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SYRIA ; 



ITS IMPORTANCE, AS A MILITARY POINT D*APPUI AND COMMERCIAL 

 OUTLET, TO GREAT BRITAIN, AND AS A LINE OP OVERLAND COM- 

 MUNICATION WITH INDIA. 



Two great principles at present divide Europe the liberal and the 

 absolute. The former, it is true, stormy at its surface, but pregnant 

 with future stability and prosperity to the nations under its sway ; 

 the latter tranquil to the eye of a superficial observer, but containing 

 within its entrails a thousand hidden causes of disorder and disso- 

 lution. 



These two systems that at present divide the political world find 

 their personification, the first in England and France, the second in 

 the states forming the remnants of the Holy Alliance, of which the 

 haughty Pozzo de Borgo and the wily Metternich are the living 

 organs. It is, impressed with the truth of this fundamental idea, 

 that we attach so great an importance to the late quadruple treaty 

 between England and France and the two kingdoms of the Iberian 

 Peninsula. This great league is an immense step, and, if properly 

 directed, will oppose an imposing barrier to the designs of those 

 powers whose object is an unholy crusade against human freedom. 

 Still we are not insensible to the obstacles that oppose the consolida- 

 tion of this system, and to the train of peculiar circumstances which 

 so favour the development of the views of the absolute powers. The 

 alliance of the former,%ased upon an identity of interests as well as 

 principles, is fraught with the seeds of rivalry and disunion ; while 

 the interests of the latter are so broadly contradistinguished, that, 

 paradoxical as it may appear, the great military powers can at any 

 moment coalesce for the furtherance of their political principles, 

 without compromising their own individual views of territorial ag- 

 grandisement. Thus the attention of Austria is directed to Italy, 

 that of Prussia to her Rhenish provinces and Germany, while the 

 potent policy of Russia turns, as it has done for the last 150 years, 

 towards the East. 



These important considerations are worthy of the deepest attention 

 of our government. The state of utter inanition to which the once for- 

 midable empire of Mahomet has been reduced by the open and covert 

 machinations of Russia, and the ulterior views of that ambitious power, 

 are evident to the merest tyro in politics. The Black Sea is now a 

 Russian lake ; the Thracian Bosphorus a Russian strait; the Turkish 

 divan a Russian chancellerie ; and the final dissolution of the Turk- 

 ish empire in Europe dependant on the mere caprice of the Russian 

 autocrat. 



So rapidly has the tide of political events advanced in the East; 

 such has been the Greek ductility and Scythian energy of the Mus- 

 covite government in pushing forward to a near consummation their 

 long-cherished projects upon Turkey ; and such has been, on the 

 other hand, the blind fatuity of those cabinets whose interests it was 



