the Tartars and other Mahometan tribes, in this part of Russia, now of course forming the greater part of the force employed against the Circassians, are reluctant to achieve a victory over them, and that the mountaineers are thus not only able to resist the Russians, but are able to gain frequent victories over the want of zeal of Mahometans in the service of Russia. There is one school of tacticians in Russia, who recommend to the Emperor to abandon or defer the idea of a military advance over the Danube and the Balkan to the conquest of the Ottoman Empire. They say, that European powers will interfere to defeat such an advance, and that even if they are too late, the maritime powers can always render Constantinople an insecure position. For even if fleets be prevented from penetrating the Dardanelles, troops can be landed at a spot westward of the Chersonese and the new capital menaced or molested. They recommend as preferable the invasion of Asia Minor, partly through the isthmus and by Erivan, partly from the Crimea direct to the opposite shore. No European power, they allege, could here intervene or intercept. The scattered tribes and scant population of Asia Minor would make small resistance. The country does not contain a single fortress, and the Turkish metropolis thus cut off from all aid in men or in means from the provinces in Asia, would expire of helplessness and inanition, without the trouble or risk of a combat. Asia Minor, however, would not confer a capital and a crown on the Grand Duke Constantine. Whilst a long, and desultory war with the different tribes, amidst their mountains and fastnesses, would prove a Circassia multiplied by a figure something like a thousand. To render the communication sure between the Crimea and the opposite coast, between Sebastopol and Trebizond, it would be necessary to close the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, and that could only be done by taking possession of Constantinople. As to the land communication between Turkey and eastern Asia by the Caucasus and Armenia, nature has placed two great barriers between Europe and Asia by this route. There is the barrier of lofty mountains, peopled by warlike tribes, and there is the barrier of the steppes, peopled by Nomade and Tartar tribes, quite as little to be depended on. Russia is striving her utmost at this moment to form a series of fixed abodes, agricultural population, and civilized habits, thereby to bridge over the steppes for the purpose of war and trade. Her progress, however, in this task is slow, and the result uncertain. All here is loose, and floating over the whole breadth of the Asiatic continent, and, as Kohl tells us, "a calf born at the foot of the great Chinese wall might eat his way along till he arrived a well-fattened ox on the banks of the Dniester." Having thus explained and expatiated on Russia as a power, upon its imperial family, its court, its cabinet, as also upon its popular tendencies and military renown, let us say something upon the different lights in which leading politicians in England regard Russia, her ambitious projects, and those important territories which are the objects of her ambition. The British ministry is known to contain all kinds and diversities of opinion on this subject; so that the great diversity of views which exist have led to more discussion within the Cabinet than without. In fact silence has been imposed upon parliament, chiefly because it was known that ministers were not agreed, and that debates could not take place in both houses without leading to great discrepancies in ministerial speeches-discrepancies that must necessarily produce a dissolution of the ministry. The premier, Lord Aberdeen, is known to entertain the idea that Louis Philippe and M. Guizot entertained, that Turkey is a body in a state of dissolution to which no more than galvanic life could be given. To enter upon a war to prevent such a natural course of things as the annihilation of Turkey by Russia, would, in Lord Aberdeen's opinion, be madness; madness, first of all, because our interference would not prevent the catastrophe, and secondly, because our doing so would avert Russia from aiding any farther in the preserving the independence of Belgium from France. We should then, in all probability, see Russia in possession of Constantinople, and France in possession of Antwerp, without its being possible to attempt the recovery of either by arms. If, then, a choice is to be made, Lord Aberdeen would prefer the independence of Antwerp, not despairing at the same time of coming to some accord with Russia as to the existence of Constantinople as a free city, or the capital of an independent state. In opposition to Lord Aberdeen in the Cabinet is known to stand Lord Palmerston, who thinks that when wrong is perpetrated and danger threatens, it is better to face it, and not be deterred by fear and contingencies. Fais ce que tu dois, adviens qui pourra, is his lordship's motto. If Russia be strenuously resisted and compelled to retire behind the Pruth, the German powers will take courage to assert their independence, and their concert is quite sufficient to assure the status quo in the west of Europe. By shirking war now, or even the approach to it, it would not be avoided, but rather rendered certain at no distant time. All the other well-known arguments follow for preventing the Russians from ever becoming masters of the keys, either of the Black Sea or the Baltic. The Sound and the Bosphorus must both be kept open. In the first division of the Cabinet on these matters, Lord Clarendon, though a Whig, with Lord Granville and Lord Lansdowne, are said to have coincided with the opinion of Lord Aberdeen, whilst several of those who entered the Cabinet with Lord Aberdeen, such as Mr. Gladstone and the Duke of Newcastle, seemed to think the policy of their chief pusillanimous. As Lord John Russell rallied to Lord Palmerston, the spirited portion of the Cabinet is said to have carried the first resolution for supporting Turkey, and advising her to resist. In subsequent divisions, such as that as to whether the fleet should enter the Dardanelles on learning the passage of the Pruth, on this it is considered that the Aberdeen opinion prevailed. And if this recommendation to forbear was based on what is generally credited, viz. that Austria promised, in case of English and French forbearance, to bring the difference to a termination, then, perhaps, the public will be contented with it and applaud it. Whilst on this point of the question, a very remarkable fact is to be noticed, which is, that the Tory party have universally taken the side of national spirit, and have recommended resistance to Russia. Lord Derby spoke strongly, the veteran Lord Lyndhurst even more strongly, and all the organs of the party have thundered against Nicholas, as the writers of the same party might have done against Napoleon forty years ago. We make no comment whatever upon this circumstance, but merely note it as a remarkable fact. In case of the question of peace or war with Russia being formally brought before Parliament, it would seem that the Derby Tories and the Palmerston Whigs would divide against the Aberdeen Tories and the Manchester Radicals, as strange a division of parties and opinions, as ever could have been expected of a British Parliament in the year 1853. However singular and indicative of a great change in opinion and in the relative positions and tendencies of parties in England, there is another symptom shown by the armed force and by the government of another country, which marks a still greater change. A ship of war, belonging to the United States, is said to have entered the Dardanelles, and obtained permission to accompany the Turkish fleet into the Black Sea. Another captain of the same nation has claimed a noted follower of Kossuth as an American citizen. This man had been seized by the Austrian police at Smyrna. The American threatened to fire into the Austrian, if he attempted to carry the prisoner away. The fact is, our brethren of the United States are English, in despite of themselves, and adopt the English feeling in the affairs of Turkey, with their usual warmth and exaggeration. All we can say is, that it is nobly felt and nobly done of them, and shows that when the Americans do again interfere in the affairs of Europe, which they are evidently most anxious to do, they will decidedly be for the right side, that is, for the side of liberty and humanity. But to return to Russia. Her great, her only claim to advance and to invade is, that she does so in the cause and for the furtherance of civilization. The cross is on her banner, and the subjects of the empire she attacks welcomes it not as converts, but as ancient and long-oppressed votaries. But such pretexts are not true. The Christian provinces into which the Russians now march are already independent. They have their native princes, councils, armies, taxes, professions. Servia has in her present organization, a great many of the elements of civilization, which its occupation by either Russia or Austria would stifle. these powers, instead of progressing in civilization of late years, have, on the contrary, retrograded. And they have really no one benefit to confer. The Bulgarians, though they pay tribute to the Porte, are not serfs. The ills they complain of under the régime of Turkey might be easily remedied. But decidedly worse, because irrevocable ills would follow their subjugation to Russia. Both A Russian of the lowest peasant-class is, in many respects, a slave. If he gets permission to quit his country abode for a town, his time and his gains still belong to his master. There is thus a strong line of demarcation drawn between the peasant and the townsman. Whilst the townsmen amongst themselves are equally fettered by the existence of guilds and restrictive laws, a serf or peasant cannot be a priest, cannot receive education, cannot rise in life. Every impediment in short, to that greatest of all impulses, viz. the facility for one of the lower classes to push amongst the higher, is forbidden in Russia. Every man, not merely politically, but socially and industrially, has a straitwaistcoat on. To force such a system upon the Serbs or the Roumans, would be not emancipating, but degrading them. The strongest case, however, is that of the clergy. It is in the name and in the behalf of the Patriarch and the Greek clergy, that Russia has advanced her present pretensions. The effect of an invasion or conquest of Turkey by Russia would be to assimilate the Greek clergy to the Russian. Now, at present the Greek clergy is free, it is governed by a synod, which elects a Patriarch, and with the Patriarch appoints the clergy, and Christian church property is reserved to the church by the Sultan's decrees. The Church and Churchmen are in a very different position in Russia. The arbitrary act of Peter confiscated the greater part of the Church property to the state, and subjected the synod to a civil officer, called a general procurator, named by the Emperor. The Russian Patriarch is nothing. The Czar is the real head of the national Church, and her present procurator, General Protassof, rules the synod as much in ecclesiastical dogmas as in appointments and fiscal matters. When the Emperor and Protassof insisted on promoting Saint Stanislaus to be a saint of the Greek Church, the Greek upper clergy remonstrated, and declared that they knew not the saint. Protassof replied, that Stanislaus was a Polish saint, highly esteemed in Poland, and that as Poland and Russia were to be united, the first Polish saint should be received as a Greek one. The Patriarch replied that this might be good policy, but it was neither orthodoxy nor sound tradition. And Stanislaus was, we fear, a Roman Catholic saint, which rendered him odious in the eyes of the Greeks. Protassof, however, carried his saint. Another point of imperial policy towards the Russian Church has been to restrict the education of the clergy. The clergy of the Greek Church, when young, after first undergoing a primary education, separate, some to enter the universities of the higher and monastic clergy, some to follow the lower schools, where they fit themselves to become popes or curates. The latter may marry, and their education has been always limited. But the higher and monastic clergy had ever a high range of education, and some of the monasteries were seats of learning. The jealousy of the Czars, pursuing the narrow policy of Peter, has stopped all this. Any high or troublesome amount of learning is denied them. What then, it may be asked, have the Greek clergy of Turkey to gain by being assimilated to that of Russia, and placed under the same yoke? The monks of Mount Athos are ignorant, because they are poor, but no law and no tyrant prevents them making use of their libraries if they please to do so. The Greek Church has the elements of much that is politically valuable. It would work admirably with free and constitutional government. But if the Greek Church should be passed through the iron rollers of the Russian state machine, it loses every quality of an inde pendent, enlightened, and civilizing church. These reasons, and a great many more, relative to the different classes of a population, would make it a matter of great regret, if the Greeks of Turkey were not allowed to emancipate themselves, and to form an independent state, and church and empire, apart from Russia. The yoke of Turkey is now so light, and so easily humanized, if not broken, that there is really no need of two hundred thousand fiery Russians to effect it. Diplomacy may ordain all the reforms and all the emancipation desirable. Let us hope that it will undertake the task courageously, and that the Russians, who have yet much to do to civilize their own empire, as indeed Count Nesselrode admits, will confine themselves therein, and leave the Greeks and Sclavons, of more southern regions, to pursue a more free and more liberal course, without being on that account less good Christians or less orderly and industrious men. CHARAD E. WHEN my suit I so tenderly pressed, Do I game, do I drink, or give way In thought, word, or deed that you know, I'm my whole, I confess in despair, M. A. B. |