RUSSIAN INTERVENTION. 339 



Russia alone, was not in a condition to cope with Ibrahim Pacha, 

 during the months January, February, and March, for the following 

 very plain reasons : 



1st. Her fleet in the Black Sea is badly manned its officers are 

 ignorant its sailors unskilful and the navigation of that inland sea, 

 during these three months, extremely dangerous. 



2dly. By land, Russia could not send a considerable force to op- 

 pose Ibrahim, owing to the bad state of the roads, and the difficulty 

 of transporting provisions during the first quarter of the year. 



3dly. Supposing that Ibrahim Pacha had reached Constantinople 

 before the Russians, the Turks of Europe, ready to embrace his 

 cause, would have reinforced his army; and it would have been im- 

 prudent, on the part of Russia, to have commenced a struggle with 

 inferior forces, against a captain intoxicated with success, who, with 

 the assistance of his French staff, has just executed a plan of cam- 

 paign laid down by Napoleon, and has advanced from Acre to Ko- 

 niah, in one uninterrupted career of victory. 



4thly. Supposing, on the other hand, that the Russians had even 

 entered Constantinople before the Egyptian army, their numerical 

 inferiority would, on the approach of Ibrahim, have exposed them to 

 the chance of being massacred by the Constantinopolitans, who cor- 

 dially hate them. 



Russia, we repeat, had no intention of alone hazarding a struggle 

 with Ibraham before the commencement of spring ; nor even of in- 

 terfering against him, without the consent of, France and England. 

 By accepting a truce, Ibrahim Pacha has committed a fault, and 

 Russia laughs in her sleeve at the service which the Egyptian has 

 rendered to that policy, whose unceasing aim is the conquest of Eu- 

 ropean Turkey. 



When the Empress Catherine proposed to the Emperor Joseph 

 the Second the dismemberment of the Turkish empire, the Austrian 

 monarch replied, " Eh ! que diable faire de Constantinople?" This 

 question, which was considered at the time unanswerable, even by 

 the ambitious projector herself, was, a few years ago, thus arro- 

 gantly answered by the Russian Ambassador at the Porte, Count 

 Strogonoff : " Nous la prenderons d'abord, et nous traiterons avec 

 le reste de 1' Europe ensuite." Prophetic words! for if once the 

 Russian eagles soar above the towers of Old Stamboul, the combined 

 forces of all Europe would in vain seek to dislodge them. While we 

 have been protocoling in the west, the east has become the theatre 

 of events pregnant with future consequences to every power in Eu- 

 rope ; and which, only at the eleventh hour, appears to have attracted 

 the attention of our Foreign Secretary. We feel deeply the impor- 

 tant nature of those measures of interior economy and reform, that 

 at this moment absorb the attention both of the nation and the mi- 

 nistry but we would fain hope, that our Government will keep a 

 watchful eye upon the intrigues of Russia, in the East, which, if once 

 realized, would prove a mortal blow to the political and commercial 

 greatness of Great Britain. 



rvofte givftrf.BJ. 



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