RUSSIAN INTERVENTION AS TO THE AFFAIRS OF 

 TURKEY. 



EVER since the " untoward event" of Navarino, we have watched, 

 with feverish anxiety, the affairs of the East. Each succeeding year 

 has exhibited to us, on one side, Russia advancing, with crafty 

 stealth or open violence, to the completion of those boundless plans 

 of ambition that threaten the political existence of every power in 

 Europe ; and, on the other, those cabinets, whose interest it is to 

 arrest the progress of the Northern Colossus, looking on with a supine 

 indifference bordering upon infatuation. Metternich, the wily Met- 

 ternich, views in silence the approach of the barbarian hordes upon 

 his master's eastern frontier ; while Great Britain, who lords it over 

 the puny despot Miguel, cowers beneath the rod of the imperial Au- 

 tocrat. But a change, we hope, has come over the spirit of our 

 dream ; the determination of assuming an imposing attitude, wor- 

 thy of the first power in the world, and equal to the critical pos- 

 ture of affairs in the East. Ever since the days of the imperial Ca- 

 therine, the conquest of European Turkey has been the favourite pro- 

 ject of Russian ambition. To attain this end, Russia has, at different 

 periods, encouraged the internal revolutions of the Ottoman Empire ; 

 and has always contemplated, with undisguised satisfaction, the ope- 

 ration of those intestine troubles that have gradually undermined her 

 once formidable power. Now, for the first time, she looks with a 

 jealous eye upon the war between Mehemed Ali, a rebellious subject, 

 and the Sultan Mahmoud, his legitimate master. 



The conduct of Russia will now be found in perfect unison with 

 the anterior principles of her policy. She could not look on as a 

 silent spectator, while Mehemed Ali, instigated by the French rene- 

 gadoes who surround him, seized the throne of the Sultan. Her 

 interest is to preserve the Turkish " statu quo" of 1832, until the mo- 

 ment when she may be in a condition of seizing Constantinople, and ot 

 once more rearing the cross on the towers of St. Sophia. It is solely 

 owing to the intrigues of Russia, that the Ottoman Porte, is reduced 

 to that state of weakness which will incapacitate her henceforward 

 from warding off the mortal stab that, sooner or later, it will be her 

 fate to receive from her northern rival, who allows her to exist, like 

 the victim destined for sacrifice, because the hour of the festival has 

 not yet arrived. For upwards of sixty years, Russian diplomacy has 

 laboured to obtain this result. She will, therefore, use all her bar- 

 barian energy, and her Greek cunning, to defeat the designs of the 

 Egyptian Pacha. 



We shall now offer a few observations upon the means resorted to 

 by the cabinet of St. Petersburg, to weaken the Turkish empire, and 

 to maintain the Sultan on his throne, in order the more effectually to 

 secure it for herself. 



After the conquest of the Krimea,* the ambitious mind of the great 



* The independence of the Krimea was guaranteed upon the faith of solemn 

 treaties ; but the perfidious Catherine, who had instigated her to revolt, vio- 

 lated them, and incorporated this fine province, which now affords such a host 

 of irregulars to the Russian armies, with her empire. 



