous claim.

In the settlement of this claim, the Powers will further imagine they relieve Turkey, by lengthening the period, or, perhaps, even rendering uncertain the mode of payment. The words above-quoted of Count Nesselrode will show that this will be exactly Russia's object. She ever expends money to create obligations, as in the case of the well-known loan of 50,000 florins to Princess Metternich, and of others to personages both of higher and lower degree. There is no dependence like that of debt, because it prostrates the mind of the debtor ; and a pecuniary obligation settled upon Turkey

208

THE RANSOM.

— such an obligation as the Government can never call upon the people to make an effort to discharge, which it cannot itself discharge without such effort — places it, with all its actually realised strength, and the more so because of it — in that position of hopeless and absolute subserviency which Count Nesselrode, by the war indemnity, was fully impressed that Eussia had acquired when he wrote his despatch of the 12th February, 1830. If a speedier solution is required, the payment has only to be called for.

In all such arrangements and contingencies the Powers of Europe, being guarantees for Turkey, will become execu- tioners for Kussia. Any resistance on the part of the former will be the " Sultan's making war on Eussia," and as their paramount duty is the " preserving of peace," they will know how to employ the terrible force which they hold at their discretion for the discharge of their conscience.

In the despatch of Count Nesselrode, there is a singular rei'erence to the English Ambassador at Constantinople in reference to the navigation of the Black Sea : — " Sir Eobert Gordon, humiliated by the role which he had played at Con- stantinople, made an imprudent display of his credit in obtaining for the English frigate, the Blonde, permission to enter the Black Sea. This inconsiderate act drew down upon him a severe reprimand on the part of the English Government, which so much the more regrets this useless bravado, as we have taken advantage of it to force the Porte to grant to one of our vessels-of-war the permission to pass in its turn the Bosphorus, and to anchor under the walls of the Seraglio, whither it was followed by a frigate and a brig, having on board M. Eibeaupierre and his suite. These two vessels passed the Dardanelles without covering their bat- teries, and even received from the forts a salute, never before granted to any Foreign Ambassador."

And so it has been on every occasion ; every use that you have made of your ships has led to a Eussian triumph and a Turkish humiliation. The present has been tbe most flagrant, and therefore will prove the most fatal. On the former occasions you had but one Foreign Secretary. AY hat can you expect with four, if not quadrupled treachery and baseness ?

209

SHALL THE TURKS AND THE RUSSIANS BE ALLOWED TO FIGHT IT OUT?

September 17 th.

Sir, — It is a very curious fact, that, in the course of last year, an individual should have said, wrote, and published, that ilus- sia should that autumn, or the following, occupy the Principa- lities. This was no vague, general, or guess, proposition, but asserted in a profound conviction in reference to an indubitable result. It was arrived at not from one, but from two classes of facts, from each of which was inferred the impossibility of llussia's enduring delay.

The two branches were those which were emphatically pointed out in the despatch of Count Nesselrode which you have quoted on Saturday — " Commercial and political." The manner of her action was likewise stated as being, not war, but an occupation of the Principalities; to be effected " through her control over the Cabinets of Europe ;" for that, in a single-handed war between the parties, Turkey was " utterly inassailable by the military force of Russia, if she had to start from the Pruth ;" that the supposition of a rising of the Christian populations in favour of .Russia was a "contemptible fatuity." The individual who stated these things was set down as a madman, and when the Emperor did the very things that he was stated to be about to do, he also was called a madman.

The anticipation not only serves as an explanation of the occurrence, it further serves for what is yet to come, justified in all points, except the latter, Avhich has not yet been put to the proof.

Can it be really possible that Turkey is " inassailable" by Russia ? Observe the word, carefully selected, and maturely pondered — inassailable. It was not said that the chances of war would be uncertain, or even that there was a probability of Ilussia's being defeated. These would have been startling propositions enough a month ago ; but a year ago to select the term " inassailability," evinced either a wild extravagance, destructive of all confidence, or a profound conviction, based upon a certain knowledge of facts, demanding and compelling the deepest attention.

But it is upon this very inassailability that is based the

210 SHALL THE TURKS AND THE RUSSIANS

conclusion which has been justified by the result, that Russia would convulse the East, and occupy Turkey ; because her doing so was requisite to arrest a progress in the Ottoman Empire " which must soon, without the fact of war — without new delimitations of territory — without the tearing of old treaties, or the substituting for them of new — produce, by mere gravity, a change in the balance of power in the East, reversing that preponderance which has become for Russia a necessity of existence."

The facts upon which this judgment rests, consisted in the strength and discipline of the Turkish Xizam ; the number and spirit of the Rediff; the value and numbers of the irregulars, cavalry and infantry ; the great efficiency of the artillery ; the availability of steam for transporting without inconvenience, or loss of men or time, the whole of the resources and contingents of the Empire to the theatre of war ; the improved revenues of the Empire ; its unity of feeling, patriotic devotion, and military spirit ; above all its confidence in the result of a struggle . The resources, not only in positions and extent of territory, but also in men, and enthusiasm of tlie Principalities themselves, abandoned by the Turks in former wars, and in fact indefensible, except by a regular army ; the steam superiority of the Turks at sea — all these combined multiplying, as compared with the last war, the force of Turkey " sevenfold."

As regards Russia, progressive deterioration in her military means, as established by the facts and results of the campaign of 1810 and 1828-9, and inferred as regards the present moment, from observation of the state of her army — pro- gressive depopulation of the wide band of Steppes which these armies would have to cross before they reached the theatre of war, and across which (the Turks taking their stand on the Pruth) the whole of her supplies would have to be transported.

As regards the other masses of populations, — the con- trast between their positions at the last war and the present moment, — Poland not then put down by arms, and uncon- scious of the connection of its interests with those of Turkey ; Hungary not put down by Russian arms, and of no account in the struggle ; Circassia, subdivided and inert, unconscious alike of Russia's designs, Turkey's position, and its own strength ; the Cossacks, the willing instruments of any war ;

BE ALLOWED TO FIGHT IT OUT

the Malo -Russians, not having commenced that impulse towards a nationality, which every recent traveller has com- mented upon ; the absence of any remarkable excitement of religious discontent in llussia,and of all connection between the Dissidents and the Mussulman power in Turkey — in all these respects the diminution of the aggressive power of Eussia being no less signal than the increase of the defensive power of Turkey.

This calculation rests upon the war commencing on the Pruth and not on the Danube. There the first shot being fired was, so to say, within hearing of Malo-Kussians, Cos- sacks, Tartars, and Circassians, a Turkish army would have been in the Caucasus, and a Turkish and Circassian army would have marched into Russia. It would also have been within hearing of the Poles ; it would have been so of the Hungarians, compromising Austria by the necessities of self-defence on the side of Turkey. There- fore Kussia could not have commenced the war against Turkey without holding in reserve 200,000 or 300,000 men stationed between the Vistula and the Caspian ; nor could she have attacked Turkey, with any chance of making an impression, with less than 300,000 men, which she has not got, and which, if she had, she could not feed.

These arguments were advanced to show the necessity fur Europe of refusing its concurrence in any measures which ivonld allow Russia peaceably to occupy the Principa- lities ; for, of course, once established there, she would have passed by the greater amount of dangers, and could then commence operations from a basis which, under the most favourable circumstances, has required the efforts of a first campaign to conquer.

Allowing her to enter in peace was exactly the same thing as allowing an enemy to march unmolested up to the walls of a fortress, to pass glacis, lunette, and.bastion, to lower drawbridge, raise portcullis, and reserve the defence until the assailant had established himself upon the body of the place.

This has been done yet, notwithstanding; the muster made by the garrison is such, as to evince the ability of expelling from such positions the besiegers. The telegraphic despatches quoted in the Morning Advertiser of Saturday render argument on this point superfluous. The works at Varna, Kutschuk, Silistria, cover the right bank of the

212 SHALL THE TURKS AND THE RUSSIANS

Danube and the dangerous point of the Black Sea, against any possibility of their falling, at least, in one campaign, commenced even from the Danube. The defences in the rear, at Shumla, which, while as yet unprotected, no Russian force has been able to capture, defy all assault. The numerical strength of the Turkish army exceeds by nearly the double what the Russians can bring against them. The Turks therefore, as behind the Danube, present a threefold defence, each suffi- cient to decide the contest — the Nizam, or regular force, the guerilla force, and the defence of fortresses, for which the local population is alone nearly sufficient, as at present pro- vided with retrenchments. I therefore conclude that, not- withstanding the services of the mediators in the Conference, Turkey is still as behind the Danube, unassailable by Russia in as far as warlike operations go.

I am induced to offer you these observations, in conse- quence of the assertion of the Times of this morning, as to the result of a war : —

" IF THERE IS ANY POINT CERTAIN, IT IS THIS

THAT AT ITS CLOSE THERE WOULD BE NO TURKEY IN EUROPE."

I assert, that if there is no war there will be in five years " no Turkey in Europe ;" that is to say, that if the Con- ference proceeds to break down the internal state of Turkey, as it has let Russia in through the defences of Turkey, in the Ottoman Empire will either be exposed to an internal convulsion, or placed in that condition which is described in the despatch of Count Nesselrode, extracted in the Morning Adtertiser of Saturday, namely, "reduced to exist no longer save under the protection of Russia, to listen no longer but to its desires," and conscious of "the certitude of its ruin if ever again it dared to brave her."

I do not say that war is requisite to prevent this fatal con- summation ; on the contrary, I assert now, as 1 have asserted all along, that no war will or can occur, because Russia is not able to make war uponTurkey,even from the position where she at present stands. I assert, that even with Austrian's co-opera- tion, that war would be still impracticable ; by how much less could there be war between England and Russia ? To use the words of Sir John M'Xeill at the time of Turkey's greatest weakness, " JJ England be with Turkey, then there can be no danger."

BE ALLOWED TO FIGHT IT OUT. 213

But the Government in Turkey being subject to the influence of the British Ambassador at Constantinople, and the Cabinet in England being subject to that of the Russian Ambassador in London, and further believing that its duty is to " pre- serve peace," the advice, the influence, and if they fail, the menaces, or, if these fail, the ships-of-the-line of England will be employed to cause its acceptance of conditions which will render nugatory its military strength, and thus the strength of England will be used by Russia againSt Turkey, and the strength of Turkey will be used against itself. It is the power extant upon the opposite side that renders Russia dangerous, the fortunes of Turkey precarious, and the action of England maleficent.

I should not have taken the trouble of entering into these details, as replying to the crude absurdities of an anonymous journalist, especially one for whom contradiction has become the normal code of composition, but I reply to the Russian Ambassador, to the words which he puts forth through the acknowledged organ of the English Government for the credulous ear of England and of Europe — which he puts forward through that organ for its very reaction upon the men whose instrument in one respect it is. That journal is actually the chief means of action which the Cabinet of St. Petersburg employs for the attainment of its ends, in the greatest crisis that has yet occurred — a crisis produced by its own deliberate act, and having the double purpose of subju- gating the East, and saving itself from ruin, and, perhaps ex- tinction.

But the Times is not content with presaging the fall of Turkey as the certain result of a collision ; it also suggests the " ruin " of England and France, as well as of Austria and Prussia, as a consequence of the whole of those Five Powers daring to oppose Russia. Now, it is very well for the Russian Government to cast such a sentence into the public fermentation, if it has got an organ sufficiently servile and rockless to insert it ; but the Times is also the organ of the British Government.

Here, then, we have an evidence of the servility and the recklessness of that Government. After this avowal in public, there is nothing they will not consent to in secret. Such propositions are not hazarded without a necessity. There is therefore, and as it may be inferred, unexpected difficulties in

214 SHALL THE TURKS AND THE RUSSIANS

carrying out the wishes of the Emperor. It is impossible to say to what extent those might have gone if the press of London had, on the recent occasion of the rejection of the note, not fallen into the snare laid for it, and applied as against Turkey the maxim of preservation of peace.

" The results," it says further, " of a general war no living being would venture to conjecture ; " but what living being- could conjecture, a war at all, when it is a question of Russia's evacuating the Principalities. Surely we have got their map ; surely we have the chart of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus ; surely we have the chart of the Euxine ; God knows we have heard enough of the ships-of-the-line, and screw propellers in these days, and who has ever asserted that Russia could hold in the Principalities with Turkey attacking her in front, England on the left flank from the Euxine, and Austria from the right on the Carpathians. This would be the war, according to the hypothesis of the Times, — about as simple a scenic position as ever was presented to a comfortable audience. How fully satisfied Russia must be that it is with a generation of grown children that she has to deal !

Now, let us see practically what, allowing the Turks and the Russians to settle the matter between themselves, would amount to. The Emperor has rejected the proposition for- warded by the Powers. On this they cease to interpose. Is the next step the crossing of the Danube by Omer Pasha? By no means. The withdrawal of the Allies, and the refusal of the Porte to sign the note, instantly restores calm at Con- stantinople. The disgrace and subserviency of the Government is wiped out, and it regains possession, so to say, of power ; then the energies of the Mussulmans, so dangerous hitherto, become its strength. In a moment of excitement and action, the Porte is fully a match for Russia with the pen, and no other weapon in that event would be employed.

From the moment that the Porte is set free from its engagements to the Allies, it can deal with the passage of the Pruth as an act of war, causing to fall all existing treaties, and so regains a freedom of action incalculable in its effects. The FACT OF WAR is what Turkey requires, and that fact Russia has placed in its hands. So dealt with, Russia is put back to the year 1774; that is to say, to the period ante- cedent to her intervention in the internal affairs of the Otto-

BE ALLOWED TO FIGHT IT OUT? 215

man Empire, and has to reconquer all her conquests over again — if she can. But then Russian armies of 12,000 men could rout and scatter Turkish armies of 150,000 men !

Having got possession of this fact of war, who then gains by time ? Certainly not Russia. First of all, the internal dangers of the Porte cease. Secondly, the dangers of Austria c»mmence; that co-operation is lost to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg. Thirdly, England and Prance, ceasing to weigh upon Turkey, will weigh really upon Russia. So much for the positions of the various Governments — all of them at once set free from Russia's control.

As regards the Principalities, we have seen, by Count Nes- selrode's despatch of the 12th of February, 1830 (see Morning Advertiser of Saturday last), that when the Imperial Cabinet had it in its power to impose a permanent occupation of them, it decided against that step, judging it to be injurious. We have, further, seen it evacuate them, in 1851, so soon as it had secured the immediate objects of that occupation. By establishing the fact of war, the proposed ends of the present occupation will be frustrated, having been undertaken with a view to a convulsion in Turkey, or a revolution in Austria and Europe. These being barred, and the Principalities eaten up, the occupation henceforward is a drain on the Imperial treasury, and involves a sacrifice of men equal to a positive war ; for it is the climate that has always consumed the Russian armies. Already she has lost^not less than 20,000 men.

The Porte has nothing to do but to wait : cunctando, it will restore its power. The Fabian maxim is all that it requires to achieve a complete victory. There is, therefore, no need to drive the Russians out. On the contrary, it has only to keep them where they are.

Will then the Russians cross the Danube, to attack Turkey ? Supposing it were practicable to do so before, it is not so now, in consequence of the advanced hour of the season. Besides, the Turks are in possession of the plain of the Dobrodja, de- fended by the steep, and, if manned, unfordable banks of the Danube, through which, on former occasions, being always htiherto left open, the Russians have penetrated. This how- ever is not all. As the Turks can so carry their force to the very frontiers of Russia from the northern extremity of that plain (the Dobrodja), they can intercept the Russians in the

216 SHALL THE TURKS AND THE RUSSIANS

rear, so that the army of occupation become hostages in the hands of the Porte.

In a word, the position is reversed from the moment that the Turks take advantage of the hostile acts of their enemy. Kussia can then no longer simultaneously use, as regards her own operations, a date of war, and enforce, as regards those of the Turks, a state of peace.

If you do not withdraw from interfering, this will happen : you will forbid the Turkish army to pass the Danube, and when you have caused an explosion, you will have an oppor- tunity of relieving the squadron from its embarrassing station in Besika Bay, by performing the service with a view to which, as I have already stated in your columns, it was sent to that anchorage.

[ludeed, this step has been taken, and in a manner so scan- dalous, that it might appear incredible, save that incredibility in an alleged proceeding of our Cabinet is an evidence of authenticity. Couriers from London and Paris, bearing orders to the Turks not to cross the Danube, have been despatched to Shumla, to the Commander of the Turkish forces, Omar Pasha. The effect will, of course, be to exasperate to the last degree the population and the army.*]

The Porte, as is anticipated, will* be unable to yield to the suggestions of its protectors, except through the friendly aid of your guns !

Such is the legitimate application of the peace theory. The last despatch from Omar Pasha to his Government,

.ins this passage : —

" The spirit of the army is such, that they do not inquire what the number are of the enemy, but where they are."

The last intelligence from Russia is, that she is coming into the London market for a loan.

Another journal of this morning — the Illustrated News — puts the case very concisely. It says, " The question is now whether or not we are to allow the Russians and the Turks to fight it out ;" but it so happens that the Russians have no intention of fighting at all, and that is proved by the order of the day of Prince Gortschakotf. Would he have spoken of " exterminating the Pagans" if there was any idea of war? What is to be done is to terrify you, that you may keep the

* This passage should have appeared as a postscript, but was inadvertently inserted in the text by the printer.

BE ALLOWED TO FIGHT IT OUT? 217

peace, according- to the process which you will adopt for keeping it, namely, the continuation of that which you have already so auspiciously begun. The process is this : Conference claps on the noose ; Peace draws the cord ; Europe strangles, and Russia stops ! "

Parliament is got out of the way; the Queen is got out of the way; the irrelevant members of the Cabinet are got out of the way ; the four Ministers actually, or formerly, Foreign Secretaries, have got everything in their hands. The nation is all on the other side ; but it has no means whatever of action ; it will know besides what is done weeks or months only after each successive catastrophe has occurred ; it will go eavesdropping at the doors of Foreign Cabinets, and newsmongering in the remote quarters of the earth to learn its own acts. Good God, its acts !

Let the Turks and the Russians fight it out. nnd you will have no battles. -Shut up your Conference, and remove your Ambassadors, and would to God that 1 could stake my head on the result. You would have no further trouble. Your Diplomacy is the weight upon the safety-valve, and unless you remove it you will have an explosion ; not the power of 'the machine directed to its work, but the bursting of the metal, and J!ien, of course, it will be the stars that have done it all.

If Hussia hnd been powerful, was it not your business to control; if Turkey had been weak, was it not your duty to support her ? In making war upon Turkey, has she not made war upon you? Could any honourable man speak of negotiation, with the Russians south of the Pruth ? In what temper ought such matters to be approached ? Will you lose sight of facts because words are offered ? Let me conclude in the words which the great philosopher and statesman of England has set down as the rule " of the true greatness of kingdoms and estates : — "

" First, therefore, let nations, that pretend to greatness

have this, that they be sensible of wrongs that they

sir not too long upon a provocation. Secondly, let them be pressed, and ready to give aids and succours to their con- federates ; as it was ever with the Romans Let it

suffice that no estate can expect to be great, that is not awake upon any just occasion of arming."

We must come back even to first principles ; everything must ultimately depend upon the character of the nation ;

10

218 ENGLAND PRANCE — TURKEY.

no strength can aTail without watchfulness, and no greatness can endure except either by means of capacity, or honour. You are pitted against capacity without being possessed of it ; vour natural defence is honour, and you have lost it.

ENGLAND— FRANCE— TURKEY.

September \%th.

Our readers will have observed the statement which has appeared in the public journals, to the effect that England and France have come to a determination to offer their assistance to the Sultan, in the event of any rebellion taking place among his own subjects, in consequence of his declining or delaying to go to war with Eussia. This result is precisely what has been, time after time, foretold in this journal. We have asserted that, if the Turks were not allowed to fight the Kussians, we should have to fight the Turks. If our squadron goes to support the Sultan, it goes, of course, to fight the Turks. And if to fight the Turks, it is, of course, to fight for the Eussians. In the supposed case, it will be found that we began by assisting the Turks, because they were too weak : we end by fighting them, because they are* too powerful.

THE ERROR.

September 20^.

"There are two things I do know," said M. Thiers, cc history and geography." Modest, indeed, is the pretension ; but what has the possession availed ? A man may know all facts that have happened, and be yet unable to deal with the smallest incident that occurs ; — possessed of the declivation areas of every continent, peninsula, and ocean, he may stumble on a molehill, and be caught in a gin. The man who looks to history as enabling him to deal with events, is an astrologer substituting mouldy records for shining stars. The caster of nativities would transfer to earth the order of Heaven ; the philosophical statesman transfers to men the inconsistencies of Time. That wonder of wonders, that inscrutable mystery and presumptuous oracle — that fleeting, wavering, fragile, and

THE ERROR. 219

immutable, flimsy and awful being is man, by his varieties, his variations, his uncertainties, his doubts, and his fallacies. If no two leaves of the immeasurable forests are so framed that they shall coincide, how shall sequence be observed in the aggregate of the match of the thought and the events of mankind ?

There is in our nature a permanent, unchangeable, centripetal force, which is — Truth, in its various forms of virtue, justice, and judgment ; to attain to the perfection and performance of which is the end of all faculties and their excellence. Where and so far as it prevails, the order of mankind is as that of nature, and the law of society is as that of the stars, to which, in instinct, we assimilate the Powers that secure to us repose and happiness. There is also a centrifugal force, the converse of these ; uncertain and erratic in its essence, and producing the mutations of fortune. Man, as is his wont, forming his idea of his Creator on his own image, has from the earliest times imagined two principles struggling for command, living on their antagonism, and convulsing the children of men, whose hearts are the field of their spiritual war ; — Evil everywhere the disturber ; Good the preserver and restorer.

Divesting this contest of its imaginative features, and re- ducing it to its practical application, we have before and around judgment and fallacy, whose conflict creates all the affairs of the world. As the circumstances of no age and of no moment tally with those of another age and another moment it is that the fallacies from which they spring have shifted ; in fact, every age has its own.

Tt is not that the resources of error suffice to give variety to events, but its character is such as to depend upon dis- similarity. A folly once exposed is a folly for ever ; but a folly to succeed must be wisdom. An illusion once exploded is known by its name ; an illusion to deceive must be a maxim and a truth.

The fallacy of this age and moment is — we must preserve peace. The truth which it suppresses, and by which it can only be destroyed, is — we must do justice. Under the illusion, we are about to convulse the world with words and gunpowder. This has never happened before, and, having accomplished its task, it will henceforward be unavailable for the service of evil and the advantage of craft.

220

THE MALEFACTORS.

September 20M. "Divide your happy England in^o four." — Henry J'.

So the murder is out ! On the 3d of September, when all the journals, without exception, were congratulating them- selves «ind the country on the solution of the Eastern diffi- culties, by the adoption, by the Porte, with modifications, of the conjoint note, and the acceptance of those "unimportant" modifications by the Conference of Vienna, we closed our reply to them in these words : —

" The matter is not ended. 7f~e are nearer if or than ever ict •/id that war will come from nothiny but the cry of peace. >rks do not dread war if Englishmen do. IK God's name* then, let the/it fi<jld their of» battle*. Their battles are yours. If i/o n persist ia restrain! ay them from Jiyhtliiy Russia, the day trill come when YOU WILL HAVE TO FIGHT THEM YOUR- SELVES."

On the 1 3th of September, that is to say, ten days after these words were published, " the Parliament being out of the way, the Queen being out of the way, and the irrelevant members of the Cabinet being out of the way," the four Foreign Secretaries quietly assembled in Downing Street, and decided to send orders to Constantinople to enforce upon the Porte the withdrawal of the modifications which the European Conference had accepted. Not content with this, and in case t!H- Sultan should find himself unable to resist the exaspera- tion of his people, they sent orders for the squadron to achance into the waters of the Bosphoms to support him against his subjects. Nor content with this, they also de- spatched orders to Orner Pasha to forbid him from passing from one province to another of his Sovereign's dominions.

They have consequently contemplated a rebellion as the result of their despatch, and provided means for putting it down; these means being the allied squadron which they have sent to the Trojan coast to support weak Turkey against powerful Russia.

They have not acted in concert with France ; they have forced the French Government. On receipt of the despatch, that Cabinet was filled with astonishment, and taken wholly by surprise, and it was only from the imperativeness of the

THE MALEFACTORS. 221

act of England that its concurrence was yielded, in order not to be left alone opposed at once to England and Russia.

For ourselves, we were prepared ; we knew it all ; we have asserted it all ; now it is no longer an hypothesis, but an event ; incredible as an hypothesis, it is indubitable as an event. It remains with the nation to deal with it.

In all former transactions, in which from their criminal nature, responsibility rested somewhere, it was impossible to get at the authors ; the public acts, like the leaders of jour- nals, were anonymous. It is not so in this case. The necessity in which they stood to get rid of colleagues has concentrated on themselves the eyes of the world, and affords the means of retribution. Argument has gone by - words are superfluous ; the cry of JUSTICE is the only one that can now be raised. /fhere is no alternative ; either the laws of England have to be exercised in their penal vigour upon the persons of four traitors, or the Czar of .Russia commands the world !

For the second time we assert, "It is not yet ended." No ; not by the release of your squadron — not by the anchorage in the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn — not by its discharges of grape and its volleys of bombs — not by its holding pri- soner the Sultan, or its overawing for a time the capital and the Empire. Have " the Four " contemplated the contingency of the Sultan, even with their support, being unable to obey their order? What, in that case, will happen? It will happen to the Sultan, even as it has happened to Turkey.

Nothing of all this has been done through ignorance ; if it were so, it would not be the less criminal, for an English Minister has no commission for such deeds, and these Ministers have had no sanction that can bear them harmless. It has been all consciously done. The results were too clear not to have been foreseen ; the steps have been too insidious not to have been calculated ; the words too ambiguous not to have been perfidious. We may have reason, as often hitherto stated in these columns, for attributing to Lord John Russell and Lord Clarendon a miserable infatuation ; but the other two of the four who have usurped England, can claim the benefit of no inexperience, uncertainty, or illusion. Not a word has escaped from them, not coherent to their end; nor could those men, who for years have denounced the policy of each other as infatuate or perfidious, have combined

save for a purpose — however desperate or incredible it might have been a short time ago believed.

The catastrophe is however still in the hands of two men — Omer Pasha and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe : the one may have anticipated, or may rebel against the orders ; the other may decline to execute them ; but there is little hope of either, for Eussia would not have sprung the crisis without good grounds, and in either contingency the advantage is lost of the FACT OF WAR, which, when established between Russia and Turkey, immediately brings safe and honourable peace.

Now we have to learn upon what grounds the Cabinet acts ? If merely upon the telegraphic despatch, may we not have to-morrow, or next day, conditions added in view of this very contingency of a movement of Omer Pasha, which will enable the Cabinet of St. Petersburg even then to fall back on its Allies, keeping them in the field which secures it everything, and deprives the Porte of everything ? Who is there to put a question, or to demand an explanation ?

Putting aside all considerations of justice and of policy, — admitting to any extent the solution and explanation of mis- taken theories, ignorance and infatuation, — and looking merely at the acts of England as affecting Turkey, — will any one deny that they are perfidious, cowardly, and brutal ?

THE DEFENCE.

It may not have struck the public that the Times was not the paper to announce the decision of the Cabinet of the 13th. It oozed out at Paris, and found its way to the columns of a morning paper : it has remained ignored to the Paris aCorre- spondent of the Times down to yesterday. It was commented upon in all the London weekly papers ; it is ignored in the leader of the Times of Monday. In that leader the assump- tion is, that Russia has " nQ right (sic] whatever," that the Conference is wholly independent of her influence, and that if the Turks take tlie matter into their own hands, the " arbi- tration of Europe " has, in that case, " become superfluous."

Such is the defence put up, amounting to the suppression of the fact. It, however, conveys a piece of wonderful

SUPPHESSIO VERI. 223

intelligence to the people of England, namely, that their opinion is of some weight. Let them, then, show it! Let them show that they are determined to hold those, to whom they have confided their power, responsible for its exercise, alike in regard to the crimes that they commit ami the ruin they entail ! They have nothing further to learn ; they have no pretext either for doubt or for delay. Is in this age a Muscovite to be alone profound — capable of a thought? Are in this country Four men to be alone gifted with impunity, for any crime and for every failure ? If virtue and the laws are dead, are there no jeers and hisses left ; and shall four miserable individuals, who dare not knock off our hat in the street, render us as an empire criminal, dastardly, absurd, and impious?

SUPPRESSIO VERI.

September 21s£

It was a nauseating task that we have undertaken, to peruse and pursue the now dreary and spiritless articles of the Times. We have again to record another day of the defence of a great public measure by the suppression of the fact. The decision was taken on the 13th: it would have appeared in the Titties, had it been desirable to publish it, ou the 14th. It reached from Paris the columns of a morning paper on Saturday. It had filled the public mind with alarm and indignation for three days ; still on Tuesday the 20th, it continues ignored in the -columns of the great instructor of the nation and the organ of Government, and it has the positive insolence to commence its " Turkey article" with

" The Turkish question has now plainly become a question of words."

It ends coherently thus : —

" If the WOULD can be saved from WAR by verbal con- cessions on non-essential points, it is not likely that the common sense of Englishmen would be found to disapprove the conclusion."

In the body of the article this " common sense" is put to some severe tests, a specimen or two of which we select for the recreation of our readers, and preserve for the history of the case :

SUPPKESSIO VERI.

" Whether the terms of this document were liable to mis- construction, may be a question of itself; but two points are unimpeacliably clear. First, that the Powers intended to maintain the territorial and administrative rights of the Porte ; and, next, that in the event of dispute, they would hace been bound by this intention."

The italics are those of the Times, not ours.

" Let us take the extreme case of supposing, that after the acceptance, 'pure and simple,' of the original Vienna note, the Czar should, at some time or other, have availed himself of those opportunities with which the note, as dis- tinguished from the propositions of the Porte itself, is thought to have provided him. He would then have interfered in the internal administration of the Ottoman dominions to the prejudice of the Sultan's sovereignty. The Sultan would have protested, and a case would have arisen for the appli- cation of the adjustment of 1853 : that is to say, the parties to the note, or the Four Great Powers, would have been called upon to to say whether they did, or did not, intend by this instrument, that the Czar should exercise the particular authority he had assumed. If they did not they would have interposed, in discharge of their own guarantee, in the sense they themselves affixed to it ; so that the Xote, whether ambiguous or not, would have been, at any rate, sufficiently perspicuous for its proper purpose. The ambiguity, if any, would merely have misled the Emperor of Russia, and would neither have damaged Turkey, nor disarmed the Four Power."

The italics here are our own.

"(WE HAVE THE BEST REASON FOR KNOWING THAT THERE* IS NO FOUNDATION FOR THESE STATEMENTS.)"

These words will, no doubt, puzzle our readers. They are from the Times' column of French intelligence, and inserted after an extract from the Journal des De'bats, men- tioning the orders transmitted to Admiral Dundas. We have now got him on the hip. Is this the way to meet a uni- versally accepted, but false statement of a Cabinet-decision for a hostile intervention. See then, people of England, your masters tremble. Push home before it is too late — they will laugh at you when the deed is done !

225

LORD ABERDEEN.

As illustration of a subject which we have been for some time incidentally treating — Diplomacy, nothing can exceed the actual moment. To meet the gravest occasion ever pre- sented for solution by that art, we are prepared by a combi- nation of circumstances truly wonderful. We have terminated, successfully, a contest in India ; a painful and distracting struggle of long duration in Africa has been brought to a close ; our Empire enjoys tranquillity throughout its widest bounds ; our Treasury is full ; our people prosperous ; no factious minority incommodes the administration in Parlia- ment. Its course is hampered by no caprices of a Sovereign ; our armaments are on a greater scale than at any previous period of peace ; no niggardly economy withholds supplies ; no frantic passion impels to extreme courses : this mighty Empire stands in an attitude at once to impose respect, and to allay suspicion — desirous of peace, yet ready for war.

Looking abroad, a no less cheering prospect meets our eye. As to France, we experience no alarms in respect to any hostile design, no inconvenience from any original conceptions ; neither too flaccid, nor too hard ; aspiring to no equality, she is docilely fervent, fearful to lead, yet unwilling to be lof; .

The German Powers, little as they may weigh, are noways refractory, and yield themselves to the same guiding mind and hand.

The Empire, the field of action — Turkey, has shown itself neither audaciously presumptuous nor tamely submissive : it has neither inconvenienced its protector by its pretensions, nor disappointed her expectations by a surrender. It is (judged) neither so strong as to be able to dispense with pro- tection, nor so weak as to render that protection onerous or difficult -. it has neither disgraced itself, nor chilled its friend by an act that is unbecoming, or an expression that is incon- sequent.

England has, therefore, the command of Europe to support public right in the person of a State, respectable by its bearing and its strength. There remains to consider but our own manner of performance.

In the diplomatic branch, England possesses two men, and only two, but these are of the highest qualifications, fame,

]0 §

226 LORD ABERDEEN'.

and authority. They have long been considered the only possible foreign ministers, alternately succeeding to each other, as the scales rose and sunk, of the parties to which they belong. The only drawback was their antagonism, which was not confined to principles of internal government, but ex- tended to character, on which everything in unsystematic diplomacy must absolutely depend — the one calm and sedate, the other vivid and irascible — the one the concentration of prudence, the other of resolution — the one accepting as a law every fact that has been accomplished, the other taking as an end the accomplishment of undreamt-of facts — here a Fabim —there a Coriolanus. The one stood elevated in the eyes of the world as the pride and the defence of old and venerable maxims ; the other gathered into his hands the levers of revo- lution, and commanded the democracies of Europe. " Oh," might the earnest patriot have exclaimed, "had we these two men in one, what might not England be !"

Such is the happy conjunction now effected. These two statesmen, moved by the profoundest sense of duty, have consented to fuse their qualities, and so create an impersona- tion of British capacity. Circumstances, hitherto, have only produced men ; in England they have engendered qualities". To possess two such, was evidence of the fertility of our soil in genius ; to unite them, has proved its fruitfulness in virtue. If the intellectual combination had not raised us above even- danger, the moral achievement would have made us equal to any contingency.

Withdrawing our eyes from this spiritual vision, and casting them on the transactions before the world, shall we not recoil ? — here a crown of the brightest associations, — there an un- mixed mass of brands and chains, of misery, treason, sickness, blood, scaffolds, battle-fields, famine, disgrace, defeat, infamy. Hideous spectres, monstrous images, not evolved because power was self-willed,, but because power was imbecile ; not that Russia could not be daunted, but that we have been be- trayed, for —

;i England boxmd in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shores beat back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, %Yith inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds."

This result is, as we have shown, one dependent upon no

LORD ABERDEEN. 227

special grounds, but flows from the mere character of diplo- macy. It is a system which destroys the moral part of man ; habituated to over-reaching, not only as regards objects, but even as regards communication, he becomes insidious — it is his -duty ; time-serving — it is his merit ; hardhearted — it is his distinction. The noble essences evaporate with all manly qualities. The empire is involved in the man ; its nobility passes in like manner away, and its very physical power becomes useless. When all things are remitted to decision by cunning, the party which is worsted at that game is still possessed of enough of that quality to overreach its own principles, and in doing so it has immediately the aid of its late antagonists ; and thus it suffices to have one or two complications to manage to enable the government whose diplomacy is the abler, to render the ministers of other governments its dependents, and so, by the self-same art, Russia rises and England sinks.

Ascending still higher, and viewing the position of the two Empires in connection with their means of operation, we will further perceive that as Diplomacy is essential for the success of Russia, so is it ruinous to the defence of England ; for as the one can only gain by deception, so can the other only defend herself by plain dealing.

As to the men themselves, we have a catalogue of events sufficiently respectable, and a course of time sufficiently extensive, to fix our conclusions on every point, whether as to knowledge, capacity, character, or temperament.

The experience of the Chief of the Cabinet spreads over nearly half a century, and connects him with the transaction which nearest approaches to the present of any which our memory suggests, — namely, that of the year 1813, when England took Norway from Denmark and gave it to Sweden. He was at that time a consenting and an acting party in the most profligate act of which any government had ever then rendered itself guilty : consequently, as to morality, judged by the undiplomatic standard, there is nothing further to say.

Let us look to his sense, as applied to the appreciation of the most important fact of contemporary history — the " cha- racter and honour " of an Emperor of Russia. Within the same week he pens the two following official passages : —

" Whatever may be thought of the minister, falsehood and deceit are perfectly unknown to the Emperor."

228 LORD ABERDEEN.

" Met t enrich has been completely taken in by the Emperor Alexander."

These two passages were penned forty years ago, all but three months, being respectively written on the 24th and 31st of December, 1813. On the 9th of January, 1814, he writes : — " Xesselrode is not quite clever enough for his Emperor, but is an excellent person*'

This mental darkness is not exhibited after years and associations have brought a second childhood of nature or of habit, but in the full bloom of the promise of his Athenian spring. When the present Home Secretary described him as an " old woman," he used language doubtlessly unseemly and coarse ; but, nevertheless, the idea conveyed exactly tallies with that which the vulgar would form of the person who could have written the above-quoted passages, did he not know that they were penned by the foremost man in all England.

Lord Aberdeen, as a Conservative Minister, has clung to Russia; of course, believing her to be also " Conservative." The very term was of her invention : of course there could be no imputation so odious in her eyes as that of Jacobinism. Now listen to Lord Aberdeen's own words : —

" The Jacobin party of Switzerland loudly proclaimed the Emperor Alexander as their Protector." " The Jacobin party refuse to quit their offices, having a knoichrf;}? that the Emperor of Russia is inclined to protect them."

These extracts are from January, L814; but perhaps this was merely invention or surmise. Turning back rive days. we find the following — again the writer Lord Aberdeen : —

" The other clay a letter was intercepted, from the Emperor Alexander, stating his determination that the Canton de Vatid shall never return to its ancient Government. * * * "VYhat makes the affair more unpleasant is, that it was found on a French spy, together with other papers relative to the con- dition of the Austrian army in Switzerland. Swartzenbivrg ordered the man to be shot, and sent the letter to Metternich, who transmitted it immediately to the Emperor, with the request that he would in future make a better choice of a bearer"

But, after all, a diplomatist may not require to be possessed of the faculty of judging of human character, be qualified' to apprehend the principles of policy which regulate foreign

LORD ABERDEEN, 229

States, or rendered incompetent for an important post by committing contradictions to paper, or acting in direct op- position to his uncontradicted conclusions. It may be suffi- cient that he should be an accurate archivist ; possess the facts of all treaties signed between independent Powers ; be minutely informed of their stipulations, and rigidly exact in requiring their fulfilment. Let us test him on this point. Vast is the array of incidents which here arise upon our vision, and rich the catalogue which offers itself to our selec- tion. We pitch upon one, direct in its application to the present case, and in the generality of its terms covering the whole field of negotiation.

When the Servians in 1843 drove out the Russian syco- phant, their Prince, and elected a new one, Russia interposed to force the Servians to annul their act, and on the failure proceeded to coerce the Porte into attacking them. Russia said that she required a " legal election ; " the legality de- pending upon her interpretation of the Treaty of Adrianople. Lord Aberdeen backed her, -but was fiercely assailed by his now colleague, then in opposition. He defended himself .in these memorable words : — " I must take Russia's interpreta- tisn of her own. treaty."

The great ad vantage which is supposed to have been attained by the accession of Lord Aberdeen to his present office is, that we have a Minister who is " conscientious " and "reli- gious." This is an event doubtless as satisfactory as it' is extraordinary, only we should have conceived that those were reasons for refusing the office. Conscience is more to be noted in its negative than in its positive face, and forbids ten thousand things for one which it enjoins. Religion, as re- gards conduct, is also of a binding nature ; our religion is typified in the injunction not to do to others what we should not wish them to do to us.

We have now the sanction of " conscience " for accepting a charge without qualifications, for usurping an authority not legitimate, for exercising it in a manner not blameless. We have the sanction of " religion " for doing to others the reverse of what we would suffer them to do to us. The conscience of Lord Aberdeen is for his office ; his religion for the Czar. The phenomenon of a religious man a minister concurs with the perpetration by England of acts which to Pagans must make us appear infidels, and to infidels madmen.

230 coMprxcTiors THIMBLERIGGIXG.

\\ here is the religion of a nation which relies on the vicarious conscience of a Minister ?

We now take our leave of the Scottish Thane, and must remit, to another day, the Xoble Member for Tiverton. In the meantime we ask, what is the "interpretation" of Russia of "her treaty" of the 13th of July, 1841, for the closing of the Dardanelles? Has she been consulted in the orders despatched to Besika Bay ? Does England actually run the risk, 'by the infringement of that treaty, of seeing her screw propellers sunk in the Euxine, her commerce annihilated in the four quarters of the globe, and her flags swept from the ocean ? If not, the Cabinet Council of the 13th has merely transmitted to Admiral Dundas his instructions from St. Petersburg.

COMPUNCTIOUS THIMBLERIGGING.

September 22d.

Trembling with indignation and burning with disgust, we have perused, on opening the pale sheet of the false witness, of yesterday morning, the following leader thus printed and worded : —

" GOBEMOUCHERIE.

" Our French contemporaries are very ingenious in the supply of their news-market with a delicacy well known in Paris as canards. These interesting creatures of the imagi- nation seldom however cross the Channel, or, at any rate, find such favour as one of the most remarkable of the species did yesterday. It is thus described in the Globe, which, we think, need scarcely have condescended to a refutation of so palpable a blunder.^'

[Here follows the article from the Globe.]

" It is evident that the Dtbats fell into the error inevitable with all foreign writers, of confounding the Privy Council with the Cabinet, and thus attributing to the Registrar of a court of law the functions of a diplomatic agent."

The Times of yesterday has no leader upon Turkey. In our impression of yesterday we traced and noted its total suppression of the decision of the Conference of the Cabinet ou the 14th, as also in its leaders of the 15th, the 16th, the

COMPUNCTIOUS THIMBLEIUGGING. 231

17th, the 19th, and the 20th. We further noted that on the 20th, in its intelligence from Paris, it had interpolated in its correspondent's letter a parenthesis denying the accuracy of the statement of the Journal des Debats, in these terms, — " We have the best reason for knowing that there is no foundation for these statements." On the 21st there is a hiatus — no " Turkey article ;" its place is •supplied by the extract from the Globe, with the heading and tail-piece we have above given.

In our impression of yesterday, we called upon the Times to give those " best reasons ;" we pointed out the assumption of official* authority, and the absence of its application ; we asked how, being in official possession of the knowledge that a universal belief, which had alarmed and agitated the nation and Europe, was without foundation, it did not give to it an explicit and direct contradiction : how it proceeded day after day discussing the matter, and ignoring the fact ? So much for the history of this piece of news as regards the papers. Now, let us look to the merits of the case.

First, we take the article of the Globe. It reproduces that of the Debuts of Sunday, stating that the instructions sent to Lord Stratford de lledclifte required from the Porte the retractation of its modifications, and its pure adhesion to the original Note ; that if it declines, it can look to no support from the Four Powers, and that the assistance of the squadrons shall be afforded against any outbreak at Constantinople, occasioned by its compliance. On this foundation the Globe proceeds to remark- —

" Upon this foundation is raised an elaborate assault upon the four noble lords named above, as well as a somewhat scurrilous one upon our humble selves.

" We know not if our contemporary will participate in the feeling of satisfaction with which we assure him that the text upon which his edifying sermon is founded is nothing more nor less than a canard. The only circumstance about it which we do not know to be incorrect is, that Mr. lleeve ' arrived in Paris on the morning and left it on the evening of the 14th.' But this fact, admitting it to be one, loses much of its importance from the circumstance that Mr. Reeve is simply on a pleasure tour through Eastern Europe, that he carries no despatches or diplomatic communications of any kind, and that, like many other denizens of this metropolis,

232 COMPUNCTIOUS THIMBLERIGG1NG.

he is merely seeking health and recreation by the shores of the Mediterranean — at this moment probably utterly unconscious of the ambassadorial functions with which the Debate and our morning contemporary have invested him.

" "W hen we further assure our contemporary that neither by Mr. Reeve nor by any other person have * urgent and cate*- gorical' instructions, such as he describes, been sent to Con- stantinople, he will, perhaps, agree with us in thinking that so grave and sweeping a series of accusations as he has made might have been reserved until there should be something stronger to justify them than the fact of a clerk in the Privy Council Office making an autumn tour."

" Upon this foundation /" Did mortal ever conceive before that the name, or no name, of a messenger, or no messenger, whether robust of health, or invalided, could be assumed as the foundation of any statement in reference to the contents of the despatches themselves? Did mortal ever conceive before as a defence the assertion that ambassadorial functions were imputed to a messenger ? Such is the defence of the Globe, endorsed and incorporated by the Times, and paraded like a juggling trick at a fair. The Journal des Debats merely states that this Mr. Reeve (and the name might as well have been Mr. Tom Cat), left London on the 13th, arrived in Paris on the morning, and left it on the evening of the 14th for Constantinople, and in the interim " communicated to the French Government the instructions of which he was the bearer." And this we are told by the Globe is the foundation of an " elaborate assault upon the Four noble lords." Ah ! the " Four" has stuck to them. The Journal dcs Debats makes no attack upon the noble Four ; it merely states the fact ; there is not a shade of censure ; it is the official announcement from the French Government, which had itself concurred in the step ; it is made after four days delay ; three days after the intelligence was public at Paris, and a day after that in- telligence had reached London from Paris. It is well known that in that capital the diplomatic mystery observed in London does not prevail. The discussion in the Council, besides, attracted peculiar notice by the fact, that a Queen was kept waiting through it for several hours. It is almost impossible to believe that the society and the press of the French capital could have been, and remained during four days, victims of a hoax upon* a matter of such gravity, affecting evrrv interest

COMPUNCTIOUS THIMBLERIGGING. 233

of the State, and the feelings and passions of every indi- vidual. If they were hoaxed, it certainly was not. by the name of the messenger, or in consequence of " confounding the Privy Council and the Cabinet." Really this is passing one's life in an assassin's den. This is diplomacy with a ven- geance brought to bear.

But there is a Russian organ in Paris no less than in London. How does it treat this rumour? On the very day that the Times announced its possession of the best reasons for denying its authenticity, the Assembled Nationals was rejoicing in the achievement. Here are the words of our own excellent Paris Correspondent, and which we inserted yesterday : —

" The Assembled Nationals, the organ of the Russian em- bassy here, rubs its dirty hands to-day, and thanks its stars, that all is satisfactorily arranged — it bids us to believe that Lord Stratford will notify to the Sultan that if he refuses to withdraw his modifications, the English fleet will enter the Dardanelles, and it hopes the French fleet will not be slow to follow. All comment on aught so repugnant to the feelings of an Englishman, and therefore so grateful to the hirelings of such a journal, would be unnecessary and irrelevant."

If this statement had been false what would have been the course pursued by the English Government ? A paragraph would have appeared in the Times — not a parenthesis, or a pasquinade, but a simple announcement —

" A rumour having been credited at Paris of a decision taken by the English Cabinet to enforce upon the Porte the retractation of its modifications of the conjoint note, and to offer to the Sultan the support of the squadron in case of an insurrection, we are authorised to announce that there is no foundation for such rumour."

After this announcement the Times, or the Globe, or any other mercenary, might have indulged its vein of humour at the expense of so grave and sweeping a series of accusations. Observe these are the terms of the Globe, re-echoed by the Times. The very facts are " accusations ;" they are " grave and sweeping ;" they are a " series." We hold them to the confession. But brave at taunts, they are timorous at dene- gations. The denial is an avowal — an avowal at once of crime and consciousness — at once of shame and fear.

The Journal des De'bats announced the fact as a piece of

231- COMPUNCTIOUS THIM3LERIGGIXG.

news, after it had become known to the French Government. The city of Paris received it as an astounding piece of intel- ligence, resting on the credibility of the official and other organs. The journals of London, ourselves excepted, re- ceived it on the authority of tfee French press. To them, in like manner, it was credible only by its authority, but we had announced it beforehand ; we asserted it to be the very object for which the squadron was sent ; we deduced it from Russia's necessity, the bias of the English Cabinet, and the history of past transactions ; we showed that, on every oc- casion where there had been a naval demonstration in the Levant, we went to oppose Russia, and ended by attacking Turkey, for instance : —

" Every use that you have made of your ships has led to a Russian triumph, and a Turkish humiliation. The present has been the most flagrant and, therefore will prove the most fatal. On the former occasions you had but one Foreign Secretary'. What can you expect with Four, if not quadrupled treachery and baseness ?"

Again : —

"Clearly, Besika is become henceforward an untenable position. This is what you will do : you will neither attack Russia, nor face laughter. You will have a dig at Turkey. This is what is left to you to save your credit ; and thus will you perform the service of enforcing peace."

In fact, for two months we have not ceased to declare that the Cabinet of England has been acting in connivance with Russia. We have not ceased to declare that the Turks were more than a match for Russia, and consequently that " the influence, and, if that failed, the menaces, and, if these failed, the force " of this Empire, would be employed to keep down the Turks ; consequently if the decision alleged by the French press had not taken place on the 13th, the matter would just remain for us where it was. To the announce- ment which we have supposed had been made by the Times, we should have replied — " Well, you have not done it, but you will do it." We again repeat, your position in Besika Bay is untenable. We re-assert that "the squadron in Besika Bay is a hostage in the hands of the Emperor for the obedience of the British Cabinet :" the more you treat the imputed service as an accusation, the more are you held to its performance. And how in the name of reason can it be

COMPUNCTIOUS THIMBLERIGGING. 235

otherwise ? You have not a man to face a Russian Ambas- sador, or, if you have, one only — who, in the words of the Times, " barters lie for lie " with Count Nesselrode. \Vhat have ships or guns to do with a discussion ? It is by brains that conclusions are settled — if not by head, at least by heart.

But if the Times holds for a day its tongue on Turkey — that day on which if ever it had to speak — it insinuates, into a, domestic article, a wonderful passage, of which Lord John Russell is the hero. The leader of the Commons has emerged as a Northern star from the Clyde, in a much-applauded performance, wherein he describes his own public life as one devoted to the " privileges and power of the people." A gambler is one who stakes his money ; a highwayman is one who stakes his life ; a cheat is one who advances the capital of dexterity ; a demagogue, one who breaks with power ; a sycophant, one who is hostage to servility. In what class shall we reckon this performer — who gambles without coun- ters, robs without pistols, cozens without gloze, and who, uniting the offices of liberal and favourite, dupes in a breath the people, and insults the Crown ? Power of the people ! Is it true ? if true, can he utter it ? We have heard of "liberty of the people," "rights of the subject." These are not words for him. Well, admit it. He has given power to the people. Power of what? — to double the expense of armaments — i. e. Reform Bill. Has he added that to decide upon their use ? Does he not withhold power, to be informed ^ven of the fact ? Will any ordinary man deny that the voice of the people has at the present moment less influence over the Councils of the State than at any previous one ? This change has ensued upon a new organization, the object and effect of which is now stated by its author to be the increase of the power of the people ! Such a Minister is of course a match for Nesselrode !

"Lord John," says the Times, "'alludes to a third topic of the day." Third topic ! However, he alludes to it " quietly, cautiously, and yet boldly " — that is to say, with a bold quietude and a cautious boldness. The passage thus de- scribed must be, indeed, a rhetorical specimen ; here it is : —

" It is also to be considered, and I trust we shall none of us forget, that this country holds an important position among the nations of the world. It is not once, but many times,

236 COMPUNCTIOUS THIMBLERIGGIXG.

she has stood forward to resist oppression, to maintain the independence of weaker nations, to preserve to the general family of nations that freedom, that power of governing themselves, of which others have sought to deprive them. I trust that character will not be forgotten, will not be aban- doned by a nation which is now stronger in means, which is more populous, more wealthy than she has been at any former period."

We might have beaten our brains for a long time, without arriving at the happy descriptive antithesis of the Times. If called upon for an opinion, we might have characterised it as very quiet, but not as very cautious — we might have said that it was bold, because it was melancholy. It reminds us of the consoling observations of a professional gentleman at a patient's bedside — it is a diagnosis flowing into an epitaph. Fuit Ilium ! The Trojan coast was in his mind, before his mental eye the tumulus of Ajax ; England's glories, her re- sistance to " oppression," her defence of the " independence of weaker nations " were things " not to be forgotten," — parts henceforward belonging to the pleasures of memory.

In his speech in the House it has been observed that he spoke as "if under the eye of the Czar;" at Greenock he spoke as in the presence of death and in the fear of history. With such a speech, do you doubt the Cabinet decision of the 13th?

For Lord John Kussell we will say one good word — he has compunctions. It is not imputed to him either to be a " con- scientious " or a " religious " minister, but he is a shakey man, a true representative of the nation over the tomb of whose greatness he chaunts his elegy — a tomb upon which even his Orphaic hand refuses to inscribe the word — EESURGAM.

BILLSTICKERS BEWARE !

We are informed by the Government organ that Lord John Russell " has turned to very good account the civilities of his Northern Friends," and that there is every reason to hope, by the " ever-increasing applause" which accompanied his Lordship's " manly and becoming strain," that the citizens

BILLSTICKE11S BEV.'AilE ! 237

of Greenock " are quite prepared, if necessary, to incur the risk of war for the cause of justice and their country's honour." This is not however the only advantage which the Govern- ment looks to in getting up public meetings. It expects to turn them to " good account," not only for supporting their own decision to make war, but, as possibly, being more effi- cient than the services of the diplomatists in maintaining peace. "It is not impossible that, from the banks of the Clyde, a few salutary thoughts may reach .the more magnificent quays of the Neva, and be all the more im- pressive, for not being wrapt up in the sacred language of diplomacy ;" that is to say, that the opinion of Greenock is worth more than the squadron which, of course, must now be on its way into the Euxine, to drive the Russian gun-boats " far up into their Ingunes and rivers ;" and even more im- pressive than the diplomatic language of the Cabinet itself.

This is all very satisfactory ; we accept the co-operation of the Government in urging public meetings, and thank it for the instance it offers us in Greenock of success. While concurring with it in the possibility of the evolution of " salutary thoughts," we did not aspire to sweeping with them the icy Neva, but only a dirty lane in the neighbourhood of the Thames. We have still some hankering suspicions about the destination of the squadron, and what thoughts, salutary or noxious, escaped from the citizens of Greenock, we have yet to learn, for Lord John had all the say to him- self.

Indeed, this is avowed ; " the Minister's words may after, all be set down as a matter of course," but then there are the cheers ! Canning's " My thunder " was nothing to this. How terrified the Emperor of Russia must be ! On future oc- casions of failure of " the sacred language," the leader of the House of Commons will jump up, shake his fist in Baron Brunnow's face, and say, with calm boldness, " Have a care, or I'll be off to Greenock."

Alas, poor Emperor! Hsemus will echo and Rhodope will reply, " Eurydice, Eurydice !" Greenock will affright the dreams of Zarskoi Zelo, and nutter the battalions of the Dnieper and the Don ! The earth will resound to the potential name, and the Northern breeze will not shake a reed ungifted with that fabled speech, which enabled them once pointedly to exclaim, " Midas has the ears of an ass !" for such, in-

238 COINCIDENCES AND ANTICIPATIONS.

terpreted in vulgar terms, must mean the " energetic response of the assembled citizens " to a " matter of course."

Who would not rather be sent to the treadmill than write leaders for the Coalition ? Will not the Emperor have mercy on the journalists, if he will not on the Ministers ? Does he really intend to swamp the Times as well as Turkey ?

Let us not be supposed to be misestimating the cheers of the citizens of Greenock. Nobody can mistake their mean- ing ; least of all is it mistaken by Lord John Russell. It is indubitable that every allusion to war is cheered in every assembly, and that no man, whatever his purpose, can address a British assembly at this moment, if he would not be hooted, without an allusion to war. The British nation is ready to support Turkey at every risk, and at every cost; but its fervour in the cause of justice will become scorn and abhorrence of the palterers who have raised the cry of peace, reckoning on its cowardice, when it learns, as it must learn ere long, that there never was the remotest idea of war in the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, or chance of it for Europe.

COINCIDENCES AND ANTICIPATIONS.

The Russian organ in Paris printed on Monday last the following passage : —

" No human power can prevent that solution from being pacific; for, supposing the worst — namely that renegades and revolutionists who command the Turks on the Danube should lead them to combat, and that the Russians should reply by cannon shots, it would only be a collision, a local incident."

On the same day we wrote, and on the next morning pub- lished, this passage : —

" Now we have to learn upon what grounds the Cabinet acts ? If merely upon the telegraphic despatch, may we not have to-morrow, or next day, conditions added in view of this very contingency of a movement of Omer Pacha, which will enable the Cabinet of St. Petersburg even then to fall back on its Allies ? Keeping them in the field it secures every thing, and deprives the Porte of everything."

BESIKA BAY SQUADRON. 239

Our reader s will have observed, some of them have disliked, the tone in which we have spoken throughout this matter of Austria. They have not conceived that there could be any use in warning, and believed the only course was denuncia- tion. We now point to the signal event of these days, and the de facto withdrawal of Austria from the mediation. A few days ago, while the Cabinet of Vienna was still con- sidered secure, the Times lectured us on the duty of following the lead of that power. We shall be curious to see what it says this day.

BESIKA BAY SQUADRON.

September 23c?.

" Oh ! feeble statesmen, ignominious times, That lick the tyrant's feet and smile upon his crimes."

Campbell.

When two players of unequal powers have sat down to a game, it is easy to predict the result, but impossible to pre- dict the moves ; in fact, the superiority of the one depends upon the option left open to him on each occasion by the in- expertness of the other. Now, though we have accepted as confirmation of our predictions, the reported order sent out to the squadron to pass the Dardanelles, it does not follow that it shall pass them. There is another end to secure, and we think it necessary to point attention to it beforehand : to make the Turks alarmed at the proposal — alarmed for a movement which up to the present time has been the object of all their wishes. Europe has hitherto been made falsely to believe that the Turks were averse to our squadron entering the Black Sea. By a menace, or even a rumour of this description, this false impression will be justified by the change effected in the opinion of the Turks. After the point is secured, Eussia falls back on moderation, and the English Government escapes from its dilemma. This, we say, is the alternate use to be made of the false move on Besika Bay, if it be found incon- venient to employ it for the other !

That the announced use of the squadron is still the one first on the cards may be inferred from the concluding paragraph of the Times' Turkey article of yesterday. After stating that

240 PHILOSOPHY OF AMBITION*.

one or more campaigns must bring'the llussians to the gates of Constantinople, it says : —

" This consummation it is the paramount interest of com- bined Europe to avert ; but it is clear that intervention could be -muck iiiore coiireniently effected before the sicord has been drawn than when the Czar has been brought within reach of his prize with the title of conquest, and alter the chances of of war."

PHILOSOPHY OF AMBITION.

" Most faithful Russian, faithful to whoe'er "Would plunder best and give him amplest share ; Who e'tn when vanquished, sure to gain his ends, For want of foes to rob, made free with friends."

Moore.

There ate two limits placed to the passions, or the ambition, of man — conscience and consequences. Society exists during every second of time by the presence and the action of these controlling influences, which are, to the moral world, what atmospheric pressure and gravitation are to the physical. In periods of convulsion, — occasions fortunately of rare occurrence, this influence is weakened, and thence come the mutations of fortune ; but they do not altogether lose their power, even over the absolute despot or the subduer of the world.

Vi'e are now arrived at a new experience, alike in psychology and in politics — that in which a system, not a man, is without conscience and gets others to take upon their shoulders the couxtHjennces of its acts. This is no less than a revolution in the constitution of society ; and as there are no precedents with which to range it — no rule by which to judge it — it must be presented before the mind, not only as a phenomenon, but as a problem. That it is novel, the records of ancient and modern history will show. Nowhere will it be found that an individual or a state, having committed an injury upon another, lias then taken that injury as a pretext for making war, whilst the others interposed to 'prevent it the aggrieted party from defending itself, on the grounds of their detestation of the

PHILOSOPHY OF AMBITION. 241

aggressor, and their sympathy for the aggrieved. Is not this to remove every restraint from Kussian ambition ?

The operation of affinities which we may observe under an exhauster, or in a crucible, has formed this mighty globe, and in the disturbances and assortment of molecules passing before our eyes within the compass of a thimble, we can follow and trace the processes of its huge progressive engenderments, thousands, or millions of years ago ; so, in the operations of the spirit, the molecule is all we want to judge of the mass, however enormous, and the effects however vast. The empire is, or it may be, — the world is in the man. The varieties that constitute differences, diversities, and contests of such bodies are again equally in the man. We require here no chemical substances, or alembics; each of us has in his own heart at once the subject and the implement — the reasoning matter at work, the reasoning faculty to judge with ; at once matter and instrument. Providence has granted to every human soul to understand all things and all systems on which happiness depends, in which fates are involved ; and were it otherwise, we should not have been deprived of the faculty of instinct granted to the inferior orders of creation. The agglomerating power of man is a moral one ; it is bom with us as that other faculty is amongst quadrupeds ; it is disturbed only when obscured ; it is not science that can restore it.

Passion is restrained either by internal or external sense of right, virtue, or punishment; the conscience of the man himself, or the consequences he has to apprehend from the consciences of others. In the first case there is a struggle with temptation. The sense of right is directly assailed by the desire of indulgence, and indirectly by the pretexts under which that weakness veils itself. In the second, that is to say, when wrong is done to us, there is neither temptation nor fallacy ; on the contrary, our passions and interests are affected in the same ratio as our sense of right, and thus the man who endures a wrong must have a much smaller amount of nobleness than the man who inflicts it. Though expressed differently, this was the fundamental idea of the Academic philosophy where the distinction was drawn between positive and negative justice ; the judgment was not held to be a virtue, but the Queen and Directress of all the virtues. It would follow, that it is a very common thing for men to be

11

242 PHILOSOPHY OF AMBITION.

unjust, but a very uncommon thing for others to suffer them to be so with impunity.

There is a distinction to be drawn in one respect between the individual and the society he composes. The man stands to man, not by himself akme, but subject to the man- ner in which all judge that each shall stand ; in other words, he is subject to a tribunal. But there is no tribunal placed over the communities in reference to each other, and there- fore nations in the aggregate, when they are disposed to be unjust, are wholly relieved from that first restraint, namely, that of conscience, and are exposed only to the second, that of consequences or retaliation ; but as communities have no supreme tribunal to which they can trust their rights, a nation is required to be much more on the alert in defending them eren than the individual. If they do not, not being tempted in such case by ambition, not having their judgment obscured by fallacy, they must have lost respect for right, without having acquired faculty to profit by wrong ; and are therefore in a far inferior position morally, to the nation that is simply ambitious, whilst their intellectual state equally suffers, being first in error in their conclusions, and then falling into indif- ference as to every process of reasoning whatever. Thus it is, that the elements of success in a career of ambition, are not to be sought in the active means at the disposal of the ambitious state, but in the negative character belonging to those at whose expense such fortune is created.

If now, we observe such a degree of success in attaining the objects of ambition on the part of one Government as has not yet been evinced in any former period, it is to be concluded that in the other states there has occurred a cor- responding depression in the moral and intellectual faculties of man.

243

IS THE CONTINENT TO BECOME TARTAR OR COSSACK?

September 23d. "Russ or Turk — the one's as good as t'other." — Don Juan,

It certainly is a very convenient process, to discuss sub- jects by ignoring facts ; but suppression is, in this discus- sion, only the auxiliary to perversion, contradiction, and unblushing falsehood. All this is very easy. " What is dark is deep," says Swift ; " stir a puddle, and it is as deep as a well." A monkey and a toad might compose in this fashion, the articles of the Tines, for the one can ravel a skein, and the other muddle a fountain. The following pas- sage contains the drift of to-day's argument in the Jalse Witness : —

" By this extraordinary infusion of barbarian blood, Turkey is rapidly acquiring the character which she possessed four hundred years since ; and it is but too probable that the next mail may inform us of the actual resort to arms."

Of course it is ; and this was said as a warning to Austria at the period of her demand for the extradition of the Hun- garian refugees. It was then told her, that with the warlike qualities and the military organisation of the Ottoman Empire, to present Austria united with Russia, would have the effect of developing in Turkey a terrible power, of which she would be ultimately the victim. What were the conse- quences which then ensued ? Europe, of course, expected Turkey's prostration before two such empires. She was not prostrated, but on the contrary, the old Ottoman lion roused himself in his lair, and Austria and Russia, united, dared not to lay their hands upon his mane. But it was in defence of a Christian people and of public law and right that the Ottoman spirit was moved. Still, no doubt the Turks were alarmed for their fate and independence, and a project was submitted to the Porte by the then Seraskier, and brother- in-law of the Sultan, for including in the rediff, and sub- jecting to military instruction at their homes, the young men between eighteen and twenty-five, not drawn as conscripts, and which would have given to Turkey a disciplined force of 3,000,000, in addition to the 600,000 of mobilised, which,

IS THE CONTINENT TO BECOME

when completed, the Xizani will present. It is true that the plan was not accepted, but a large addition was made, especially by the incorporation of Bosnia in the standing force, and it is in consequence of the threatening attitude assumed on that occasion by these two Powers that that spirit was evoked, of which every day's post from the East brings evidence of the increasing effects.

Now, let us suppose that an internecine struggle is not produced in Turkey, what are the consequences to be anti- cipated from the present menace ? Will it not be, in the first instance, a great augmentation of the army ?

Will it not be a great inoitation to enter into a career of military enterprise, prompted by the very apprehensions of the designs entertained against their independence, and by the consciousness of the union with Russia of the other powers of the West — in a word, will you not have unchained the lion ? Are you not driving Turkey back, in the words of the Times, to "what she was four hundred years since?"

Now, it has been for a long time the habit to dwell upon the feebleness of the Turkish population in Europe. What are the facts ? The Turkish Empire is Mussulman, conse- quently, bound up with it are the Mussulmans, to whatever race they belong. There are not more than 1,500,000 Turks in Europe. But what distinction do the Turks make be- tween themselves and the Mussulman Albanians, Bosnians, and Bulgarians ? The Slave, that is to say the population of the same race as the Muscovites, largely enter into the Mussulman ranks, and the Turkish blood flows in the veins of millions and millions of men spread between Constanti- nople and Vienna, who are not known under that designation. The Bulgarians, for instance, the ancient Tartars of the Volga, and the Hungarians. Join to these the 2,500,000 of Tartars in Russia, and the 10,000,000 of Cossacks and Malo-Russians, whose original affiliation is Turkish, and whose sympathies are so entirely, and you will have a Turkish mass, more or less pure, of nearly 30,000,000, and these composing the populations of Europe, which alone possess a military character and organisation. These are but the outliers of the large mass of Asia, and they have in their van Poland, more embittered against Europe than against Russia.

Such is the supposed caput mortuwn to which you are at present applying your galvanic shocks, quickening it into life

TARTAR OR COSSACK? 245

by wrongs and perfidy. Yes, Europe may tremble. What has she to oppose to such an outburst whenever it comes ? — nations borne down by standing armies — people who cannot trust their princes — princes who fear their subjects — a gene- ration occupied and corrupted with political disputations, and more endangered by its own theories than any conquest. The other alternative is an internecine struggle ; and, in that case, the world has no longer to apprehend a frank con- quest by the Mussulman, but the damning domination of the Muscovite. Such is the choice of alternatives which you have created for yourselves — such is the argument which you have now placed in the hands of Russia, for compelling you to proceed in the fatal course upon which you have entered, knowing neither where you stood, nor whither you are led.

We admit to the full the argument of the Times, but we think it was injudiciously put forward so soon ; for, by re- vealing the game, the suggestion may be mooted, whether it be safe to play it, and whether it be not better to follow the example of Austria and to retire. What has made her retire, if even for a moment, except the perception of the con- sequences ? She has seen that the matter could not be settled diplomatically ; she has seen that diplomacy was bringing war for her ruin ; she has seen that the case involved was not the mere pitting of words against words, nor actual strength against strength, but the opening of a new and terrible power in the Ottoman empire, or its destruction; she has seen Vienna again besieged either by Baskir Pulks, or by the Tartar hordes.

Recent intelligence reached this country of the breaking up by Austria of the Conference. We are to-night in possession of a telegraphic despatch announcing the resumption of the Confer- ence. There has clearly, therefore, been a moment of suspense in the mind of the Austrian Government; and when we consider of what materials that Government is composed, the depen- dence in which it is placed, and the course to which it has been already so fatally committed, it is impossible not to see in this moment of hesitation, evidence of a sense of alarm. The fact has, indeed, been represented as her disinclination to adopt "propositions of the two Western Powers respecting a guarantee against any interference on the part of Russia between the Porte and its subjects." But this explanation would imply an opposition of the Western Powers to Russia,

246 IS THE CONTINENT TO BECOME

consequently we must fall back upon the conclusion that Austria, for the moment, perceived more imminent ruin im- pending from the prosecution of the labours of the Conference, than even from the terrible revolutionary elements which Russia can at any hour let loose upon her devoted head. The anxk-ty of Russia to force the resumption of the labours of the Conference, may be inferred from the following passage in Count Nesselrode's despatch of the 7th of this month, and addressed to the Russian representative at Vienna, in which Austria is pointed to as the obstacle in the way —

" We see only one single means of putting an end to de- lays. It is for Austria and the Powers to declare to the Porte frankly and firmly that they, after having in vain opened up to it the only road that could lead to an immediate resto- ration of its relations with us, henceforth leave the task to herself alone."

Up to July last, Turkey was the mildest, meekest, the most debonnaire of states ; calm, resigned, patient, confiding, hospitable, courteous, not self-seeking, faithful of its engage- ments to other Powers, and tolerant of its dissidents at home. You have mistaken mildness for cowardice, and reliance for weakness ; you have weighed upon the springs until they have acquired a terribly impulsive power ; you have laid on a mighty weight — they may crack, but they may rebound ! You see the effects : you are warned of the consequences ; God send you timely repentance !

Recollect that Turkey has, any more than Russia, no asso- ciation whatever with your internal broils and factious politics ; neither the one nor the other suffers from that internal gan- grene that gnaws the vitals of our state, and sets every man against his brother ; no dark breedings of classes ; no per- verting reasonings of theories, and therefore the one and the other are destined long to survive your ephemeral display of material science and physical power. Their antagonism dates from 3000 years, and 'things that have lasted long promise in like manner a long futurity.

Such is the mighty contest to which the people of England now ventures to address itself. May it do so worthily no less than effectively. For that end it must lay aside all speculative matter, addressing itself to facts, relying on eternal principles which every human being must acknowledge ; which no cir- cumstances can alter. Above all things let it never speak of

CHARLES JAMES FOX AS A DIPLOMATIST. 247

revolution when dealing with rights ; may it never confound conspirators and patriots ; may it never generalise places, nor dream that there is a common cause for Poland and Italy, lor Hungary and for Turkey. The Pole, or Hungarian, that identifies his cause with that of any European abstraction, is a traitor to his own land and a firebrand for others. The Englishman who fails to observe the distinction must be in- sane. He who fights for, or demands, justice for wrongs in a country that is oppressed — he who resists an invader, is sup- ported by his own conscience, a just cause, and the sympathy of every just man ; but he who, by perversion of intellect, or weakness of character, associates himself with schemes and theories, degrades the name of freedom, and in present cir- cumstances will fail of success. The array and might of evil is too great to be opposed by anything less than perfect truth and perfect justice.

CHARLES JAMES FOX AS A DIPLOMATIST.

September 24^.

In certain quarters, we perceive a tendency to sneer though an inability to reply, to our statements regarding the flimsy hoax of British Diplomacy. In one place it is said that Eussia has no diplomatists equal to those of England. This is the flattering defence which no Englishman could make, but a Eussian correspondent suggests. In another it is said, you refute yourself, because in the same breath you assert Diplo- macy to be useless, and all-powerful. True, stupid English- men, we assert both, yet without contradiction, just as we should say to a thimblerig, " thimblerig is no profitable speculation," and " thimble rigging is a very profitable craft :" as thiinblerigging becomes profitable to the swindler only because it is practised by the dupe, so are the profits of Russian Diplomacy made out of the English practice.

We believe we have exhausted the argument, but this is a case in which argument is of no avail ; things that are utterly absurd defy arguments, but things that defy argument are only endured because people are unfamiliar with them. Our task, therefore, must be to increase that familiarity by travelling backwards and forwards over the ground, selecting

.248 CHARLES JAMES FOX AS A DIPLOMATIST.

here and there apposite illustrations, or interesting positions, showing here how hundreds of millions can be cast away by laboured perversion ; there, how the gravest events can be passed over with the most absolute indifference ; how the course so pursued would have rendered an attorney amenable to the laws ; and how any private concern so conducted must have speedily advanced to the Gazette. When the matter is practically brought home in this fashion, then there may be a chance of something being done to put an end to this monster grievance that gripes with an iron hand the vitals of the land, only because at present impalpable to the intellectual eye.

We have recently shown that the continental blockade of Napoleon was frustrated by causes in which Diplomacy had no part; but in the former war with France there was a combination of an equally hostile nature formed by an ally of ours, at whose Court we had a representative. This was the armed Neutrality of the North in which Russia engaged the Scandinavian kingdoms, and which was based upon the denial of the British maxim that neutral flags did not cover belligerent property. The effect was to prolong hostilities between the belligerents by depriving England of her power of action at sea ; to render that war profitable to the Powers of the Baltic, by increasing the demand for naval stores, and raising their price ; and further, to place Sweden and Denmark, and thereby the Baltic itself, at Russia's disposal.

The English Government was fully alive in its practical effects upon the war to the dangerous character of this com- bination. It was fully alive to its hostile nature as regarded the purposes of the Russian Government. An expression of our Ambassador there concisely renders the matter thus, referring indeed to the second coalition, " To stop all vessels of all countries bound for England, is a curious illustration of neutral rights." Well, now, what did English Diplomacy do to counteract this measure ? Nothing. It even offered to concur itself in the plan if Catharine would refuse for a time to acknowledge the independence of the United Colonies . In a single paragraph in the Diaries and Correspondence of Lord Malmesbury, we have the most wonderful exposure that ever was made ; the Council deciding one thing ; the Minister, instructing the Ambassador, another ; obliged to conceal his letter because of its divergency from the decision of the

CHARLES JAMES FOX AS A DIPLOMATIST, 249

Council; doing this in so heedless a manner, as not even to keep a copy of his letter ; the Ambassador differing with the Minister, and obeying neither instruction ; the Empress treating with contempt the slavish application of England, whose concurrence she did not want, because her object was to maintain the state of war between her and France.

" Charles Fox was announced as aa old friend and ac- quaintance. He said he came to see me, and at the same time confessed his chief reason was, that having never kept copies of what ke wrote when Secretary of State, he wished I would show, or give him a copy of an official letter he wrote me when I was at St. Petersburg, in or about May, 1782, on the subject of the Armed Neutrality. He said it was written in consequence of a Cabinet held at the Duke of Grafton's, in Clarges-street ; and that, as far as he could recollect, his private sentiments, which he believes he wrote me in a private letter, were for ray going/<zr^<?r than he could instruct me to do in his official despatch, if he made it conformable to the minute of Cabinet That he had this minute somewhere, but could not find it. I told him I remembered little more than that his general sentiments on the Armed Neutrality were, that it was a point not worth contesting, since all Europe have subscribed to it ; and if we could get any great advantage by acquiescing in its principles, it would be well so to do. That / differed from him at the time, and that it was the subject of several conversations we held together on my return home in 1783."*

On this the present Lord Malmesbury makes the following comment : —

" I find no letter from Fox bearing exactly upon this point (probably because Lord M. returned it to him) ; but his letters published in the first volume of this work express (like those of his predecessors in office) a sense of the importance of the Empress's friendship, and his readiness to purchase it by great concessions and unbounded flattery."

Will it be believed that, with a revelation of such perfidy and such hostility — that after the contemptuous rejection of such oilers, and the scorn with which this " unbounded flattery" was replied to, Mr. Fox should lay down as a maxim that alliance with the Northern Courts was his rule, and not

* Lord Malmesbury 's Diaries and Correspondence, vol. iv, p. 11.

250 THE LITURGY OF CRIME.

only his, but that it must be so of every British Statesman of weight or character? At this moment the Ambassador was writing " I am surrounded with spies, and have none." So much for Whig diplomacy — so much for the capacity and integrity of one of the Great Constitutional Parties, and that party is liberty in internal affairs, independence in external, and generally progress throughout the world.

THE LITURGY OF CRIME.

September 24/7*.

" His brow was as the deep, when tempest-tost, Dark and unfathomable thoughts had graved Et«mal wrath on his immortal face; And where he gazed, a gloom pervaded space."

A more epigrammatic defiance was never launched by intellectual wrestler, or imperious despot, than that of Count Nesselrode at the Vienna Congress. Like an Anda- lusian bull, with tail erect and levelled horns, he rushes on the picadores, and pins them to the planks of the barrier. Either the modifications are important, or they are not important ; if important, we won't have them ; if unimportant, they are not worth having.

Such is the declaration of the "Russian Government, not to the Porte but to the Conference ; that Conference which for a moment shied, but has again bent its neck to the yoke. Such were the essential contents of Count Nesselrode's de- spatch of the 7th, except, indeed, we may parenthetically observe, that the essentiality of all despatches is their inco- herence. Tubs, tubs, tubs ! that is the meaning of despatches — whales, the animal that congresses. But Count Nessel- rode says to the Conference, " If the modifications are im- portant, by reason of their importance the Emperor will not accept them." Here then is the point. Something important is involved in those modifications which the Times told, and Europe believed, was merely " a question of words." They were called verbal; they were'called grammatical, indeed; and on this interpretation the orders -were sent to remove the Besika squadron ; Europe, forsooth, was not to be plunged in all the horrors of war by a philological disputation. What, then, is this important matter suddenly revealed ?

THE LITURGY OF CRIME.

251

The Times of yesterday is so indulgent as to inform us— it is the words " Ottoman Empire," that is all. It is, that one of the parties desires the introduction, the other the ex- clusion, of those words ; and it goes on even to show, not- withstanding what it has already told us respecting the unimportant nature of the suggestions of the Porte, that therein is involved no less than the assimilation of 1 2,000,000 of the subjects of the Porte to the condition of foreign resi- dents, in a country where foreign residents are administered by their respective ambassadors. It is, therefore, to enforce upon the Porte this condition, not, as hitherto supposed, to maintain the peace of Europe, that coercive measures are to be employed against Turkey.

Now all this is equally clear and satisfactory ; but, sup- posing that Russia fails in gaining this important point, sup- posing that a happy agreement and a peaceful settlement were effected by Russia's acceptance of the conjoint note, and the withdrawal of her forces from the Principalities, how would matters then stand? Then Eussia would have a mortgage over the Principalities ; then she would have a European sanction for the faculty of intervention in the affairs of the Christian subjects, though still nominally retaining their position as subjects of the Sultan ; she would have accredited the belief of community between her own sacri- legious faith and the Oriental Church ; she would have imposed an enormous sacrifice upon Turkey, and a frightful degradation on its Government ; she would have established a perfect control over the Powers of Europe ; degraded each of these nations in the eyes of its Government ; paralysed the export trade of Turkey ; brought back to herself the trade in grain, and raised the price of bread in Europe again, to the disturbance of its Governments and the profit of their own Treasury. Well, all this is in her pocket ; it is packed up and laid by, and placed behind her. She now wants more, and boldly she stretches forth her hand to seize it ; she is, indeed, exposed to the risk of war — a war which she cannot sustain ; but if the Turks break loose, she has promised to consider that merely a " local incident." Then Conference and squadron come in. Is not this playing on velvet with a vengeance? — not glove of velvet and hand of steel, but tongue of steel and hand of velvet — not martial hand on the rough borders of the Ister, but velvet paw for the ladies of

252 THE LITURGY OF CRIME.

Vienna, and rough tongue for politicians iu Downing Street. " Hit them again, they have no friends."

The Times tells us that " the Christian subjects of the Porte require and deserve protection from without," chalked upon the memorable declaration of Catharine, in reference to the dissidents of Poland, but somewhat less energetically ex- pressed. That rhetorical Princess enunciated the truth in this form : — " Those who are attacked by insolent power in the dearest portion of humanity — conscience — have a right to look throughout the world for a protector."

But what a wide application does not this doctrine in the present age receive ? Confining ourselves to the small limits of the English world, the applications might run thus : —

" The French habitants of Canada require and deserve pro- tection from without.

" The Boors and Caffres of the Cape require and deserve protection from without.

" The planters of the West India Islands require and de- serve protection from without.

" The two hundred and fifty subsidiary princes of India require and deserve protection from without.

" The Catholic inhabitants of Malta require and deserve protection from without.

" The Christians of the Greek Church in the Ionian Islands require and deserve protection from without.

" The followers of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva require and deserve protection from without.

" The Mussulmans of India require and deserve protection from without.

" The Dissenters of England require and deserve protection from without.

" The lloman Catholics of Ireland require and deserve protection from without."

What a splendid liturgy might not the Times compose in its " sacred language" for celebration in St. Sophia, to be preliminarily rehearsed in the great Temple of Moloch on the " clear banks of the Neva," with the incarnation of a Satanic Divinity himself to chaunt the verses, whilst in their subsi- diary chapel of Downing Street his Four Archangels respond Amen !

This maxim being instituted, it is the mournful reflection of the deeply-pondering mind of Printing-House Square, that

RUSSIAN AGENCY IN CABINETS AND CLUBS. 253

this " protection " can only be afforded to those deserving individuals, by that exemplary personage the Czar of Muscovy, and in a spirit of high-toned and self-sacrificing morality, it wrings its hands and exclaims, " Fiat justitia, ruat crelum."

" It is perfectly understood that any authority conveyed to her for this object would be made the instrument of political intrigue, and turned to purposes eventually destructive of European peace."

Such, then, is our fate. The peace of Europe is to be destroyed because we must maintain religious truth, and Iiave no chosen vessel, save a political intriguer. So imbued are we with the forbearing spirit of Christian men, that we dare not even apply the words, " Evil must come, but woe to 1dm by whom it cometli" It is on our own heads that the curse would fall.

The Times, as usual, was in possession of no telegraphic despatch from the East yesterday. Of course, occupied with secular considerations, it cannot spare attention for mere news. What matters to it convulsion of empires, peril of thrones ? It is engaged in laying the foundation of a new order, and poising the parts of the future edifice of social happiness, in which desert shall ever meet its reward, and protection shall never be withheld from suffering. Avaunt, then, ye present monsters who rule the world under the pros- tituted names of religion and of law ! Avaunt, corruptions, falsely named Principalities and Powers ! Thrice avaunt, barbarian hordes, and make way for the Holofernes of the new Sardanapalus : know ye, all nations, that henceforward, " There is no God but the Czar, and the Times is his prophet !"

RUSSIAN AGENCY IN CABINETS AND CLUBS.

We have opened our columns to a discussion respecting a certain alleged Russian agent. Conceiving it now closed between the parties, we may be permitted to make some observations on the subject ; but before doing so, we are under the necessity of defining clearly the position of the Liberal, or Kadical party, in England, as regards the party on the Con- tinent holding a parallel position.

RUSSIAN AGENCY IN CABINETS AND CLUBS.

Those who seek to reform abuses cannot be promulgators of any original doctrine ; they are but the reflection, by opposition, of a system which they hold to be abusive, and must be affected by the differences existing between the systems to which they belong. That of England differs toto ccelo from those of the Continent. In our island there is no oppression, and no danger arising from kingly power, and, consequently, there is no party of men assailing the supremacy of the Queen. The most violent Reformer would meet with indignation, if not with contempt, any imputation upon his loyalty. On the Continent, the basis of every conspiracy is the overthrow of the Throne. We say it not disparagingly — we have no right to disparage in such matters — nations have as much right to be Republicans as they have to be Monarchists; but we state it as a fact, and a fact resulting of necessity from the position in which they stand.

Our grievance is in a great measure their desire : we have to complain of Parliament ; it is Parliament, or something equivalent to it, that they wish to have.

There was a time when it was the endeavour of Reformers to curb Parliamentary power ; but Reform in latter days has taken the opposite direction, that of popularising the repre- sentation. We enter not into the relative merits of the two methods ; it is enough to state the fact, to show that the Reforming spirit of England can have no association with Revolution; whereas amongst our Continental neighbours Reform and Revolution are synonymous ; a Reform Asso- ciation becomes a conspiracy, and a public meeting an insur- rection ; where we present petitions they raise barricades, and while the controversial heat evaporates with us in a debate, with them it ignites gunpowder : bayonets flash, bullets fly ; a dynasty falls, or an insurrection is put down, and after each effort of the sort, the people is left more degraded than before, and dreading its own power, and its own opinions, more than the weapons of its antagonists.

This evil condition, in so far as it results from arbitrary power, is dependent, not on local, but on general circum- stances, of which the principal are the enormous military establishments in which Governments whose territories touch each other have been running a race of fatal competition, and diplomacy, which has afforded to a Government equally hostile to all, the opportunities of occult, but commanding influence,

RUSSIAN AGENCY IN CABINETS AND CLUBS. 255

\vhich it uses to impel the Governments of Europe into acts hostile to their people. The disquietude which has no legiti- mate safety- valves, and is thereby rendered revolutionary, is directed less against their several Governments than against their common patron, Russia. These two sources of convulsion, which severally must bring to the ground the systems of Europe, had not failed to strike Napoleon, and it was the dream of his latter life, had he regained power, to have effected a general disarmament, and to have put an end to permanent diplomacy. The last of these two evils had struck him from the origin, and it was with the extremest difficulty that he was induced to permit the residence of foreign representatives at his Court, or to send representatives to foreign potentates.

It is the alarm for revolution which rivets the dependence of these Governments, and so revolution becomes doubly Russia's instrument. We have seen her pensioning the regicides of France, fomenting the discontents of Spain, Piedmont, and Italy, and lending her hand to the Lord George Gordon riots of London : at a recent period she has in a similar manner directed the revolutions of Yienna, Berlin, Bucharest, Copenhagen, Dresden, and Palermo. In fact, so notorious was her patronage of revolution, especially in Italy, that in 1816 she declared herself avowedly the protectress of the plan then promulgated at Milan for the subversion of all existing Governments, and ten years later the Republicans of that country sent a deputation into the very heart of Russia, to claim the political, arid to receive the pecuniary, support of the Czar. The Greeks and the Italians were on the same line, and the Grand Secret Association of the former was organised at St. Petersburg.

Russia's dealings with Europe consist in conspiracies ; whether with Cabinets or sans culottes — with carbonari or aristocracies. Her practice lies that way ; it is to this end that she has qualified herself, and when once bitterness arises, and reciprocal wrongs exist, when opposing formula are promulgated, and hostile doctrines established, it is her business to organise each against the other. Kossuth has told us, that in 1848 "She haql her spy and her agent in every Cabinet ;" and the events of Hungary, Denmark, and Piedmont too, show that she had them too in every army.

These general maxims have now to be tested in reference to the case of an alleged agent of hers, taking a prominent

256 RUSSIAN AGENCY IN CABINETS AND CLUBS.

part in those revolutions of 1848, which have given her the actual command in Europe. The individual in question is a subject of her o\vn, and has been reclaimed and obtained by her from the Governments against which he had incited their people. The charge against him rests of course only upon general grounds, and it is not to be supposed, that if guilty, there should be evidence to convict him in a court of law. The general grounds are : — The estabb'shed habit of inciting to revolt ; the profit made in the particular case of revolt ; and the protection thrown over him after the event. We have precisely a case in the Lord George Gordon riots, when a foreigner leading the mob was arrested for setting fire to a Catholic chapel, and was demanded by the Russian Embassy, and surrendered by the British police. The case is aggravated by the fact of his being, in this instance, a Kussian. Of course there may be Russians bond fide revolutionists, but we doubt very much that any such have appeared. Certainly the works published by pseudo-republican Russians, and filled with the most violent diatribes against the Government, are singularly sdapted to mislead Europe upon all points in which it is im- portant for that government that it should be misled ; and even supposing that the individual in question be a solitary exception, there is scarcely a more atrocious crime than that of a foreigner's interfering in the broils of foreigners. We dismiss, therefore, Bakunin as entirely out of court upon all legal and moral grounds, and revert to the important bearing of the question, which is, the evidence which the interest in respect to this case affords of attention being directed to the purposes of Russia in Europe, and her mode of action. But alas it is not one Bakunin that has been, or is, at work — it is thousands.

Another sign of the times is the indignation of the demo- cratic party at the charge. It is, indeed, gratifying to find that they at length perceive who is their enemy. Their letters, which we have published, however, evince a woful condition of ignorance. They defend the accused under two heads — one that of personal repute ; they speak to character, a defence which is almost invariably had recourse to at the Old Bailey : and here, one which is very superfluous, as he is already known to be their associate. But the important defence is this — he could not be a Russian agent, because he was a revolutionist ; he attacked governments which Russia

AND TURKEY. 25 ?

supports ; he made war upon the principles which she incul- cates. Such is precisely what is urged on the other side : he is a Russian because a revolutionist.

It is the pride of England to offer a refuge to the destitute ; it is her duty to stand neuter in those lamentable and fatal dissensions to which the Continent is the prey. We may enter- tain feelings of abhorrence for oppression, and hold it the sacred right of every nation to choose its form of government; but we must solemnly protest, both as British citizens and as men, against any sympathy with those who think that their opinions in reference to the conduct of their own government give them a charter of impunity for every crime committed against foreign states ; and we hold in no less abhorrence a Russian Liberator in a European Insurrection, than a Russian Councillor in a European Cabinet. Our war with our own Cabinet is precisely on those grounds, and we cannot denounce them as traitors to the best interests of their country, without also denouncing the revolutionary clubs, who, by a similar process, and by an equal infatuation, are traitors to the opinions they profess, and to the very interests for which they sacrifice their peace and are ready to spill their blood.

"THE TIMES" AND TURKEY.

September %kth.

The Times, in order to disparage the Ottoman Empire, makes use of the most praiseworthy acts of that Government. In its leader of yesterday the Times informs us that, according to an Imperial ordinance, the evidence of a Christian will in future be held admissible against a Mussulman in a court of law. This enactment, instead of obtaining the praises of the Times, is put forward as a proof of the state of debasement and oppression of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and that for the purpose of backing the pretensions of Russia to share with the Sultan the exercise of sovereignty over twelve millions of Ottoman subjects.

Let us now lay before the public the present condition of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire. With regard to religion, all Christians, and especially those professing the Greek faith, enjoy the most absolute and the most unbounded freedom. The Greek Patriarch exercises, through his clergy,

258 "THE TIMES" AND TURKEY.

over all the populations of Greek faith, all over the Ottoman Empire, the same religious administration and judicial power as the Pope in his own dominions. He constitutes a State in a State ; and there is no country in the civilised and even constitutional world, where religious freedom is more unlimited, more respected than in Turkey. The last difference on the question of the Holy Shrines was not a dispute between the Greek clergy and the Turkish authorities, but a dispute between the Greek clergy and the Latin priests, French subjects established at Jerusalem. The Turkish Government has played in that affair but the part of a con- ciliator. All the odium of this quarrel falls upon the Christians, and all the honour rests with the Mussulman.

"With regard to the municipal administration, the Christians enjoy in Turkey the same franchises as are enjoyed by British communities. They elect the mayors and the municipal councils of their communes at public assemblies held to that effect, without any intervention, either directly or in- directly, from the Government or its agents. The municipal councils, which do not depend on the Government with what regards the administration of the commune, are responsible to those assemblies for their acts, and their constituents have the right to depose them without any intervention on the part of their Government, and to demand their punishment in case of exaction, dilapidation, or other transgressions of their duties. With regard to civil law, the Christians in the Ottoman Empire are treated on a footing of equality with the Mussulman. They enjoy the same rights, they are subject to the same obligations, they pay the same contributions, there exists no exception in favour of the one to the prejudice of the other. The only difference existing between Christian and Mussulman subjects with regard to civil law, is that the Christian male subjects, over fifteen years of age, pay a per- sonal annual contribution, the rich, I2s. ; the middle class, 6*. ; and the lower class, 3*. ; whilst the Mussulmans are exempt from this contribution. But the Christian subjects are exempt from forced military service, to which the Mus- sulmans only are obligatorily subject. The Christian subjects who voluntarily offer their military services are exempt from the payment of the above-mentioned personal contribution ; but the Christian populations have such a repugnance to military service, that, notwithstanding the dispositions of the

"THE TIMES" AND TURKEY. 259

Ottoman Government to that effect, they would prefer paying ten times the contribution to serving in the army. The only difference existing, therefore, between the Christian and the Mussulman subject, in civil law, is entirely to the advantage of the former, and to the detriment of the latter. With re- gard to judicial administration, the Christian subjects, in a lawsuit amongst themselves, are judged by their own national courts of law, composed of the members of their municipal councils, and presided over by their bishops, and their patriarch at Constantinople, are, for every nation, a sort of court of appeal. The law suits between Ottoman and Christian subjects are judged by the Ottoman tribunals, where the Christian holds a position similar in every respect to that of the Mussulman.

As to the evidence which is mentioned by the Times, it must be known that, according to a law, or rather a maxim, in Mussulman jurisprudence, judiciary evidence is not con- firmed by oath, because, according to a prescription of the Koran, a Mussulman must not require an oath in order to say the truth. Therefore, the evidence of a non-Mussulman individual against a Mussulman is not held admissible according to Mussulman jurisconsults, because these latter maintain that a non-Mussulman individual, not being bound by the oath to speak the truth, may, through a feeling of religious antipathy, depose to the detriment of a Mussulman.

The Christians ought not to be surprised, and find fault with the Mussulman jurisconsults for such an interpretation, for according to all Christian legislation, evidence without an oath is invalid, and, in order to be lawfully valid, it must be given on oath, and, decidedly, the Mussulman jurisconsult cannot be expected to place more confidence in the assertion of a Christian than the Christian legislator himself.

Be this as it may be, the Times informs us of the abolition of this law, or maxim of Mussulman jurisprudence, by the Ottoman Government, and that now the evidence of a Christian against a Mussulman is held admissible. Thus the Ottoman Government, which is a Mussulman Govern- ment, has evinced its entire confidence in the good faith of the Christians called to bear evidence, although without an oath, against Mussulmen. Can a Christian Government have more confidence in this respect ? By this new act of the Ottoman Government, there remains not only no civil dis-

260 LORD PALMERSTON.

tinction between the Christian and the Mussulman subject in the Ottoman Empire, but the Christians in Turkey enjoy, in every respect, more freedom, we do not say than is enjoyed in Russia, which is one of the most backward States, but than is enjoyed in several civilised countries of Europe. It is, therefore, absurd for the Times to pretend that the Christian subjects in Turkey require the protection of foreign States, and especially of States whose system it is to oppress their own subjects at home, and are happy to force tears out of suffering humanity.

LORD PALMERSTON.

September 24^.

We said on Wednesday that Lord Palmerston was the man. He was the man when Poland fell. When Hungary fell, he again was the man. He was then Foreign Minister, and, as Foreign Minister of England, held in his hand the power of the world. On England's first disaster — that is to say, when our forces were advanced to that position in Central Asia when their sacrifice was rendered certain — he was again the man. When measures were taken to insure the succession of Denmark to the Czar, again was he the man. Such are the grounds upon which we now say, let him be the man. There is no man on earth has so much to retrieve, and he is not un- equal to the task. Let him but will it, and England is safe. He can " barter lie for lie" with Count Nesselrode ; he can try conclusions with him also. If he is not the man, there is no other, for he stands alone. He knows that Turkey has neither a Poland nor a Siberia ; he knows then the weakness of Russia, and where to smite her : he stands in no dread of the parchment shoals of the Dardanelles : he dares to speak to the Emperor of " honour and character," and, vouching one day, he can confiscate the next. He is labouring under no illusion as to the character of an Aberdeen, the capacity of a Russell, or the honour of a Clarendon ; his vision is afflicted with no haze of political principles ; he knows best the meanness of England's mind and the might of her arm. The man who can overreach his own Sovereign is surely qualified to put down that of Russia.

261

THE EYE OF THE CZAR.

October Zd.

The position of the question, according to the Times of Thursday, has reverted to its original form of " encroachment on the part of the Czar, and resistance on the part of Europe." The first proposition is certainly unquestionable ; as to the second, the Times has not condescended to aid our investi- gation, and our optics, thus unassisted, have failed to discover even a shred of such resistance. It is not a matter of specu- lation, but of fact. If there was resistance, there would be no encroachment. If there is encroachment, there cannot have been resistance. Is there, or is there not, encroachment ? Has that encroachment not been gigantic ? Has it not been effected by the aid of the Powers ? The position of the case is then practically now, what it was in the origin — encroach- ment on the part of the Czar — assistance on the part of Europe.

The Times, in the same article, derides the intelligence and opinions of a contemporary, who considers the passage of the squadron as a practical measure, adopted for the coercion of Turkey and the assistance of Russia ; and, in its flippant denegation, reveals a most important fact. Lord John llussell had stated in the House, that the ambassador was em- powered, under certain contingencies, to call up the vessels. The Times now states that they have been called up, not in consequence of new instructions sent out by its quondam contributor, but according to old ones, which can be no other than those referred to by Lord John Russell. It is, therefore, clear that, at the time he spoke, the Cabinet con- templated insurrection against the Sultan, and insecurity of the Christian populations of the capital, as the necessary con- sequences of the steps they were about to take for their resistance to the encroachments of the Czar. So, nothing more need be said ; and it is no wonder if the Noble Lord, the member for the City of London, did " speak as if the eye of the Czar were upon him."

12

262

REFUSAL BY THE PORTE OF WESTERN SUCCOUR.

October 20*7*.

SIR, — I beg to transmit in a more precise form the intel- ligence which last evening I communicated to the meeting at Finsbury : —

On the 2d of this month Lord Stratford de Redcliffe received instructions from his Government to use every effort to induce the Sultan to sign without variation the Note of the Conference at Vienna ; and, in case of any commotion resulting from that step, to state that his Government would provide means for appeasing it by the presence of its squadron. Reschid Pacha replied, that he would sooner cut off his right hand and fling it into the Bosphorus, and consequently, he must decline the " amicable" offer of assistance ; and it remained but for him to communicate the firm resolution of his Sovereign to rely upon the courage of his people.

It would appear in consequence that the French squadron will take its departure from Besika Bay forYourla, in the Gulf of Smyrna, and that the English squadron will take up its quarters in Porte Olivete, in the Island of Mitylene. The Turkish squadron will sail for the Black Sea.

My correspondent says, that " the people, entertaining the presentiment of disastrous consequences from the presence of those ships, cannot contain its joy at the intelligence of their departure."

The following details may be of interest : — One hundred field-pieces were about to be despatched by sea to Varna. The principal personages have contributed their carnage-horses for the service.

On the 5th the steamboats reached Constantinople with the advanced guard of the army of Mesopotamia, having been despatched ten days before to the coast of Syria to fetch them up.

The Scheriff of Mecca has sent to inform the Sultan that there are 100,000 Arabs at his disposal, who will serve without pay, and ask only to be furnished with provisions.

P.S. You have incorrectly stated in your report of the Finsbury meeting, that I supported one of the resolutions. I

THE ENGLISH CABINET. 263

attended only to protest against any sympathy for Turkey, saving in so far as it was manifested in arresting that fatal course of the English Government to which for a time the Sultan has put a stop.*

WHY DOES THE ENGLISH CABINET PERSEVERE ? October

On the 21st May, the representatives of the four Powers at Constantinople answered an appeal of the Turkish Govern- ment in these terms : — " We are of opinion, that in a question which touches so nearly the liberty of action and sovereignty of his Majesty the Sultan, his Excellency Rescind Pacha is the best judge of the course to be adopted, and they do not consider themselves authorised in present circumstances to give any advice on the subject."

In the discussions with reference to the Vienna Note, Rescind Pacha returned to this declaration, and claimed thereupon liberty of action. The Vienna Note is now ex- plained as having been written under misapprehension of the value of its terms. Russia and Turkey concurred in finding in it the same meaning, and a meaning exactly the reverse of that of the Four Powers. So unparalleled a discomfiture must have disgusted any reasonable being with negotiation, even if that being had not made the declaration of the 21st May.

The efforts to preserve peace have accumulated the forces

* This letter was "published by all the papers. The Times appended a note denying its accuracy. A few days later the editor of the Morning Advertiser inserted the following paragraph . —

" Mu. UKQTJHART AND TURKEY. — So it appears, from an admis- sion in a Ministerial morning contemporary of yesterday, that Mr. Urquhart was substantially right after all, when he stated that he had received intelligence from Constantinople to the effect, that the Sultan had refused to receive the aid of the Western Powers. * * * It was when the Sultan received an assurance from the two Ambassadors that the sole object which the Western Powers had in view in pro- posing the entrance of the fleet into the Dardanelles, was to enable him to resist the aggressions of Russia, that he resolved on calling on them to quit Besika Bay and take up their station in the neigh- bourhood of the Golden Horn."

261 THE USES OF IMPEACHMENT.

of both parties — enabled the one to commit an unparalleled violence, and driven the other to a declaration of war. Such a result must have disgusted any rational being with his own interposition, even if that being had not signed the declara- tion of the 21st May.

Step by step as they have advanced, the pretences for moving have been exploded, namely, inability of Turkey to defend herself. Step by step as they advanced, was the support deemed necessary for a constitutional government, that of opinion, withdrawn : step by step contempt and in- dignation aroused. Now, again, they recommence negotia- tions for preservation of peace. What can the motive be for such persistency ? There is none in the subject matter, none to be found in their position. There is everything against it in the subject matter — everything against it in their position — their ostensible position — as servants of the British Crown, and Ministers of the British people. They must, therefore, occupy another position which is not ostensible. Nothing can explain the perseverance of the British Government, save the ties which unite certain individuals of that Government with the Russian Cabinet.

THE USES OF IMPEACHMENT.

October

" We must guard this precious deposit — rare in its use, but power- ful iu its effects— with a religious vigilance, and never suffer it to be either discredited or antiquated." — BUEKE.

" Ministers would do well to recollect that for any Englishman to betray the cause of Turkey is to betray the Queen/'

Such are the concluding words, in the Morning Herald of Saturday, of an article in which it dwells with truth, force, and point on the consequences of the declaration of war by the Ottoman Empire. It asserts that the penalties of high treason impend over those who, by intention or in fact, com- promise the interests or invalidate the position of the Queen's ally.

This view of the case we conceive it to be of the utmost importance to place before the eyes of men; for, in fact, malversation in external affairs, whether in this or in any

THE USES OF IMPEACHMENT. 205

^

other case, springs solely from the sense of impunity which environs office in consequence of the modern dictum — " The days of impeachment are gone by" — and also of the habit of ruling through a secret club, which is called Constitutional Government.

No man, who will seriously look at the matter, can shut out the apprehension that the events passing in the East may before long touch him, and seriously, at home. It was a small cloud that gathered over Bethlehem : it then rolled westward, and manifested itself in legions of armed men upon the soil of Europe, though at its eastern extremity. Who shall deny another migration, and another transforma- tion— who shall deny that the manifestation on the Danube was riot planned when the alarm was given at Bethlehem — who shall deny that then, too, was planned the future thun- der-storm that is to burst upon the sources of the Danube, no less than upon its aftercourse — upon the sources and course of the Rhine — the sources and course of the Po ? If such a catastrophe does occur to obscure in our time the fate of mankind, to what will it be referable save the admitted irresponsibility of English Ministers ?

Should that storm not burst ; should heart and nerve in some other region of the earth, or chance, deflect the explo- sion— shall we be safe, even because we have been saved ? Shall we not be from day to day exposed to the like infirmity — are we not now in possession of the fact that we are so ?

For ourselves, we had omitted to call attention to the matter, so ably expounded by our contemporary, because of our firm conviction and perfect knowledge of the absence of all restraint from law in the minds of those who rule — of the absence of all capacity of self-preservation in the minds of those who are ruled. There is no fear to restrain the one, no sense to guide the other — a traitorous ministry to an idiot nation. But when we see an organ of public opinion recall- ing at length to a ministry the penalties of law, and appeal- ing to the people to consider the causes from which it suffers, we may indulge in the hope that the circumstances into which we have fallen will not be as a mere wall against which a blind man shall beat his skull.

This is not our only ground of hope. The temper of the nation, as exhibited in the recent public meetings, combines the brightness of a new conception with the gravity of

266 THE USES OF IMPEACHMENT.

an historic event. Everywhere the sense of disgust and in- credulity at the mystery of foreign proceedings has come forth with explosive force. Fortunately no popular agitation is afloat ; fortunately, there is neither Chartist scheme nor Whig perversion ; and, instead of looking to some new cast- ing of the House of Commons — itself the source of England's present ills — the mind of the nation has been directed to the re-invigorating of those functions which had been created by the wisdom of our forefathers for the prevention of malversa- tion, error, caprice, and treason, in the conduct of the gravest affairs of the State. The people, not losing themselves in theory, are turning towards investigation ; they are inquiring what the conditions are upon which Ministers of State are empowered to act ; and they are beginning to perceive that, independently of any consequences resulting from their acts, they are totally destitute of authority for performing them. Their assumption to govern the world is beginning to be un- derstood, not as an usurpation by England over the rights of foreign states, but an usurpation of the Ministers of England, alike of the power of the British Crown and the rights of the British people.

The Emperor of Russia, confident in the long facilities of deception — presuming on the subservient habits of his vicarious commissions called the Cabinets of Europe — has yielded to the temptations of a rapid fruition -. he has attempted to force the seasons, and in a few short months to gather in the harvest of a hundred and fifty patient years. But if success sometimes endangers its own results, so also does endurance, when pressed too far, compromise its own docility. The Continent of Europe he has indeed at his mercv, for there he has placed such hatred between Crown and nation, that no concert is possible — no restoration prac- ticable. The people can see no chance of safety, even from foreign aggression, save in domestic resolution, and that danger leaves no escape for the princes from Eussiau tu- telage.

But there are two points in the world where these con- ditions have not been realized — England and Turkey. In both an uncontaminated mass still constitutes the basis of society, and over both is placed the superintending care of monarchs gifted with authority, discrimination, benevokuce, and courage. Unexpectedly has the martial spirit of the Turks risen under

THE USES OF IMPEACHMENT. 267

insult and pressure ; still more unexpectedly has the sense of the British people been invoked by contumely and shame. The power of Russia in England exists solely over the admi- nistrative class, and the chain upon Turkey exists wholly in its respect for us. The people of England may now co- operate with the people of Turkey. Let it but shake its Cabinet, and the Turks will do the rest.

The question was first between Priests of the Holy Land — not between Turks and Christians, but between Latins and Greeks. Next it was between France and Russia. Then at length between Russia and Turkey — still religious. Finally, it became invasion in Europe. Upon this we were told to discuss the beauty of peace and to abhor the guilt of war. We interpose to preserve peace in this fashion, that our efforts have accumulated four hundred thousand com- batants. We now must persevere, because revolution and convulsion would ."otherwise ensue throughout the globe. That convulsion which is pointed out as a consequence of Turkey defending herself, may it not be also assumed to be the consequence of preventing Turkey from defending herself? Mark the perfect appreciation of your minds by those who have led you step by step through these devious courses ; mark that practised use of infatuation when the very conse- quences can be bound as a handkerchief on your eyes, and inflicted as a lash upon your back to hasten your lagging steps to destruction.

But a final monstrosity reveals itself at Manchester. The pretence of resisting wrong by defending the oppressed is swept away, and an English Minister shrinks not from avow- ing as a maxim the practice of malefactors. " We must pre- vent," says Mr. Gladstone, "the absorption pf power." People of England, weigh these words — people of Turkey, learn, in time, your fate ! People of England, mark the gidf, opened for your honour — people of Turkey, mark the conse- quence of listening to counsels which have never yet been given but to betray, and now no longer are wrapped in mys- tery.

Were housebreakers to enter and take possession, what would be said of the magistrates who should declare from the bench, " We must prevent the absorption of property? "

Nor is this all. The Chancellor of the Exchequer — not one of the four Ministers who took the step of the 13th Sep-

268 THE DEMOCRACY OF ENGLAND

tember — not branded by connection with the Foreign Depart- ment— who had sedulously stood aloof up to the present time — who has been looked up to as a man, not only of head, but of conscience — now seats himself on the bench beside the Czar. He, who in Scotland recently spoke of the feelings of pain and sorrow with which an Englishman must view the actual condition of the Continent, now petulantly exclaims, " We must settle these affairs of the corners and portions of Europe to our satisfaction."

M. Thiers only said, " You have mistaken the interests of Eussia for your own." The English Government, having vouched for the honour and character of Russia, placed its honour and character in the success of her schemes and exe- cution of her will.

Robber states have their honour ; a pirate has his boldness ; the murderer risks his life against his victim and the laws — but what shall be said of a jackal state, that robs for another, and does so with impunity, because it is a lion, proud of the master it affects to reprove — angry at the victim it is cunning to cajole !

THE DEMOCRACY OF ENGLAND AND DIPLOMACY.

October

SIR, — I find the phrase has become current that I am cf rousing the Democracy of England." Permit me, through your columns, to give to it an answer in time, and crush the snake in its egg.

To those who now raise the cry, I answer in the language of Sophocles, " I but find words for your deeds." If these arouse a nation's disgust and abhorrence, I again find the remedy. They would have Revolution — I point to the LAW. They 'would head an excited mob on the untried paths of political convulsion — I would lead an indignant but instructed people back to the old ways of the constitution. They would brand me as a popular innovator — I answer, the 'sycophants of the Czar and the demagogues of Europe are one.

But, Sir, the consequences — be they fierce contention, be

AND DIPLOMACY. 269

they internal convulsion, be they abhorrence of all constituted rule — I am prepared and bound to accept, if inseparable from the exposure of guilt and the denunciation of danger. Let the stone crush those who have dared to raise it, and if in such a time no one man elevated in dignity, adorned by talents, and gifted with genius, be found to enlighten a people in its blindness, and guide its steps in its infatuation, why then they must endure the penalty — why then the " coronetted minions," with their underlings of parliament and city, must bear a brush with the democracy of England before they can be rescued by the mild interposition of the autocracy of the Czar.

Sir, the word Democracy has no terror for me, neither has it any sting, and that because there is no man in this land who has so cherished and so revered the royal preroga- tive. No one has set his face as I have done, or so raised hand and voice, against popular delusions and popular agita- tion. I have gone forth single-handed amongst the towns of England against the Chartist insurrection, and subdued it. In the House, for six years, I have crossed every motion for Reform by an amendment. I have professed myself a Tory in the purest sense of the word — a Tory of the times of Anne.

If, Sir, I am proud in having possessed the confidence of the people, I am happy, also, in having enjoyed the friendship of kings — a confidence and friendship gained neither by the practices of sycophants and demagogues, but by the uttering of not welcome truths, more freely spoken to monarchs than their subjects, because they could not profess ignorance or feel indifference.

I tell you, Sir, or repeat, what I have not ceased to declare since the passage of the Pruth, that the end and object of that step was " revolution in Europe." On the Continent that result is inevitable, because of the hatred and suspicion placed between Crown and People. Here, there may be no such fears for the present; but profound discontent and the degradation of all authority has already ensued, and the germs planted of class antagonism and new theoretic changes. It is therefore essential, before it be too late, to lead the people to look to the Crown, and thereby, perchance, to induce the Crown to rely on the people. This has been my task, and already I may claim to have succeeded. It is thus I would arouse the democracy of England to free itself from

12 §

270 THE DEMOCRACY OF ENGLAND

demagogues and relieve the Crown from sycophants and masters.

I enclose to you an Address emanating from the working classes in one of the districts which I have visited, and which I have this moment received. It justifies every word I have said. I have had no part whatever either in its conception or composition. I should be proud to have been capable of the latter. The matter now no longer depends upon me. The impulse is given, and works its own way. The purpose is now their own, and whoever peruses that Address will be satisfied that, in their breasts, resides the power of execution. Yes ; thanks to the Czar, England may yet be rescued. The act of the Czar has furnished the occasion — the act of the Sultan affords the time.

Alone I have faced the delirium of the Democracy, I now invoke its health ; if it retains none, then is England, beyond all hope, sunk and fallen.

You, Sir, all unconsciously perhaps, have paved the way to both results ; I mean, to the awakening of the people of Eng- land, and the alarming of the confidence of Turkey. You have pointed out to both, in a manner unmistakeable, the treason of the British Cabinet. In that knowledge, safety alone resides.

Extract from the Address of the Operatives of Longton Potteries.

" FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN, — Speaking at the present crisis, we address you in the highest name. That there is now a crisis, who can doubt? The signs thicken on all hands. Men speak in the large dialect of history ; the gossip of the day is withdrawn, and replaced by the discussion of events which concern Europe ; the streets echo to the names of countries and empires ; and men speak as on the night before a battle. It is a time when nations should not depend on Cabinets, but should themselves become deliberative, and instruct their rulers. Then how imperative does it become, when the only judgment which events pass upon our statesmen is, that they are either incapable or criminal ! There is no other alternative. Disgraced in the person of an insulted ally — injured by a truce during which the enemy has fortified himself — suffering from a dcl;,y which lias rendered provisions scarce and startled commerce, what other verdict can be carried ? We

AND DIPLOMACY. 271

hesitate not to say it is a moment critical to the interests of the nation, and that the Ministry has, from whatever cause, shown itself unequal to the exigency. Therefore to you — the working classes — the people of England — lies the ap- peal.

" We make it, not in any party name, not indeed in the name of any political system, but broadly in that of country, and ask you to organize on the common grounds of patriotism. Amid our political agitations, the sentiment of country has well- nigh vanished. We have discussed about forms of govern- ment until the spirit of patriotism is nearly lost. It were almost equal to a new creation, amongst this strife of parties, to evoke the obliterated character of the patriot ; yet it is this we are attempting. Let us become wise. It is not the form of the Government which is the safeguard of the people ; it may be a great convenience, but the shield of the masses is that intelligence which makes it impossible to deceive, and that courage which defies oppression. Understand we this truth, that rulers only misgovern during the abnegation of the people. Nations, like lions, are only mastered in their sleep ; and the sleep of nations is ignorance. Nations are too powerful to be conquered ; they commit suicide. Let us organize this time, not only for an agitation, but that we may educate. Let us do this, and the vote and the ballot, if of any value, will seek us out and beg us to accept them.

"It is necessary that we reconstruct our political method. As yet we fail to influence events. While we are occupied in political agitations, history advances, our words place it under no arrest, and it is written, not in the name of those agita- tions, but under the titles of wars in India, differences with America, the falls of Poland and Hungary, the cession of the Sound to Russia, the stoppage of the Danube, and last, the invasion of Turkey by the Russians. These are the things which will find a place in history, as affecting the progress of nations, not only without our control ; but under the present method they transpire unconsciously, or are known too late. We stand here, in the middle of history, and are unconscious of its progress; knowing less of passing events than they will do who shall live a thousand years hence. This is the evil we would destroy, and the simple formula we promulgate is this, — let us realize the age we live in. A nation which takes an interest in and understands its own affairs, it were

272 THE DEMOCRACY OF ENGLAND, ETC.

impossible to misgovern or deceive. It is not in nature for one man, be lie a king or a body of men, be they a Cabinet, to openly betray a nation with the understanding eyes of the people upon them. We repeat, the only tyrant of nations is ignorance. It is not murder, but suicide they have to fear.

" There are t\vo evils in Europeanp olitics, — a vice in the people which leads them to depend on Cabinets, or at most to rest their salvation on forms of government ; and a crime on the part of the Cabinets by disguising State Affairs in secrecy. The people are carefully educated in ignorance ; all information is skilfully complicated, and made prudently unintelligible, and then published to prevent knowledge. The publication of Blue Books is a happy invention, by which Go- vernments, under the guise of publicity, keep State Affairs secret, and maintain popular ignorance : — the literature of unsubduable quantities, who can read it without discovering it to be a meditated concealment ? This successful artifice has produced its fruit in apathy respecting matters of vital in- terest, and mistaken opinions as to the relative importance of these questions. We are only now surprised by the present crisis into the consideration of our own affairs, and come up to the examination of our interests as awkward and inept as schoolboys. The majority fail to surmount the obstacle of geographical distance, do not understand the connection between things lying far asunder ; they do not see how these events, occurring beyond the verge of our horizon and almost beyond the range of "hearing, can affect them in the safe towns and villages of England ; do not understand how the stoppage of the channel of the Sulina may raise the price of flour in the village shop. Let us endeavour to comprehend the fact, that the price of our provisions is fixed, not here, but in other countries ; that the price of the loaf is not settled by the miller and baker, but in reality by a Congress of Nations. These questions of national relationships which have escaped, and been hidden from the observation of the people, do in reality go far in fixing the amount of our employment, and the prices of provisions. ***** Let us organize to raise diplomacy from an intrigue into a confederation of national interests. Intrigue is that one word which the people should abhor ; the mention of which, should be held an attack upon their liberty, and made punishable in the degree of treason. Nations cannot intrigue, and in permitting

THE SQUADRONS AND THE LOAN. 273

statesmen they place their freedom in danger, as to be able to intrigue, they must have the power to enslave. * * * * * * Intrigue has betrayed many nations; it has made many private fortunes, but it never benefitted a people. By virtue of it, one nation may overreach another, but the people rarely benefit ; a national wrong may be committed in the name of the people, but never for a people. * * * * We need not stop to condemn our Ministers, the irrevocable judgment of events is already passed upon them. They had sacrificed honour to preserve — not peace, but quietness ; and have not even the miserable apology of success. If not criminal, they are, at least, incapable ; and incapacity in politics is not a misfortune — it is a crime. Unable to under- stand either events or the period, they have mistaken the opinion of Manchester for the sentiment of England, and the nineteenth century for the Millennium; and, as might be naturally expected, the present crisis is the result."

THE SQUADRONS AND THE LOAN.

November ^th.

SIR, — I enclose extracts from a private letter from Con- stantinople, of the 20th ultimo, and take the opportunity of stating, that the mere involving of the Turks in debt, and in the chicane of finance, would alone have been worth to Russia a successful campaign. I have already proved that one of the objects in crossing the Pruth was to paralyse the purposed reform of the Customs system which England in- troduced in 1834, and to open the Turkish ports for the free exportation of raw produce.

I beg to state further, that no loan in Turkey is legal ; that " the Turkish Minister who could propose it (I use the words of Akif Effendi, formerly Eeis Eft'endi,) must be both a renegade and a swindler."

If warning is of no avail to a Ministry environed in the web of duplicity, perfidy, and treachery, spread over and around the Porte, it may serve the capitalists of Paris and London to let them know that the Turkish Government has no authority, and can obtain, no authority, for contracting a debt.

If again such warning touch not the sons of Mammon, who may confide in the rise of the market, or the successful

274 THE SQUADRONS AND THE LOAN".

lawlessness of the Porte in fulfilling its obligations, — let it at least be understood in time that a blow is here struck at the constitutional laws, and the moral character of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish people ; and that this too will enter into the mass of guilt to be one day avenged on our Govern- ment, or borne by our people.

" The despatches that reached the British Embassy on the 17th instant were of so cogently important a nature, that Lord Stratford applied to the Sultan for an audience, which was granted on the following day. His Excellency, it is re- ported, informed his Highness, 'that the Forte's determina- tion of declaring war to Russia, in the event of the Emperor's refusal to evacuate the Principalities within the term fixed by the Sultan in his manifesto, had met with the British Govern- ment's entire approbation ; and that in virtue of the Treaty whereby it was pledged to maintain the independence and integrity of the Turkish empire, it had come to the resolution, in conjunction with France, to lend England's assistance to Turkey during the struggle into which Russia's invasion of its territory had forced the Sultan to enter. As it is positive that in consequence of the statements and assurances the Sultan heard from the mouth of England's representative, the Porte received the imperial order for setting tree the pas- sage of the straits of the Dardanelles to the English and French fleets at BesikaBay on the 24-th instant, the inference drawn from this important determination to receive, in the very heart of his capital and centre of his dominions, forces so imposing, is, that a treaty of offensive and defensive alli- ance has previously been concluded between Turkey, Eng- land, and France, which will be published on the day fixed by the Porte for the opening of hostilities. Should this inference prove groundless, infatuation alone can explain the Porte's readiness in placing the Sovereign and his empire at the mercy of Turkey's pretended allies. Were it not that we are living in the age of absurdities, a supposition so monstrous could not be admitted one instant as possible.

" I mentioned in my last that the Porte had come to the determination of raising a loan. Namik Pacha, who has been authorized to negotiate it, leaves this on the 25th for Paris and London. Fifty millions of francs is the amount he is to apply for. It is said, that he is also bearer of the Treaty of. Alliance above mentioned, to be ratified by France and England."

THE " WESTMINSTER REVIEW " ETC. 275

THE "WESTMINSTER REVIEW " AND LORD PALMERSTON.

Derby, November Sfh.

SIR, — Permit me through your columns to notice some points of great national importance in a review in the West- minster of my recent work.

It charges me with " marring my own work with inor- dinate conciseness," and repeatedly comments on my with- holding details and authorities, and avoiding to touch on matters requisite to the elucidation of the subject. That work consists of above 500 closely-printed pages : the diffi- culty was to condense. The charge, the next to universal charge, is that of being too diffuse. I ask if the fault be mine, if a quarter of a century of unexamined arrears, during which England as a Government was incessantly active, and England as a People utterly heedless, be with difficulty com- pressed into 500 pages? The Eeviewer gives me credit for " expounding at length the enormously complicated Danish question." Well, surely a transaction on which the English Government have, by their own statement, employed 6000 folio pages, might reasonably of itself occupy 500.

But this is not all. The Reviewer ignores the fact that this volume is only supplementary ; he ignores my former writings, amounting to nearly 30 volumes, of which a con- siderable portion is exclusively devoted to the elucidation of the State crimes which constitute our recent history; not only does he ignore this mass of uncontroverted testimony, but he adduces my silence in respect to matters which I have exhausted as a designed evasion of points where I felt my charge insupportable !

The case which I have most largely dealt with — the one on which my exposition has produced the greatest effect on the Continent, and the greatest indignation in England, is the Treaty of 1840. Yet, says the Eeviewer, after quoting and supporting my exposure of the perfidy by which Hnngary was prostrated : —

276 THE " WESTMINSTER REVIEW " AN'D

" With such facts before us, we pardon Mr. Urquhart's uncharitableness. For ourselves, we do not (sic} believe Mr. Urquhart's theory : the Syrian war (strangely omitted by him} seems to us to refute it. Whatever the demerits of that war, the Minister who plunged in to it, to the sore displeasure of France, was plainly running all risks to keep Russia out of Turkey."

Strangely omitted by me ! Strangely construed by the Reviewer ! What ! by risking war with France, keep out Russia, and that under a treaty sent from St. Petersburg, which stipulated the occupation of Constantinople by a Russian force ; ruptured Turkey, by establishing the here- ditary succession of a Pasha; and would have plunged England and France in war had I myself not succeeded in alarming the fears of M. Thiers, and so inducing him to send an order to recal the French squadron from the coast of Syria.

Why that matter is excluded is stated. The case had been proved, and no one had so much as attempted a refu- tation. But it is nevertheless introduced into the prefatory chapter, in connexion with its corollary, the Treaty of the Dardanelles of the 13th July, 1841, the source of the present troubles; and these two treaties constituted the gravamen of the charge brought against Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons in the beginning of 1848.

One of my works on this " Syrian War " was the subject of an article in the German Encyclopedia (Conversations Lexicon}, which commences in these terms : —

" It is now 2000 years since the cause pleaded between Demosthenes and ^Eschines has stood undetermined before the Tribunal of History, and judgment has not yet been given as to whether the one was a traitor, or the other a coward. If these be doubtful, this at least is certain — that the Athe- nians were blind, Philip cunning, and that the freedom of Greece did perish."

In the same work, in a review of my writings, my analysis of the " Syrian War" is selected as the most important. It says : —

" But it is his French pamphlet, La Crise ; ou La France decant les Quatre Puissances, that has excited the greatest attention. It was afterwards reprinted in English. The Treaty of July, the overthrow of the French alliance, seemed

LORD PALMERSTON. 277

to justify the worst fears. Mr. Urquhart went with several friends to Paris," &c.

These matters are judicial in the highest sense of the word, and cannot be disposed of as a matter of literary criticism. No one can deal with them without great labour on many fields ; of this truth I offer the following illustra- tion : — The Reviewer says : "When he (Mr. Urquhart) pre- tends to quote, as in p. 71, what might (sic) be to the point, he gives neither date nor reference, so that it is impossible to verify and interpret the quotation." In a note he subjoins the words referred to, put in this form, which I cannot verify, not having the volume at hand — " Lord Palmerston is satisfied with the declarations and conduct of Russia ;" he adds, " but when (sic) was this said, and to what /"

Now, here is an imputation of invention, and in respect to what ? Lord Palmerston's satisfaction with the declara- tions and conduct of Russia ! I have invented that satisfac- tion, which is the history of England for half a century. I am asked, where, and in respect to what, that declaration was made, and this by a man pretending to deal with that history. The where is the House of Commons and the Blue Books, and the wliat is every transaction in which the two countries have been involved. The special phrase which others and myself have repeated fifty times, occurred in the Debate on Mr. Roebuck's motion on the Aft'ghan War, but it was but the repetition of the statement that closed the simulated quarrel about Persia in 1838. Lord Palmerston remained entirely satisfied with Russia's acts and declarations in respect to Central Asia; so, on the 16th July, 1840, he was entirely satisfied in respect to Turkey — emphatically repeated again on the 1st March, 1848 ; and at the last hour of the recent session, when he vouched for the " honour and character of the Emperor." Nor has he a moment wavered ; for his first political speech, on the 29th June, 1829, displayed him, the enemy of Turkey and the ally of Russia, which, of course, he could not be by entire satisfaction with her words and deeds. No less has he derived the same satisfaction from the events in Poland, and, as the Reviewer shows, in Hungary, where he points out that, in the language used to deceive Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and through him the Porte, " he could not speak with authority, except from a Russian source." He was satisfied with the confiscation of

278 THE

the Vixen, and with "Russia's seizure of the mouths of the Danube. \Yhen he has spoken in an opposite sense, as the Reviewer shows, his words have been outside and idle — it is only the internal satisfaction which has been fruitful in results.

The Reviewer, in bringing the most conclusive special charges against Lord Palmerston (Hungary e. g.\ assumes to defend him against my general charges, and the processes adopted are curious — for instance : —

r. Canning, who thus played into the hands of Russia (speaking of the triple Alliance) was, in Mr. Urquhart's judgment, a thoroughly honest man, and a man of genius (!) If the treaty of London had been Lord Palmerston's work, to what motive would he have ascribed it ?"

/ hold Mr. Canning a thoroughly honest man ! Really, reviewers ought to read before they write, and not by impli- cation attribute to the victims of their pens the exact reverse of what they state. I have published in the Portfolio the remarkable despatch of Count Nesselrode, in which he instructs the two ambassadors of Russia then resident in London, in the means by which to circumvent and coerce Mr. Canning into the signature of that treaty, by the threat of exposing to his colleagues how he had been overreached in the previous protocol of St. Petersburg. I have explained his fall by his being a " man of genius," and therefore unable to stand the disgrace of such exposure. I have declared him guilty of treason by that act. I have attributed to it the " broken heart" which brought him soon after to the grave. I have connected with it his death-bed warning to his col- leagues, never to allow Lord Palmerston to enter the Cabinet, conscious as he then was of the power of Russia in the State, and awakened to the character of that man, whose more specific engagements with Princess Lieven had commenced two years before. I am not in the habit of judging the fruit by the tree, but the tree by the fruit.

*"If," says the Reviewer, "Lord Palmerston was a traitor, it would be a terrible fact ; but would be an isolated one in England, and really a smaller calamity than we are actually suffering (sic), our ablest men cannot extricate us from the power of foreign despotism over our ministers, through our domestic faction, until secret diplomacy is renounced." 1 leave to the Reviewer and his readers to settle between them- selves such a farrago.

LORD PALMERSTON. 279

I am indebted to the Reviewer for calling ray attention to a speech of Kossuth at Boston, where I have found a memoir of my own, which I wished to insert in "Russia," but of which I could not find a copy. He says : —

"The great advances made by the Turks in the whole mechanism of administration during the last twenty-five years, were assigned by Kossuth as one cause urging Russia to make her attack before it is too late."

My Memoir, embodied in the speech referred to, was drawn up in the beginning of 1851 for the Turkish Govern- ment, to show to it that it was strong enough to compel Russia to withdraw her army of occupation from the Prin- cipalities, and it was in that respect successful ; .but, by the readiness of the Russians to yield, the Porte was prevented from enacting that regulation of the Principalities, which would have rendered their return impossible. My conclu- sion was, that Turkey was unassailable to Russia by arms, and that consequently she must hasten to bring in the other powers diplomatically to break Turkey down, and then use that army to support the insurrections she was preparing in Turkey and Austria.

Kossuth used it for his own purposes — that of presenting to the Americans the exciting probability of a proximate war, — a contingency excluded by the very terms of the question, and the facts of the case as he assumed them — and rightly assumed them — to be.

The extract I refer to will be found in Kossuth's Speeches, pp. 331-4.*

* I do not complain of the plagiaries but I do of the application. I am too happy to see my materials used by others when legitimately so, but it is painful to the last degree to find materials collected with labour, and conclusions worked out with anxiety, bearing on matters of highest judgment and conduct, plundered piecemeal, mutilated, and then applied to break the connexion of the original plan, or to falsify its object. This has been my sad experience for years ; and if this is the first time that a reference to it has escaped me, it is because I wish, with the authority it gives me, to contradict the perversion. After the perusal of Kossuth's Speeches in America I have no hesitation in saying, that he has served Russia quite as effectually as Gorgey. The descent he there announces on Italy sufficed to bind down Austria in her servitude, and to compel her to join in breaking down Turkey, on the independence and strength of which alone depends Hungary's ultimate recovery.

280

THE TURKS IN ARMS, AND THE TURKS IN DIPLOMACY.

November \Wi.

SIR, — It seems to be my fate to be always against the world. You might expect in opening a letter from me at this moment that I was about to chaunt a peean. It is another warning you will peruse. Some hours ago, and this nation despaired of the strength of Turkey. Xow it despises the arts of Russia. I tell you, Sir, as heretofore I have told you, the Turks are able to deal with the Russians in arms. Now again I tell you, they are unfit to deal with them in diplomacy, and that their present successes, since you have forced hostilities, if followed by a diplomatic adjustment, will bring in a few years the ruin of the empire. There is no safety for Turkey, or Europe, short of a war, now carried to extremity — an extremity, I mean, which shall leave no Russian force in the Black Sea.

Sixty years ago it was said by Hardenburg — " With a Russian naval force in the Black Sea, peace in Europe is an empty word." Of that truth you have now the evidence — you have now further the evidence that you are not men to recover peace, and will never get it except the Turks obtain it for you.

Turkey had accepted, with its own modifications, the Vienna Note. It will now, if negotiations ensue, accept peace on those conditions. Emphatically do I declare those conditions ruinous to Turkey. I send you some extracts of correspondence from Constantinople. There you will see that my alarms are shared by some of the best men of that empire ; but still they are far from going the same lengths. I seize this opportunity of addressing them, and those placed higher still. Your columns penetrate into the Seraglio itself.

The Turks must not now lay down their arms, unless on the following conditions : —

Full compensation for the expenses of the war ; the recog- nition of the independence of Circassia ; the non-restoration of the anterior broken Treaties ; a guarantee against any pretension of any interference, on the ground of religion, with the subjects of the Porte ; and the total exclusion of the

THE TURKS IN ARMS. ETC 281

European Powers from this arrangement. This will involve the payment, by Russia, of £4,000,000 for the expenses of the Porte, and £2,500,000 for indemnity to the Princi- palities— that is to say, the repayment of the sum exacted from the Porte at the last war. The Russian troops may be re- tained in the Principalities as hostages for the payment of the instalments.

If Russia refuses these terms, then the Porte must prose- cute the war, even should reverses occur, and be content with nothing less than the recovery of Bessarabia and the independence of the Crimea.

But to effect this, Turkey requires more than 180,000 men on the Danube. She wants a man at Constantinople. She has got that man. Let her use him. I need not name him. In such times men cannot be concealed. " Conceal me a man," says Confucius, " ay, conceal me a man."

If this be not done, then will the present success of the Turkish arms be a Russian victory; the populations who rushed to defend her frontiers, returning home to misery, will brood over the cowardice and ineptness that niched from them their triumph, and dared not use their strength ; Turkey will be saddled with tooth money ; the Provinces will be seques- trated, their resources ruined, the Turkish financial system confirmed in its suicidal non-exactions ; a reaction will follow throughout every tribe and creed, and Russia having recovered the grain trade, and thereby rescued from dissolution, will remain in the Principalities till the spring, when new events will come to change the face of Europe.

To the English Government the events that have startled the nation have brought no instruction and no remorse ; it will persevere. Believe me, Sir, it is not Lord Clarendon or Lord Aberdeen with whom we have to deal. That were a small matter. It is with Lord Palmerston. He has had no more to learn than I have had ; he knew it all from the beginning. He was under no illusion respecting the weak- ness of Turkey ; he has not so much as concealed his knowledge of her strength. The cards of the British Cabinet are held by a no less desperate than dexterous player ; and do not believe that the events of the Danube, no, nor even the events of the towns of England, are, as yet, such as to induce him to throw up his hand.

Still, we have had our successes. The Turks on the left

282 THE TURKS IX ARMS, ETC.

bank, Orner Pacha at the moment I am writing, perhaps, at Bucharest, and I date to you from Manchester. Yes, Sir, I date to you from the capital of the Principality of every selfishness, of every crotchet, and of every absurdity ; and I tell you that I have found only practical good sense, indig- nation at State treasons, and a resolution to put an end to them. I may not have come in contact indeed with " Peace," Boyards and Financial Pandours, but where are they ? The Muscovite occupation has evacuated the land, and, as far as I can see, the British flag prevails. Sir, we want, indeed, Kussian defeats on the Sereth and the Pruth, but we want, too, the cry of " Impeachment" in the vales of England.

If the leader of the Cabinet does not throw up his hand, that feat appears within the last two days to have been per- formed by his organ. The Times admits that the unexpected results of the first brush of war are sufficient to justify a recasting of Europe. It tells me that I have won the game, and, coming round itself, it does so in its own peculiar and emphatic fashion, and generously accords to an antagonist a merit verging on hyperbole. How am I to take such a declaration —

" sic notus Ulysses ?"

I must interpret it in one of two ways ; either that I am to consider the end achieved, and so rest, or that I am to go on. In the first case, I lose ; in the second the Times wins. In the first, it can re-sume its suspended alliance ; in the second, it takes the lead in this reform, as in the last. This is a great avowal, or a high bode.

But, Sir, my conclusions do not wait on those of the Times. I had to make up my mind that this great reform was prac- ticable before it was attempted. I have no doubt, Sir, that the Times will play therein its part ; but to you belongs the honour of anticipating it while yet in gloom, and aiding it while yet oppressed with uncertainty. We will yet have to thank the Emperor of Russia for the greatest and justest revolution that has occurred in this or any other country — a revolution to recover the laws of England and to restore the law of nations.

283

TERMS OF SETTLEMENT WITH TURKEY.

November

Sm, — The circumstances and time dispense with all apology for resuming the subject of my letter of yesterday.

My present occupations have prevented me from following for some days the discussions of the press ; it was not, there- fore, till after I had despatched my letter last night, that I found that the very danger against which it had been intended as a warning, had been foreshadowed and prepared for by the organs under foreign influence. For instance, the Times of Tuesday last says, " No terms can do more than provide for the evacuation of the Principalities, and the protection of the Porte from Russian interference ; whereas these terms are regarded as procurable at any time in direct pursuance of European requirements." Of course, if nothing more than the evacuation is to be procured, the interference of Russia is procured and insured, and this is to be the aim of European interference. These are procurable at any time ; that is, the Porte can be always brought to accept them. Such is the judgment of Russia — that on which she has based her whole operation.

Simultaneously, another journal, taking another line, falls here into concurrence with the Times, and shadows forth even more. A Congress, it says, is to be held, to take measures so that the " rights and independence of the Porte may not suffer the slif/ktest detriment." On the other hand, the Daily \News points out that the consciousness in the minds of the Turks that they can rely on themselves, presents the most favourable aspect of the case. I repeat it, your Government will persevere — and it may succeed. It will succeed if the miracle is not wrought at home of arousing the nation to a sense of its own shame, and its rulers' guilt.

I said, Sir, in my letter of yesterday, that the actual Home Secretary had never been under the vulgar delusion which his colleagues shared, with their countrymen and all Europeans, respecting the weakness of Turkey. But he was not the only one standing in the light. The Times was equally well in- formed. On the very day that the Russians crossed the Pruth (8th of July), it said that " Russia would consult

284 TERMS OF SETTLEMENT WITH TURKEY.

her interests as little as her honour by forcing onward in face of a people as military and as fanatic as herself, against whom she could do little, save by the co-operation of her allies." I concluded at the time, from that article, that the Pruth had been crossed. Why, then, it now alleges the first partial successes of the Turks, not very accurately known, as the grounds for a total reversal of all previous judgments, does not appear on the face of the matter. The key I have offered in my letter of yesterday will, however, unlock the paradox. It parades these successes. It exhibits itself as wheeled round by them. It is thence to be inferred that the Cabinet is adopting a new line. The public excitement is to be calmed, the suspicions of the Porte subjugated, and the way of negotiation opened afresh.

It may be objected that I attach too much importance to that former statement of the Times, seeing that it deals in daily contradictions ; but, Sir, truth is never fallen on by accident. To set down the words quoted, of the 8th of July, required a perfect and a sure knowledge of the con- dition of Turkey and of the character of Europe — a know- ledge which, besides those engaged with myself, there were then but four Englishmen possessed of, — one of whom was the Home Secretary. The others had certainly no hand in the matter. That paragraph, therefore, must have come directly or indirectly from the Eussian Embassy.

In reference to this settlement so confidently reckoned on by Russia, and which the recent manifesto is intended to push, I must return to the point of damages. Who is to pay ? The one or the other must. Be it observed that Russia has already scouted the idea of evacuation when the suggestion' came from the allies. She, of course, scouts that of reimburs- ing Turkey. If, then, the allies interfere, it must be on the condition of exacting no compensation from Russia, and there- fore of enforcing on the Porte the penalty of Russia's act. I refer to the matter at present exclusively in its practical action on the internal state of Turkey.

If the Porte has to bear the charges of her own armaments, amounting to £4,000,000, then — even without taking into account the heavy losses in the Principalities, far less any lien on them — it is clear that it will have recourse to a loan. I do not say this is a necessary consequence, but that it will happen ; indeed, the decision has been already taken. We

TERMS OF SETTLEMENT WITH TURKEY. 285

are accustomed to loans. There are those amongst us who think debt a prop of public credit, and a stay of international friendship. I must beg of such to look at the matter without reference to pre-conceived opinions.

No Mussulman Government can contract a debt, no more than it can impose a tax. No Mussulman Government can pay interest. Not only has it no authority to do one or the other, but there is no resource in the constitution to supply such an authority. Ukases there do not rule, Royal ordon- nanas do not prevail, nor writs run. No Parliament can vote supplies from the pockets of others, far less impose burdens on generations unborn. Consequently, a loan is an act of infidelity and of usurpation, and converts Turkey into a des- potism and an anarchy.

When the Ottoman Empire, to the physical eye, exhibited every symptom of decomposition, I hesitated not to proclaim its inherent vitality. That that conclusion was the result, not of capricious dogmatism, but of maturely-considered facts, results have proved. The grounds of my confidence were the simplicity and excellence of the financial system, based on a religious and immutable law. With equal confidence I now prognosticate, at the moment that Europe is startled with the evidences of her power and strength, her speedy decay, if this loan be contracted ; that is, if her institutions are upset, her laws violated, the political and religious convictions of her people set at naught, for the introduction of a system of gambling and chicane. What has ruined all the young States of the last quarter of a century — what but British loans ?

This, then, has to be added to the items I set down yester- day in the account standing against Turkey, unless she pro- secutes the war to the reimbursement of its charges. This debt is what Russia looks to imposing, and in which the English Cabinet will serve as broker and attorney.

Let me call attention again — I have done so before — to the despatch of Count Nesselrode to the Archduke Constantine on the results of the last war, and which is in the collection recently published by Prince Czartoryski at Paris. There it will be seen that Russia reckoned on the debt then imposed as insuring to her, in a few years, the absolute possession of the empire. She was then baulked by the efforts made by the Turks to discharge that debt. If to-day the Turks have been corrupted down to the point of entertaining

13

286 TERMS OF SETTLEMENT WITH TURKEY.

the idea of a loan, it is to be referred to the intercourse of their leading men with Europeans, and to the sources of corruption opened by the English treaty of commerce of 1838. This was the fund from which the £90,000 of Keschid Pacha was drawn. Well may Lord Palmerston take credit to him- self for having been " generally successful" in the advice he offered to that Government.

This Augean stable — I mean the peculation and corruption to which the illegal proceeds of the English treaty of com- merce had given rise — was about to be cleaned out. To this point the attention of those in whom rests the hope of Turkey had been directed ; on this it was concentrated. This it was which forced "Russia on the desperate game she is now playing — for desperate it is. She got rid, before it commenced, of the man she had to fear at Constantinople. She will succeed unless the English people stops its Govern- ment. It has no means of doing so, save by the fear of consequences, and that is, by the demand of impeachment.

I would now wish to advert to another point in my Letter of yesterday, having reference to this place, and which I have stated with a conciseness that may lead to misinterpretation.

In speaking of Manchester as the head-quarters of selfish- ness, crotchets, and absurdities, I will be understood to refer to the Reform Bill and the Anti-corn-law agitation — and justly so. My argument was, that Manchester has carried muti- lated and fragmentary plans, and has forced the application of misguided remedies, which are evidences of a power in the State which must be exerted with infinitely greater ease and effect, when the aim is rational, systematic, and beneficial ; but what I want to explain is, the ground on which I hold these two former agitations to have been the reverse — that is, irrational, unsystematic, and noxious.

As to Reform : it was a mistake of the malady. The malady of the State is the irresponsibility of the rulers, based on the usurpation of the House of Commons. The remedy was the weakening of the powers of the House of Commons by the recovery of the strength of the Municipal and con- stituent bodies — and further, the reinvigorating of the law, so that it shoidd neither be in the power of Ministers to per- form unlawful acts, nor to escape the consequences of perform- ing them. This plan did not suit leaders and demagogues. No doubt, had it been proposed to Manchester, the common

TERMS OF SETTLEMENT WITH TURKEY. 287

sense of the people would have recognised the nutritive quality of the food thus offered, and would not have swal- lowed the stone presented to them by quacks and impostors. I need but refer to results. Lord Grey made non-intervention and retrenchment the aim and consequence of " Reform !" Was I not right when I said " stone ?"

As to the repeal of the Corn Laws, the case is still more glaring. In 1838-9, I was myself engaged in proposing the abolition of all import duties, and the concurrent repeal of the Currency Laws. These ideas laid hold of the commercial communities : some may recollect the sudden enthusiasm that arose. I was invited from town to town to discuss this matter. I could give startling evidence of the alarm then entertained by the Government, and the sacrifices it was ready to make to stop the promulgation of these dangerous ideas. But the Government was not alone alarmed. The two secret and malignant powers were so also — the monied interests and the Russian Cabinet ; consequently my path was crossed by the selection of one of the parts of the very scheme, but which, carried alone, vitiated the whole — having merely the effect of increasing the power of the monied interests, and rendering us dependent on Russia for food. A nation will always run after one idea in preference to labouring through a coherent system ; and here every malign influence favoured the one, and opposed the other. Be it recollected that Sir R. Peel only conceded the Corn Law to purchase, in 1819, the Money Law. Sir James Graham has, in a mood of frankness, himself exposed that dark trans- action.

Sir, we are but at the beginning. The nation has got the notion now of what Diplomacy is abroad ; it will presently begin to apprehend its existence at home. Certainly, if ever a nation has been bought and sold, it is the British during the last thirty years — the statesman no less than the artizan — the peerage no less than the mob. At this hour the words of Cowper are scarcely out of date : —

"Patriots, alas ! the few that have been found Where most they flemish' d — upon English ground ; The country's need have scantily supplied, And the last left the scene when Chatham died."

288

THE « TIMES" AND THE MANCHESTER MEETING.

November IWi.

SIR, — I am constrained to beg a portion of your space to deal with some statements contained in the leader of the Times of Saturday.

After saying that so far events in the Principalities had turned out " exactly as Mr. Urquhart stated they would do/* it goes on, — " But is this going to last ?"

The paragraph of which this question is the commence- ment, concludes thus, — " We must retain our opinion that the campaign had better not have been undertaken at all."

Having thus placed the question as if I had proposed, and the Times had condemned, the movement of the Turks, it addresses itself to the meeting at Manchester as follows : —

" On these pertinent questions, however, none of the speakers at the Manchester meeting expressed any decisive views."

Certainly not, according to the report in the Time* news- paper, from the peculiar process which it adopted ; which was, to give the speech of Sir Charles Napier, and to suppress mine, even while heading the article — " Sir Charles Napier and Mr. Urquhart in Manchester."

The Times article of Saturday goes over the very points of that suppressed speech, of which the main feature was the expression of my opinion, that the campaign had better not have been undertaken at all ; further illustrating the snare laid for the Turks, and the instrumentality of the Times itself in that deception.

The object of the Times in suddenly turning round to parade the strength of the Turks, is the same as in its lauda- tory expressions applied to myself.* The strength of Turkey

* " If the Russian Empire, so far from threatening the balance of power, or the liberties of more civilized states — so far from menacing the Turkish Empire, with absorption In its own — is actually to cope with Omer Pasha in theDanubian Principalities, the most difficult and alarming question of modern state politics will have been resolved at once. Mr. Urquhart may then claim such a triumph for political foresight as never before fell to the lot of man ; but such will be the general satisfaction of Europe at the result that nobody — we think we may promise him — will be at all likely to repine at his exclusive credit." — limes, Friday, November llth.

THE a TIMES" AND THE MANCHESTER MEETING. 289

is now to be used as a goad for reluctant members of some Cabinet, in the same manner as in the earlier part of the pro- ceedings the weakness of Turkey was used. Then it was fear for Turkey ; now it is fear <?/ Turkey. An English note is Russia's trump card. What matters, then, the suit in Turkey's hand? A deuce of clubs will cut an ace of dia- monds.

Why has not the Times its reporter at the theatre of war ? — if not, because, first, it knows, or its master knows, pre- cisely what is to be done ; and, secondly, because it is thus free to fabricate such telegraphic despatches as may be re- quired for the occasion — the occasion, I mean in London, not on the Danube, for it is there the world is to be lost and won.

After abandoning the supposititious " series of events" of Sir Charles Napier, which had been contradicted, and which the gallant Admiral had suffered to go by -default, the Times, for the second time, selects for approving comment the stereotyped passage of Sir Charles Napier, now for the third time repeated, respecting the faithlessness of the Porte in not fulfilling its promises to the Christians of Lebanon. It was only in charity to the gallant Admiral that I spared him on that head ; but since the Times has determined to push the matter to extremity, and him into the breach, endurance may have a limit. Sir Charles Napier has expressed his readiness to attend all other meetings of a similar description. Of course, then, he will attend that at Glasgow, on Wednesday next, when I shall be quite prepared to deal with him upon that point as upon the others.

The Times must have many readers gifted with common sense, and possessed of common honesty — at least it is as yet to be hoped so. What must such men think of the processes and purposes of a journal that assumes to comment upon a speech by wholesale, and complete perversion of its sense, and suppresses the speech on which it comments ! And yet I see that there are persons who imagine the Times to be purposeless, and who explain perverse dexterity by blind infatuation. No, Sir ; for him who has the key, the columns of the Times is the cypher of the Russian Cabinet. It was in Ashburnham House that Bucharest was set in flames. Mean- while the people of England are gaping for telegraphic de- spatches, and cramming down their husky throats the stuff daily prepared for them amidst bursts of laughter, to vomit if they can or digest as they may.

290

TURKISH VIEW OF THE PUBLIC MEETINGS IX ENGLAND.

December 10M.

[The subjoined correspondence between Mr. Urquhart and a Turkish dignitary of high rank, and now known as one of the ablest exponents of the feelings and opinions of intelli- gent Mussulmans, has been forwarded to us by the former gentleman for insertion : — ]

" MY DEAR SIR,

I have just read in the Morning Advertiser, for the recep- tion of several impressions of which, I presume, I have to thank your politeness, the reports of the different public meet- ings held in England, on the momentous events of which our country is at this moment the theatre, and in which you have championed our cause with the talent and warmth of feeling which have enforced our love and admiration. The effect which reading these speeches produced upon my heart is beyond my powers of expression, as much as the fit rendering of my grateful thanks is beyond my command of words. I shall, therefore, not endeavour to express my gratitude to you, which you have so long deserved, because you have a full title to the entire gratitude of my whole nation, whose warm feelings towards you have been many times expressed. I am, as you know, a Turk — a true one, neither more nor less : my education as a child of my country has taught me, in common with every Turk, to rely fully, entirely, on the honour and on the friendship of England. I have never, therefore, allowed a misgiving to cross my mind that that honour and that declared amity and alliance could fail, or could betray us in the hour of difficulty. Even the hesitation which has marked the conduct of a portion of the English Cabinet for some time past has never raised a suspicion in me that her feelings for Turkey were unfriendly, or that she was influenced by Russian predilections. It is impossible, I think, for an English Minister to be the friend of the Russians — simply because if he be so, he ceases to be a patriotic Englishman; even as that man is no Turk who loves not England, and, as I believe, no true Englishman can avoid respecting Turkey. I know well that the Russians are adepts in diplomacy, and you are right in saying that we are little skilled in the art.

TURKISH VIEW, ETC. 291

They have taken the highest degrees in this dishonest science, while we are not even students in the school of chicanery and duplicity which has its seat at St. Petersburg, but which, I hope, will ever be ignored at Constantinople. Our trust is therefore in the honesty of England — our distrust, the trea- chery of Russia. We have so often been cheated by that crafty Power, that without suspecting the good faith of our allies, we may well fear lest she should abuse their good faith and unsuspecting sincerity. The Czars of Russia are so eminently cunning, and the meanest lies cost them so little shame. To take them at their own word, they are as gentle and as inoffensive as infants. They have no ambition ; they desire not conquest. As to ambition and desire of territorial aggrandisement, has not the will of Peter the Great positively forbidden them to his successors ? They have only one defect ; it is that they are chivalric almost to a fault. They are so happy, so delightfully in accord with all the people who have the privilege of being subjected to them, that they sincerely wish, whether other nations object or agree, to extend the blessings of their rule over the whole earth. If they make an aggression in Germany, it is simply to secure society j if they make an irruption in the East, it is to defend Christianity. You will search in vain throughout their conduct /or any visible motive of self-interest ; they only desire to save and protect, on the one occasion a brother despot, on another a brother in religion. It is in vain that we tell them, as the Greek Christians here continually do, and proclaim it to the world, that " we are happy under the rule of the Sultan. Our peace, our wealth, our prosperity, are preserved, and increasing daily ; our religion is more free and more respected than it would be in any other country of Europe ; we therefore beg you not to trouble yourselves to release us from dangers thatVe do not feel ; we implore you not to protect us against a tyranny of which we are unconscious, and which only exists in your imaginations and in your own territory." The Russians are conveniently deaf to all this ; they have resolved to protect and save the Christians, whether they desire it or not, and they will protect and save them. Should Europe feel incredulous as to such self-abnegation and generosity, the reason is obvious : Europe is too old and too corrupt to appreciate such lofty and noble sentiments as alone grow in the pure and virgin soil of chivalric Russia. As to

292 TURKISH VIEW OF THE

any doubt of the purity of their intentions, any suspicion of other than a worthy motive in every act of the Czar, that is an intolerable insolence, that none shall repeat in their presence. They instantly cry out that their honour is attacked ; and at the moment they insult and outrage every one, themselves demand satisfaction.

" Oh that England and France, instead of undertaking negotiations in which they will infallibly be made the dupes of Russia, had once and for ever declined diplomatic com- munications with the Czar, and withdrawn their ambassadors from St. Petersburg ! Had they done this, I am convinced that they not only would have been spared the necessity of sending their fleets, — I do not say into the Black Sea, but even to Besika Bay; the Czar would then have been stopped on the threshold, while by entering on negotiations he has been left free to creep on, step by step, to a position in which you cannot desire him to stop, a thing never difficult to do even by an Emperor of Russia — but to retreat, a thing a vast deal more embarrassing, and to which one cannot expect to see him submit with a good grace. Accordingly, it has been an object of search to open up a way for his retreat, and all Europe has set itself up to invent some satisfactory concessions. " Concessions," say these " Con- servators " of Europe, " are the ruin of a sovereign when made to his subjects." Is the danger less when they are made to a foreign power? and can such concessions be reasonably demanded of the Sultan towards the Czar? In England they often apply the term " the Northern Bear " to the Russias ; but the Czars take the double-headed eagle as the symbol of their power. Bear or eagle, they are alike animals of prey ; and when one has such an animal in his neighbourhood, it is only by intimidating him that you pre- vent his attacks. It is not by yielding him a single prey, that may perchance stay his appetite for a day, with no other result than encouraging his return on the morrow, to the full as hungry and more audacious. To make concessions to the Czar would be merely to open the sluices which we pre- tend to be endeavouring to close. It would be neither more nor less than supplying him with increased opportunities and means for troubling anew the peace of the world, whenever caprice might prompt him. In the Czar's hands things change their very natures. What with other Powers would

PUBLIC MEETINGS IN ENGLAND. 293

be read as a treaty of peace, becomes, by his interpretation, an instrument of war ; and words which to others appear altogether light and insignificant are to him such mighty weapons of offence and destructiveness, that he makes the conquest of a phrase an equivalent to the conquest of a pro- vince. In France and England it is often said, that Turkey is a rampart against the barbarism and despotism of Russia on the side of the liberty and civilization of Europe. Yet, nevertheless, in the presence of demands on the part of the Czar, which the. whole world pronounces equivalent to the utter destruction of that rampart, its defenders have spent six months in beseeching him to content himself with making only a few breaches therein, and to limit himself to a partial dismantling here and there ; and even in this they have been repulsed ! Fortunately the Turks, less confiding than the Western nations in the moderation of the Emperor Nicholas, and more reliant on the strength of this rampart than the denizens of Paris and of London, who anticipated its fall before the breath of the mighty Czar, busied themselves unceasingly in strengthening it, in supplying it with troops and with artillery. And so well have their measures been taken, that when all hope of peace vanished and the hour of inevitable hostility came, while they were discussing in London what point on the Danube would be chosen by the Russians for passing the Danube, and how Constantinople could be saved, the Turkish armies, on the contrary, crossed the river, penetrated in all directions into Wallachia, over- throwing all the Russian forces which disputed their passage. Ismail Pacha having crossed the Danube at Widdin, captured at Kalafat, on the opposite bank, nine lieutenants, twenty - two sergeants, fourteen soldiers, two cannon, 142 muskets, nine chests of ammunition, seventeen horses, 300 okes of biscuit, 600 kilos of wheat, and 1500 kilos of barley. At the same period Omer Pacha effected the passage of the river at Turtukai, and had scarcely entered Wallachia, when twenty-seven prisoners, twelve guns, 192 muskets, fourteen chests of ammunition, 95,000 kilos of wheat, and the same quantity of barley, two camp corn-mills, 112 horses, and 12,000 soldiers' coats fell into his hands. It is quite true that up to the present moment there has not been one of those great engagements which decide the result of a cam- paign, and that we have only had mere petty encounters.

13 §

294 TURKISH VIEW OF THE

I admit also that what the Turks have won have only been the usual results of a successful skirmish. But still it must be remembered, that however trifling may have been the advantage gained by our troops, it is an advantage, and that is a good deal, because if there had even been a loss, and a considerable loss, the passage of the river by itself, purchased by that loss, would have been looked on as a great success. The Russians are now on the defensive, and the Turks have assumed the offensive.

" Now is the moment for England to act with us, and I do believe that she will act with us ; for by dint of patience, courage, labour, talent, and zeal, you have at last succeeded in impressing a conviction of the truth upon the English nation. The admirable movement to which you gave the first impulse at Stafford, and which, under your guidance, is now spreading throughout England, cannot remain sterile of results ; it will mark an epoch in the history of England, and in the history of Turkey as well. With that epoch, the remembrance of which we shall ever cherish and hand down to our children, will be united a glorious name — a name honoured and beloved in Turkey as it is in England, and that name will be yours.

" Great have been your efforts, but great also is the success. Thanks to you, the English nation now knows what depend- ence it may place upon the good faith of that power which stifles revolutions on the one hand, and on the other uses its utmost exertions to provoke them ; which calls itself humble when it threatens, patient when it insults, pacific when it moves its armies, and disinterested when it seizes provinces. At present master of the Sulina, and, for a moment also, of the whole left bank of the Danube, the Czar has already com- pletely ruined the commerce of the provinces, though his troops have not occupied them yet for more than a few months. All their export trade to England has been stopped, and the effects of the violence of the Emperor Nicholas having thus made themselves directly felt in London, the invasion of famine in England — and this has been proved at your public meetings — has advanced, step for step, with the inva- sion of the Russians in Turkey. What then would be the consequences if Rumelia, if Constantinople, and with it the islands and the coasts of Asia, should fall into their power ? What, in such an event, would become of the commerce of

PUBLIC MEETINGS IN ENGLAND. 295

Great Britain, and to what distant corner would her flag be driven, seeing that before he had yet crossed the Pruth the Czar refused to permit that flag to fly in Besika Bay, and insolently demanded that the British fleet should withdraw, a3 if the navies of England were accustomed to retreat before a menace.

" The Turks are much less powerful than the English ; but they have not retreated, and will not retreat. Do not imagine that because we have been slow in drawing the sword, that therefore we have even for a moment felt the least weakness or hesitation. If we so long endured the outrage of beholding our provinces invaded by an aggressor — an outrage which made our whole nation, as one man, thrill with indignation — be sure it was not from cowardice, but solely out of consideration for our allies. It being their desire to avoid war, our friendship for them made us also desirous to shun hostilities ; but had we only consulted our own feelings, at the very first moment we should have taken up with our sabre the gauntlet that had been flung down to us, and driven back force by force. Familiarized from childhood with the idea of war — as you know we all are — it cost us more courage, I can assure you, to resign ourselves to negotiation than to accept the challenge to the field. We were all firmly resolved from the outset of the struggle, as we still are, to defend our rights and our honour to the very uttermost, and weak or strong, alone, or sustained by Europe, to perish to the last man rather than consent to hold our lives as a dishonoured nation — the slaves of the Czars. I know not what the future may have in store for us, but this I think I may hope, that, after having convinced the world of her bad faith, of her injustice, and of the hostility of her spirit to liberty, to commerce, and to society itself, which cannot subsist when the rights of nations are trampled under foot, Russia will at last lose the only prestige which remains to her — that of strength.

" This would be an immense gain to Turkey, but it would also be a gain to the world generally, and England ought to contribute her share towards such a result, as she does in- deed towards everything that is for the good of humanity. Her fleet even now rides beside that of France in the waters of Constantinople, and we are led to hope that both will soon advance into the Black Sea ; there is even some talk of land

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forces being sent to co-operate with ours. God grant that this may be so, for if the Western Powers really desire to put an end to the violence, the arrogance, and the insolence of these Emperors of Russia, who, every day, from some whim of despotism, ambition, or vanity, jeopardize the peace of the world, never was a fairer occasion offered them. Turkey, I hope, will make the task lighter for them than they thought, and, as it is, they must have already perceived that in sup- porting her it is not an inanimate corpse they are sustaining.

I remain, Sir, Sec. "Constantinople, Nov. 12th, 1853.

" P.S. — Just as I am closing my letter, I learn that the Russians, to the number of 20,000, have attempted an attack upon some battalions of Omer Pacha's troops. After a fight of four hours they retreated, with enormous loss ; two thou- sand muskets were picked up by our troops after the battle ; our loss was trifling. In Asia, near Batum, our troops have already captured five fortresses."

REPLY TO THE FOREGOING.

SIR,

I have made the use which I apprehend you intended of the letter of the 12th ult., which I had the honour to receive from you. That letter is anonymous — it is written in a strange hand. I will not stop to ask who the writer is, it suffices for me that it bears the indelible stamp of Turkish character. Permit me, then, to answer it through the channel from which you have derived the intelligence with which it deals.

With the knowledge you possess of my past objects, you must be aware that the time was, when I was engaged in a task in your country, apparently as desperate, if not more so, than that which I have now undertaken in my own. This is a reminiscence on which I may now be proud in dwelling, and to which it is useful for me to revert, for it serves to push back the cloud of present hopelessness. Our condition is apathy that springs from confidence ; yours was despair that follows prostration and defeat. Amongst you I was a stranger, with no claim to your confidence, derivable from experience in your land, or consideration in my own. Yet you listened to me — you listened to the strange story I had to tell you of the recondite fountains of

PUBLIC MEETINGS IN ENGLAND. 297

political power concealed under your own unobtrusive social virtues — of the vitality concealed under the mask of theoretic ignorance — of the liberties registered in that code which Europeans had made you to believe inapplicable to facts and conduct — the Koran. Yes, Sir, I had to teach you to be Mussulmans, and to shame you into being Turks ; and indeed my quality of stranger aided my purpose, for the fell spirit of imitation, that mania which unmakes a people, had spread to you ; and from a European, words were oracular which, had they proceeded from a Mufti, would only have been fanatical. But where was the Mufti to utter such words ? — where is in England the judge or jurisconsult to tell the people of England what are the laws of our land, by in- fraction and ignorance of which we have now become a nation of idiots at home and maniacs abroad-? Yes, Sir, you had lost hope, because you had lost sight. You saw, indeed, Russia, which we do not, but you did not see your own religious obligations and constitutional rights. I received the reward of my labours, and the promise and assurance of their future usefulness, a promise now nobly realized, when the then Sheik Islam uttered these words, " Until I knew that stranger I was without hope for my country."

Now, it is solely in consequence of the examination which I was then compelled to enter into of the constitution of Islam, that I have been enabled to read the old constitu- tion of England, and thereby to trace out its actual aber- rations. Little would it have availed to point out to my countrymen Russia's acts or purposes, unless I could point out the remedy. The movement by which you are struck — which appears to you an epoch in the history of England and of Turkey too — is not comprehensible from what appears in the papers. It is a long and laborious process of discussion with individuals which constitutes its essence, and in that discussion, external matters have little part, even as formerly in Turkey ; it rolls exclusively on the fallacies which result from misjudgment of the duty of each man as a citizen.

In taking the decision to direct, in as far as in me lay, the impulse of the public, from sympathy for Turkey, to repro- bation of their own Government, I was conscious that I ran the risk of being misapprehended. Knowing, and deploring, as I do, the infatuation of your Government and nation in respect to the nations of the West, I had to apprehend that

298 TURKISH VIEW OF THE

you might not thank me for this service. I therefore waited with considerable anxiety for the result. The first intimation I received was so soon as an answer could come after the intelligence of the first meeting at Stafford had reached the theatre of war. It came as the response of the people of Wallachia. It was explicit, and complete. It said, " The Turks will gain the victories, and then England will come in with a note." It said, " These meetings are our only hope." That is, the Wallachians confide in your martial prowess, but wholly distrust your political sagacity. They believe you to be a match for Russia, but they hold you to be no match for England. That is, they understand that England and Kussia are one. They also understand that you who have figured in the saloons of Europe are dupes of the vulgar fallacy that England is opposed to Russia.

So far, then, as the Wallachians are concerned, I was re- lieved from anxiety. Your letter, were it the only one, would equally relieve me from anxiety as regards the Turks. You are satisfied with the course I have adopted. Why then not adopt the grounds on which it rests ? We would have nothing to do — I would not be in England now, were you but possessed of the firmness necessary to trust in the strength which you know you possess, and in the weakness which you know afflicts Russia, and so give to the English and French Am- bassadors their passports, if after the acquiescence of their governments in Russia's acts they presumed further to show themselves at the Porte.

When all Europe, with the Turks themselves, believed Turkey at its last gasp, I proclaimed its vitality and rising power. I prognosticated for it a duration which would exceed that of haughty " civilization " and of corrupted " Christendom." When the military power of Turkey was declared futile, I asserted it to be far more than a match for that of Russia. Now that Europe is in amazement at the political cohesion of the Ottoman Empire, and you are exult- ing in your military power, I announce to you the approach- ing fall of your state. You have let in the squadrons of France and England. You yourself complacently dwell on those preparations making at Ramis Chifiick and Daoud Pacha, for the reception of a contingent of their troops (a fact carefully suppressed in our journals). Well, then, you will have forced on you an " armed pacification." I can

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only say, you deserve your fate. The English, you say, are friends to the Turks. Yes ; they are so to-day, but will they not be the first to hail coercion against you, when bitterness will have arisen, insults will have passed, and another Churchill affair will have led to a demand for the expulsion of a patriotic Vizir, and the remaining independ- ence of the country will have scouted the demand? All has been foreseen and provided for. You are doomed — un- less, indeed, at once you place England in the alternative of declaring war against Eussia or withdrawing her squadron. Do you fear thereby to offend England ? A peal of joy would thereupon resound from Land's End to John o' Groats !

Let me not ever be a prophet in vain. If you have found my predictions hitherto realized, aid me for once in frustrating them.

The organ of the Crown Prince of Prussia commends me for awakening the British nation from its "death-like trance." Awakening, indeed ! Do not Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone get equal cheers ? Nay, does not Mr. Cobden elicit applause, and pass resolutions ? England has no power against its Cabinet. No, not a straw can it move, however minded it may be. It is to awaken Turkey from her fatal trance of misplaced confidence that must be to-day the task of whoever wishes to save Europe from blood and barbarism.

If England were indeed with Turkey, never would Eussia have crossed the Pruth. If the Turks trust to any other defence save that of right and their sword, the Russians will be at the Dardanelles. Eussia's strength and Turkey's weakness are ONE — their common reliance on the Powers of the West. You rely on the sympathy of two debased powerless nations — Eussia on her control over two powerful and irresponsible Cabinets. You must save Europe, not confide in it. If it had the will to help you, you ought to reject its aid.

Once before an English squadron was before your capital — then you armed your coast and drove them away. Once an English squadron, with a French and a Eussian one, de- stroyed your navy. Is that little experience for a nation ? Examine and see if on every occasion since 1806 you have not been betrayed by England when you have trusted to her,

300 TURKISH VIEW, ETC.

and if again she has not invariably overreached France when that country desired and attempted to assist you.

Again, look at your — shall I say predecessors ? The facts are now before the world, and it is no longer a mystery that by the sole though secret aid of England, Poland fell, and Hungary fell. How was it that the English Minister had the power to sacrifice them ? Solely by their confidence in England. That confidence is now the gulf yawning for the Ottoman Empire. Heretofore I have said to you, to be safe you must dismiss the English Ambassador. You would not believe me — what harm could one man do ? Xow you have got a squadron ; will that not awaken you ? A Russian naval officer has recently defied, on board a British vessel, in an English port, the laws of the land, and refused obedience to the writ of the Queen. On what service do you think British vessels are sent to the Golden Horn ? British, indeed ! There is nothing not Russian in Europe save Turkey and Sweden.

With admiration for your own and your country's heroism worthy of a better age, with gratitude for your confidence, yet requiring it in a far higher degree, I subscribe myself, &c.

NOTE. — The following letter is from an English resident of Constantinople ; it is of the 28th November : —

" L — 's letter, which I forwarded to you previous to the Anglo-Gallic fleet's admission into the Bosphorus, has fully made you aware of his conviction as to the treacherous in- tentions they would unfold before the eyes of the unsuspect- ing Turks, as soon as they should have secured the position which they deemed essential to the execution of their foul conspiracy. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's speech to the Sultan, on the 22d, tends fully to demonstrate that these forebodings were well founded. It remains now to be seen how far he and his coadjutor, General Baraguay d'Hilliers, may find it practicable to execute their plans. The success the Turks have met with, both in Asia and Europe, having warranted their apprehensions lest the victim might escape ultimately, they have come to the determination to enforce a susoension of hostilities. I understand that Lord Stratford

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de Redcliffe waited again on the Sultan, on the 24th ult., and used the most intemperate language to induce his High- ness to accede to an armistice. How far he has succeeded I am not aware ; but I have every reason to hope that, as long as the Porte continues successful, no remonstrance will induce him to yield to the wishes of these suspicious friends. My trust is on Russia — on her anxiety, so natural, after the ignominy her military credit has experienced in every quarter, to seek an immediate and complete revenge."

(Some former Letters of Mr. Urquhart having been re- printed in the Morning Advertiser, we select the following: — )

CUSTOM-HOUSES AND EMBASSIES.

Mr. Urquhart to tJie President of the Republic of Venice, May, 1848.

SIR, — At a moment when your country's fate depends upon the direction which the Provisional Government shall^ give to the first movements of the State, you may not be indisposed to listen to the suggestions of one who has labo- riously explored on its extensive fields the traces of Venetian enterprise ; who has studied its laws and its system, and used its maxims as a light to detect, and a rule to remedy, modern aberrations.

In the past greatness and wisdom of Venice, I distinguish two remarkable features, causes of the one, and evidences of the other. The first regards commerce — the second, diplo- macy. In both she presents the very contrast to the modern European system. The greatness which she achieved — the ruin by which they are now overwhelmed — would justify a stranger people in eschewing their practice, and in adopting her maxims. How much more then, you who are Venice, and have cast off Austria !

Venice taxed no foreign produce or manufacture. In modern Europe, science consists in that method of raising a revenue.

302 CUSTOM-HOUSES AND EMBASSIES.

Venice made diplomacy the very foundation of her State, and therefore, harsh as she was, she obtained ascendancy over mighty Potentates. In modern Europe, diplomacy is in truth unknown; yet the whisperings of Diplomatists are all- powerful. Secret conclaves rule the world, and the nations neither know why nor how. One cabinet however, like Venice, makes diplomacy a science, and, unlike her, uses it not to maintain herself — balancing the weights of surrounding nations — but by filling the world with discord.

The hollowness of the modern systems now laid bare to the eyes of all men would have been even before the catastrophe apparent had he lived in our days to any Venetian of old. These pretenders to statesmanship, in his wise simplicity, he might have addressed thus: — "Your fundamental error lies in the manner of raising your taxes, you dislocate the very frame-work of society. A community can only be disciplined and united by the burden of supply. Your expenditure, consequently, is enormous, because uncontrolled ; hatred is generated between class and class : war has become normal between nation and nation — the one, disguised under the name of " Government ;" the other, under that of " Peace." No wonder that you should have an oppressive load of military force, with a burthen, super-imposed, of unlimitable debt. No wonder that you have panics in trade, revulsions in credit ; that liberty, as despotism, equally fails in affording you relief; that reason has become to you a chaos of speculation, and the sad reality alone remains for. you of public misery, pauperism, and discontent. These, the novel features of your enlightened times are but the fruits of your innovations in taxation. At the end of 6000 years you have sat down and invented a new plan. You have reaped a harrest of hitherto unknown social disorders. If ever there was a scheme ad- mirably devised to demolish states and to degrade the mind of man, it is that one which centralizes taxation, and which taxes commerce in the process of its operation, and not wealth in its accumulated results."

Sir, such, and not less contemptuous and indignant, would have been the words of a Venetian senator of the great days of Venice, had he lived to address one of the empiricisms, called Governments, lately swept from the face of Europe ; and if I can venture to put myself in his place, in spirit, as

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I am sure I may do in affection for Venice, I would say to you : —

" If Venice be again indeed a Republic, let that Republic again be Venice. As you cannot stand alone, take the lead, and teach the other states of Italy by precept and example, to rebuild the foundations of society by restoring the ancient method of taxation."

To this end, each separate community must itself levy the sum imposed on it, exercising its own judgment as to the method.

This is the door of escape from all your difficulties, and the only one. There are conflicting claims, otherwise inca- pable of conciliation, of a legislative and of a commercial kind. By this plan they are conciliated. Unless you adopt it you fall again into the very track of those over whose fall you now rejoice. Adopting it, you restore vitality to the corporate body in each of its parts — you remake citizens by teaching men to understand, and intrusting them to manage their affairs. By the other course, you re-enter on the scheme of centralization, and will have planted by the lion of St. Mark, not a tree of liberty, but a Upas ; — a centralization more fatal than that of Austria, for hers, at least, had the merit of being foreign.

What I urge is no theory, and no invention ; it is the old foundations of Rome that I point to — it is the Roman law ; it is what gave vigour and power to the system of Mahomet; it is the old, though now obscured, but not entirely lost basis of British freedom. Without it there has never been, in any state or in any system, permanency. Since the opposite maxim has been introduced — wherever it has spread there has been nothing, and thank God there can be nothing, but change, trouble, and convulsion. You may be philanthropic — you may be scientific, — but are not therefore endowed with a charter of impunity to rebel against reason.

From the centre of that France, which in its present acts, even more than its recent prostration, offers to the world a warning against those usurpations which are termed centrali- zation— even from the pen of the man who has been the chief instrument in rescuing France from mere anarchy, and the world from war, have words proceeded, deserving the most anxious consideration of all those who in the several

304 CUSTOM-HOUSES AND EMBASSIES.

states of Europe have been placed in positions of similar trust and responsibility with your own. I quote these words, as being likely, perhaps, to have more weight with you from the truths which they convey being somewhat assimilated with the provincialisms of the age.

" What, above all, consolidated the power of the Romans and their influence over the vanquished nations, was the union of civil power with material strength. He established every- where the municipia — that management of a country's affairs by the country — that fraternal principle of administrative justice of life and local liberty, whose development at a late period was the saviour of civilization in the struggle of com- mercial franchises against feudalism. The Romans fulfilled then a humanising mission, and that is why they surmounted all the obstacles which opposed their progress, and why they continued for so many centuries the first people of the world. They found auxiliaries in all populations, because they were always marching at the head of civilization. Had they only resembled the Spartans, they would not have done more than they.

"Absolute liberty was left to the Communes in the management of their purely local affairs. Those in power are only to be formed by the management of affairs ; the most capable require habit, and the most ignorant soon learn to select those most conversant with their interests. The more we engage in everything useful to a common end, the more attached we become to it, and desire its success and conservation. This share in local administration ought then to be as general as possible, and the freer the decisions, the more the importance is felt. Spain presents a remarkable instance of what may be attained by it.

" "Why was Greece covered, even in the smallest denier, with monuments of every kind ? Why did that small surface produce so many and such great men ? Why did her sons carry their enthusiasm and national pride almost to madness ? Because the smallest hamlet managed its own affairs."

There can be no reality in municipal institutions where they are not the organs for the collection of taxes — that is, where taxation is not direct. That is their purpose, that is their function, that is their work for the state ; in this consists the discipline of themselves. To say, therefore,

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" indirect taxes," is to say, a prostrate nation, and incumbered Government ; to say, "direct taxation" is to say, local living administration, and a central Government powerful in the sense of a court of law for the protection of the people, not for their oppression. On the one side is sense, simplicity, and freedom — on the other, delusion, embarrassment, faction, and servitude. The form of government matters nothing — a Monarchy, an Oligarchy, a Republic, a Democracy, may be each and all good or bad ; under each there may be despotism ; under each there may be freedom. A Sanhedrim or a Divan ; a Llama or a President ; a House of Commons or a Czar — it matters not : that which matters is, that each village shall collect its own tax — shall know why it pays it, and shall have a voice in deciding whether it ought or ought not to be paid. Where this practice prevails, the most despotic forms touch not the life or liberty ; where it does not prevail, the forms of liberty are a people's worst inheritance.

May the new-born liberty of Venice not prove a delusion or a deceit ! It is in your hands, Sir, to make it a truth and a permanency. You have no difficulty to contend with in making it so, save the notions of our times. The diseases of the times are centralization and legislation, and if you have the courage to despise them, Venice will live and prosper.

I now come to my second proposition, which has reference to Foreign relations. Having already so much intruded, I will confine myself to calling your attention to the dangers, as now made manifest in the fall of the Orleans dynasty, of the secret management of the affairs of nations by diplomatic conclaves. As you cannot, as formerly, exercise a controlling influence for your own advantage, is it not prudent, is it not necessary for your safety, to endeavour to put down the extra-national power, which will most certainly be used against you, if once again re-established over you ? I would therefore, with the utmost deference, but with urgency, suggest that you set your face against all permanent embassies and diplomatic missions ; — that you put an end to that class of reciprocal intriguers called diplomatists, and prevent these meshes from being re-knotted around you and Europe. Standing as you now do, an independent and sovereign state, what more can you desire ? If you have within you a truth, you can make

306 CUSTOM-HOUSES AND EMBASSIES.

it be heard and recognised. This is a question in which you stand on precisely the same line as the first states of Europe. Your interest in your self-preservation is not less than that of England or of France, in their own ; and their power to protect themselves is not greater than yours, for the danger proceeds not from superior strength, but from superior dexterity ; if Europe does fall, it will be because of her very strength, turned against herself. It is through diplomacy that she is endangered — being misled, entrapped, and bound in secret. Any state, therefore, that sets an example of putting down permanent embassies, has taken a step in the direction of sense and safety, and has made an intelligent effort for the protection of itself and its compeers.

The suggestions which I have ventured to offer, however extensive in their operation and effects, reduce themselves to two simple, and, I may say, trifling propositions : — The abolition of Customs' Houses and Embassies, which entail as consequences the collection of taxes by municipal bodies and the decision of international wrongs when they arise, by courts of law, and not according to the caprice of a cabinet. On the recognition of these two maxims at this moment, when it is possible to apply them, the fate of Europe depends.

A well-known prophecy of Napoleon, often repeated, little believed, and less understood, has now received its interpre- tation. He placed three powers at work in Europe — the Governments — the Nations — and the Barbarians. He knew the first to be imbecile, the second to be stubborn, and the third to be watchful. His prophecy then meant that he saw the statesmen of Europe arrayed against two antagonists, one below and one without, and his judgment of them was, that they would succeed in conquering the endurance of the one, or in crowning the ambition of the other. Both alter- natives may be however combined, and Europe become both Republican and Cossack.

307

NOTE.

September

« SjRj — I take the liberty of calling your attention to a remarkable falsification perpetrated by the Morning Post. As soon as the amendments of the Porte had become known, that paper described them as " interpretations" of the Vienna note, calculated to make it "clearer" Although this is a palpable falsehood, the amendments altering the sense in the most essential manner, that phrase was taken up by the Morning Chronicle and repeated by the Post, and serves now as foundation for the whole diplomatic super- structure. Obvious facts are superseded by lying words within a fortnight. It is really wonderful how your predic- tions are fulfilled, step by step. Now there is to come the bombardment of Constantinople by the English fleet ! Your article on the question of food has, I perceive from the German papers, made a lasting impression.* The idea that Russia struggles to get the command of the corn market is now quite familiar, and is being inculcated by every rise of prices. It will never be forgotten.

I am, &c.,

"A GERMAN."

MR, URQUHART ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE TURKISH QUESTION.

The following correspondence has taken place between the Secretary of the Association of the Friends of Turkey, in Derby, and Mr. David Urquhart. The letter of the latter gentleman will be read at the present time with the deepest interest : —

" Kedleston, near Derby, Dec. 22, 1853.

" SIR, — We have determined to hold another public meet- ing in Derby, at the earliest convenience, to sympathise and

* See page 70.

308 THE PRESENT STATE OF

congratulate the Turkish nation on their manly and honour- able struggle for the independent rights of the Sultan and his people. It, Sir, was unanimously agreed, at a full meet- ing of the committee last night, that I address you on the subject, believing that you would feel an interest in the same ; at the same time, we thought that you might have something to suggest for the conduct of such meeting, or form a resolution to be adopted at the same, which should be suitable to the present occasion.

" Sir, we have to acknowledge, with many thanks, the receipt of a dozen copies of the ' Progress of Russia,' per rail. These books are making us many friends ; they are of the greatest use to our cause. We are glad to see one or two of the papers showing up the perfidy of the Govern- ment. Alas ! how imbecile have they made our nation by their truckling to the great Bear. We begin to feel disgust towards our so-called great men. What's to become of us Britons — for we feel that our greatness is departing — shall we become a laughing stock for the world ? Tell us Sir, pray do, what's to be done ? 'Tis your duty to instruct us ; for you have opened our eyes and made us feel our wants ; therefore, when you write (an(l we expect that by return of post), send us a good long one that shall stir us up.

" Hoping that you are in the enjoyment of perfect health,

" Believe me truly yours,

" JOSEPH GOOD, Secretary. " To D. Urquhart.

" P.S. — Strange infatuation — the old Whigs here are as cosily confiding in Government as they were last May."

MR. TRQUHART^S ANSWER TO THE ABOVE.

SIR,— I have only received this morning your letter of the 22d, and hasten to reply to it.

Before opening it I had perused a letter from Constan- tinople of the 8th, from which I subjoin an extract, which is the first intelligence of the dissolving process successfully applied to the Porte of that western diplomacy and subser-

OF THE TURKISH QUESTION. 309

viency of which you now apprehend the character and con- sequences. To ine, therefore, your letter w-as a great relief, and almost, I may say, consolation.

You will recollect that I stated to you at Derby, and re- iterated, in the most emphatic manner, that the only chance of safety lay in the possibility of the awakening of the people of England, in the course of this winter, because measures were surely taken to break down the Porte before the spring, when its armies might take with effect the field. Your letter is an assurance that, so far as one town is concerned, the s death-like trance' has been broken; what might not England now be if other towns had had the same opportunity. Most assuredly, hold another meeting ; you can now do so alike by your convictions matured, and by events accumulated. What was inquiry has become knowle'dge ; what was antici- pation has become certainty.

I opened to you also another matter, no less delicate than grave — and that was the position of the Queen. I did not hesitate to foreshadow the clouds gathering over the Royal person and authority, in common with the other royalties of Europe — all equally menaced by the Russian power — all equally depraved by the Russian connection. I pointed out to you the necessity of hastening to exhibit the people of England in such an attitude of trusting loyalty as to en- courage the Queen to act for herself, telling you that unless she did so act, it was upon her that would be brought to bear the penalties of her Ministers' perfidy. The last few days, under the effect of the concerted massacre of Sinope, have brought their anticipations into frightful reality. jSow it is the Queen who is held responsible for acts of Ministers whom the nation has long discharged from responsibility ; and even Tory journals are to be found reminding her of the fate of Royalty on the Continent, and applying to this case the warning Spanish marriages of Louis Philippe.

You ask my advice with respect to resolutions to be passed. These resolutions, to be effectual, must strike at the actual fallacy, which is that of " supporting Turkey." You are now aware that it is not lawful to intermeddle in quarrels that are not our own. We can only use physical means when we have made the quarrel our own — we can do so only by a declaration of war against Russia. Your resolution

14

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should, therefore, be either to declare war against Russia, or to withdraw entirely from the dispute, and so relieve the Turkish capital from the alarming presence of your squadrons.

The case which we have now before us is no less grave than this : cither the Ottoman or the Russian empire will fall. By your interference Turkey is to be prevented from saving Europe ; by your intervention, Turkey, falling herself, will be made the means of convulsing and subjecting Europe.

This is the peculiarity of the position — Turkey is endan- gered by her strength— Europe paralysed by her anxiety to resist Russia. The English Government acts under the fear of the power of Turkey to convulse Europe, and its measures for that end are accepted by the British nation, through its apprehension that Turkey is too weak to defend herself.

Such are the fallacies, perversions, and contradictions, through which treason works its way — these you have to denounce and expose, if you wish to save yourselves. The time is short — events are hastening in the East and at home, new food of political agitation will be soon administered to you to carry your minds away from your fate and their crimes.

I remain, Sec.

Rostrevor, Dec. 28.

EXTRACT REFERRED TO IN THE FOREGOING LETTER.

Constantinople , Dec. 8th.

The Galatz steamboat arrived yesterday, having on board General Prim, as well as a party of English officers, who had left Schumla on hearing from Omer Pasha that orders had arrived from the capital to suspend hostilities till the ensuing- spring.

The seeds of dissension which European diplomacy has with unsparing hand been casting in the- Sultan's Councils have already brought on a complete schism among its mem- bers. The majority of the war party, foreseeing that further opposition on their part to the terms of settlement which the organs of the French and English Cabinets urge upon their acceptation will have no other result than loss of their office. are daily giving way. The Grand Vizier and Mehemet Ali are the sole among the influential men who yet persist in main-

THE TURKISH QUESTION. 311

taining their former position, and openly cry out that Turkey has been most treacherously betrayed by her allies. The complete triumph of the views of the latter has been retarded by the unforeseen catastrophe of the Turkish fleet at Sinope. I look upon this disaster as most providential for Turkey, should it have for result to force upon those of its ministers who were guilty of listening to the suggestions of England and France's representatives as to the sincerity of the pacific intentions embodied in Count Nesselrode's late Circular, the full conviction either of their boundless hallucination, or of their fiendish treachery. Should this event not arouse the indignation of the English and French nations and drive their Governments to declare at once war to Russia — their game is up.

, Printer, Perry's Place, Oxford NTVOI.

0 7 1998

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