France were once embroiled in our American quarrels, Catharine boldly insulted England in the policy and principle of the armed neutrality. Then in 1782,- France and England still at sword's points, she sent an army into the Crimea, to restore a deposed Khan. Prince Potemkin, her minister, felt his way most cautiously. Catharine herself hesitated, and at times almost withdrew. But no power interposed. "The Empress's plan," writes Sir James Harris, the British Minister at St. Petersburg," but let me entreat you to consider this as very confidential intelligence, — is to conquer the whole Crimea for herself. It is impossible that she can sincerely wish to see peace between us and our enemies, since the success of her projects in the East necessarily depends on the house of Bourbon being fully employed with its own concerns."

Fortunately for Catharine, England and the house of Bourbon were thus employed. The state had arisen into manhood, of which John Smith, the Tartar slave, saw the birth; and the first struggle of its manhood so occupied the house of Bourbon and the government of England, that Catharine's projects in the East succeeded. As the Russian court heard on one side accounts of successes in the Crimea, it listened on the other with dread to the news of negotiations at Paris. "The Empress fears peace" (between England and France), writes Sir James Harris, early in 1783, "as it will increase greatly the difficulties attending the execution of her plan, if not render it entirely impracticable."

Catharine was just in time in the Crimea. That she did not attempt more, was only because peace came when it did; for the Emperor of Austria receded from his support of her plans of farther conquest, when peace was certain, "from the apprehension of exposing himself to the united force of the two greatest military powers in Europe." She lost what she had wanted in Turkey itself. But Prince Potemkin had already his orders to annex the Crimea and the Kuban, and M. Bulgakoff his, to present a manifesto to the Porte to show why. The court of France, in view of all this, hurried towards a close the definitive treaty with England; hastened to remonstrate against the annexation of the Crimea ; pointed

out "serious and incalculable consequences." The Empress was offended, but replied that the king of France was too late in his offer of intervention; "for the Crimea and Kuban were already in possession of the Empress." And so to Sir James Harris, when he expressed the hope of England that her warlike advances might come to an end, the ministers declared the impossibility of the Empress's retrograding. "Having taken the title of sovereign of the Crimea, she cannot abandon it."*

It was thus that, unconsciously to America, the appearance of the United States upon the stage of nations was the occasion of the annexation of the Crimea to the Russian empire. And so John Smith's debts were paid. The "serious and incalculable consequences" prophesied by the Bourbon minister are as serious and incalculable as ever.

ART. IX.-1. HANSARD'S Parliamentary Debates. Third Series. Vols. 131, 132.

2. Confidential Correspondence between the Russian and English Governments. Presented to Parliament, March, 1854. 3. Diplomatic Circulars of the European Cabinets in 1854 and 1855.

4. Papers relating to the Negotiations at Vienna on the Eastern Question. Presented to Parliament, May, 1855. 5. Speech of EARL GREY in the House of Lords, May 25, 1855.

THE Queen of England thought it proper, on the 27th of March, 1854, to inform Parliament that the negotiations in which her Majesty, in concert with her allies, had for some time been engaged with the Emperor of all the Russias had terminated, and that she felt bound "to afford active assist

*That Catharine was enabled to seize the Crimea because the Western powers were preoccupied, has always been evident. Lord Malmesbury's letters (Sir James Harris's), are of peculiar interest now, in showing that all parties at the moment were aware that this was her only easy opportunity.

ance to her ally, the Sultan, against unprovoked aggression"; - relying with confidence on the zeal and devotion of Parliament, and on the exertions of her brave and loyal subjects, to support her in her determination to employ the power and resources of the nation "for protecting the dominions of the Sultan against the encroachments of Russia." The Lords and Commons assured Her Majesty of their firm determination to co-operate with her in a "vigorous resistance to the projects of a sovereign whose further aggrandizement would be dangerous to the independence of Europe." Such was the programme, as developed in the Queen's message and the loyal address in answer to it, of a war which terminated a European peace of forty years, and which committed Great Britain to a long and dubious contest with the great Northern power which she had done so much to rescue from barbarism, and with which, trivial interruptions excepted, she had lived in amity since the days of Ivan and Elizabeth, a period of nearly three hundred years. At the same time the Emperor of the French announced the crisis of his Eastern diplomacy, and in the flush and prestige of unbroken fortunes at home tempted his star in a new and a broader field.

The combined resources of the three powers now at war with Russia made the odds against her seem overwhelming. England, assuming the sovereignty over one hundred and fifty millions of the human race, claiming the dominion of the seas, and boasting that her morning drums follow the sun round the earth; France, eager to add the triumphs of another generation to her fourteen centuries of military glory; their united fleets sweeping from the seas at the first breath of war every vestige of an enemy from Archangel to the Circassian coast; Turkey, two thirds of her subjects fierce with fanatic courage, calling from the depths of Asia the untamed hordes that had known no change since the Prophet, to rally to his standard in the final battle of Islam; - against these it appeared but the desperation of madness when, more haughtily even than he had borne himself with a single foe, the Romanoff took up the gauntlet.

We propose to inquire how far the alleged causes of this war are adequate and just, to show how its objects have

successively developed themselves with the progress of events, and how far they are by common consent secured, and to divine from the story of its varied fortunes whether its success has given or is likely to give the right of increased demands, or to impose the duty of greater concessions. In many of its aspects the subject is already exhausted, and the experience of the last two years must have brought such convictions to intelligent minds, as, by exempting from discussion certain propositions which at the outset might have required a process of demonstration, will permit us sensibly to circumscribe our present purpose. But we shall intentionally leave out of sight no incident or argument which can serve, however remotely, to aid us in the impartial judgment we hope to obtain and to establish.

When, in consequence of the refusal of the Ottoman Porte to sign a convention demanded by Prince Menchikoff, which should confirm a right of protection claimed under the treaty of Kainardji, and recognized in every general treaty between Russia and Turkey during three quarters of a century, and in order also to preserve an equilibrium, disturbed, as it was alleged, by the presence of a foreign fleet in Turkish waters, a Russian army crossed the Pruth, the four great neutral powers entered at once upon the task of mediation, and as the result of their labors presented to the Emperor of Russia the first Vienna note. To their surprise, it was unhesitatingly accepted. But the note, if not a blunder, was at least defective. In stipulating that Turkey should remain faithful "to the spirit and the letter of treaties" granting to the Greek Church "equal privileges with other Christian communities," it placed twelve millions of the Sultan's subjects in the same category with a few small bodies of Christians who had been by special firmans exempted from political allegiance to the Porte. When therefore the note was presented to the consideration of the Divan, the error was detected, and the text modified, with respect to equality of rights with other Christians, by the reservation, "being subjects of the Porte." The Emperor in turn refused to recognize the Turkish modifications; Count Nesselrode arguing, with a sort of imperial logic, that, if the modifications were important, the terms

were not those which his master had accepted; if not, that it was not becoming the dignity of Russia to submit to them. This arrogant spirit was not however shown towards the mediating powers, and soon after, at the German Conference at Olmutz, the Emperor expressed his willingness to accept the note fully and freely; not in the sense of the Russian circular, which had actually claimed the interpretation the Divan had pointed out as possible, but as those who framed it might see fit to interpret it in a special clause to be added to the original note. It has been found convenient occasionally to omit all mention of this first concession of the Emperor Nicholas. Properly or not, he had declined what he termed the dictation of the Porte, yet was willing to confide to the European powers the dignity and honor of his empire. But it happened that there was an irresistible pressure behind even a despot's throne. The contest had already excited the fiercest passions of Mohammedanism. The " Old Turk" party and the Asiatic tribes scorned every alternative but war; the "Ulemas" and "Softas" quoted texts from the Koran to prove that the time had come for the sword of Islam once more to strike the heretic; the uncouth and frenzied "Bashi Bazouks" threatened the Seraglio itself; and before the news reached Constantinople that the Emperor had abated his pretensions, war was already declared, and Omer Pacha occupied the line of the Danube with the advanced corps of an army of one hundred and thirty thousand men.

The events of the war, among which was the affair at Sinope, had not upon the whole been well for Turkey, when, in December of the same year, the ambassadors of the four powers were authorized to declare to the Porte, that the Emperor, not regarding the thread of negotiation as broken by the declaration of war or by the transactions which had followed it, desired only to see secured the perfect equality of rights and privileges granted by the Sultan and his ancestors to the Christian communities; and to inform the Turkish court that negotiations would be based upon, (1.) an evacuation of the Principalities by the Russian army,- (2.) a renewal of the treaties,-(3.) a firman confirming the spiritual advantages only of the non-Mussulman subjects of the Porte; and