

578 NOTES ON CABINET AFFAIRS. 



but certain it is, that in the regions of Downing-street alone does any 

 ignorance prevail of what Russia is at present doing in that quarter 

 of the globe. First then, she is at this moment establishing depots 

 and magazines in Bulgaria, along the line of march of her legions to 

 Constantinople. She retains Silistria, by which she commands the 

 line of the Danube. She has established a military route through the 

 principalities, that will enable her rapidly to transport her barbarian 

 hordes to the objective point of her theatre of operations on the 

 Turkish frontier, and which, in her former wars with Turkey, used to 

 cost her a campaign to perform. Her arsenals on the Black Sea are 

 resounding with the din of warlike preparations ; and the Crimea is 

 crowded with troops, all panting for an " en avant" movement on the 

 Turkish capital. The Dardanelles, fortified by her engineers, laugh 

 to scorn the hostile demonstrations of the fleets of England and 

 France. The autocrat has only to give the signal, and the empire of 

 Mahomet will cease to exist. 



Hitherto the policy of the Russian cabinet has been studious 

 to avoid giving umbrage to this country. Sure of arriving at her 

 ends by the common course of events alone, Russia was far too wary 

 to provoke the chances of a struggle in which she knew too well she 

 must be worsted, and thus retard to an indefinite period the conquest 

 of Turkey. 



Here, then, we have the secret of her policy the key of that 

 magnanimous forbearance which so elicited the admiration of my 

 Lord Durham. Let not the people of this country continue to hug 

 the long-cherished fallacy of the disinterested forbearance of Russia ; 

 her resources are likewise increasing, and her energies are devoted 

 to the consolidation of her means. At the late inauguration of the 

 Alexandrine Statue at St. Petersburgh, 100,000 picked troops defiled 

 before the emperor : during the last summer the Russian Baltic 

 squadron consisted of eighteen sail of the line, besides frigates; 

 nine more were getting ready, and in a state of great forwardness. 

 Preparations like these certainly do not betray any want of money. 

 We, at the present moment, have no such fleet. In the present state 

 of our dock-yards it would take us some time to fit out such a 

 squadron. What is the event of a rupture ? A fair wind would, in 

 a very few days, bring down to the mouth of the Thames, or enter- 

 tain the world with a spectacle not often seen in latter times, 

 the blockades of Portsmouth or Plymouth I Circumstances, however, 

 have arisen, which may force the Russian Cabinet to deviate from its 

 Fabian policy. Count Matucewitz, who, while hunting at Melton, 

 remarked with a searching eye the march of affairs in this country, 

 lately wrote to his imperial master, that Ministers would be unable to 

 maintain their ground without a large infusion of more radical 

 elements into their body. This has greatly alarmed the autocrat ; 

 for such a ministerial composition, he feels, would be favourable to 

 a guerre de propagande, the effects of which might ultimately reach 

 Russia itself, where great discontent at present exists among all 

 classes. Nicholas, therefore, is about to proceed to Berlin, to try 

 once more his influence upon his father-in-law, Frederick- William 

 to urge him again to rush into a fierce crusade against the spirit of 



