338 RUSSIAN INTERVENTION. 



damental laws of the empire have dissipated the religious and here- 

 ditary halo that surrounded his throne, to the chief of Islamism. From 

 what we have advanced, it will be found that the conquest of the 

 Turkish empire would be a mere " promenade militaire" for the Rus- 

 sian Autocrat. In fact, he looks upon it as a certain, though still 

 distant event. The strict alliance that at present subsists between 

 this country and France, will prevent his thinking of it for the pre- 

 sent, and because it will be first necessary to complete the final ex- 

 termination of unhappy Poland; and likewise to repair the immense 

 losses experienced by the Russian armies in the last campaigns, and 

 the enormous expenditure that has exhausted the treasury : losses 

 that must be repaired ere she thinks of the conquest of Turkey. But 

 the good understanding that exists between the cabinets of St. James's 

 and the Tuilleries, she knows will not always last. She, therefore, 

 will adjourn the execution of her ambitious designs, while she finishes 

 Poland on one side, and organizes her fleet and her armies on the 

 other. The Russian policy is accustomed to base its march upon a 

 system, of which the possession of Constantinople is the object. 

 Being no ways embarrassed within, her sole attention is directed to 

 foreign affairs; while the representative governments of Europe, 

 owing to the frequent changes or modifications of their systems, look 

 upon the affairs of foreign countries in a very secondary point of view. 



On the conclusion of the Polish war, Russia, from the state of ex- 

 haustion to which she was reduced by this contest, made up her mind 

 to await some years longer for the favourable moment of seizing 

 Turkey; when suddenly, and contrary to all expectation, Mehemed 

 Ali aspires to the sovereignty of Syria, and raises the standard of re- 

 volt. From that moment she resolved to oppose the Egyptian Pacha : 

 for she justly dreaded the ambition of Ibrahim Pacha, and the talent 

 of the French officers who compose his staff. Thus, before the late 

 decisive battle of Koniah had decided the question, Russia had 

 already declared herself against Mehemed Ali, by the recall of her 

 Consul-General at Alexandria. We now see her offering her inter- 

 vention to the Sultan. The report of the fitting out of a fleet in the 

 Black Sea, and the march of an army of 60,000 Russians to the as- 

 sistance of the Sultan, is generally credited in Western Europe ; and 

 since the ridiculous definition of the system of non-intervention, given 

 by a Minister of Louis Phillipe, interventions have become so much 

 the fashion, that France and England, on their side, eagerly seek to 

 arrest the triumphal march of Ibrahim Pacha. This was just what 

 Russia wanted. That arch intriguant, Pozzo di Borgo, was de- 

 spatched to Vienna and London, to prevent a crusade against Me- 

 hemed Ali, whom he represented to be instigated in his rebellion by 

 the intrigues of France. By this tactic, Russia hoped to induce the 

 other great powers to oppose the progress of Ibrahim Pacha. 



But Russia never thought seriously, in her present exhausted con- 

 dition, of sending a fleet to Constantinople, without the previous per- 

 mission of France and England. Her object was, to induce these 

 two powers to save the Sultan, by offering their intervention and 

 events have shewn that the skill of her diplomacy has not belied it- 

 self on this occasion. 



