1831.] [ 243 ] 



EUROPE, AND THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 



THE Continental kingdoms exhibit at this moment the most extra- 

 ordinary problem that ever perplexed the politician. They are all 

 arming yet all protesting the most anxious desire of peace ! all 

 intriguing for alliances, and the other diplomatic means of commencing 

 war in the most formidable state of preparation yet all disclaiming any 

 compact that can imply either the fear of war or the wish for war ! and 

 all talking in the securest style of the cause of kings and established 

 sovereignties, while disaffection is in their streets, uncertainty in their 

 councils, and the grand terror of every throne is the fear of its own 

 people ! 



It must be expected that a vast variety of contradictory reports should 

 float about the Continent in the present crude state of those great trans- 

 actions ; and we accordingly have to encounter every extravagance that 

 can be invented by the genius of the bureau., and propagated by the 

 genius of the coffee-house. But something of higher reliance is given 

 to the rumour that Austria, Russia, and Prussia are about to form a 

 confederacy for the suppression of revolutionary principles in other 

 words, for the suppression of the progress of France in her almost 

 openly avowed projects of aggrandisement. This involves an anxious 

 question with ourselves. Laying aside all conjecture, we have the fact 

 that France is raising an immense army ; and for what purpose, if not 

 for aggression in some quarter ? The raising of her National Guard 

 had already secured her from invasion ; and there can be no doubt that, 

 in the present state of Europe, any unprovoked attempt at the invasion 

 of France would have produced an immediate and intimate connection 

 with England, which must have settled the war at once ; for whatever 

 our old hostility to France might have been, it could not be for the 

 interest of England to see her now broken down, and Russia made still 

 more powerful in Europe than she has so unwisely been suffered to 

 become. The direct results of a successful war by the combined powers 

 against France, would be to make Russia, in every sense of the word, 

 the leading power of Europe, with Austria and Prussia as her vassals ; 

 and this supreme influence of Russia would be inevitably so injurious to 

 England, that she must, for her common security, make every effort to 

 resist the growth of this ambitious power. There is scarcely a point of 

 our foreign empire on which Russia might not do us more mischief than 

 any other European government. In India, we are singularly open to 

 attack ; and even the slightest impression that might be made by a 

 Russian army would be productive of so enormous an expense of money, 

 and perhaps of life, that it would be the first duty of a ministry to strike 

 any blow by which her Indian march might be paralyzed. Even in the 

 rear of Canada, the Russian settlements are encroaching to an inordinate 

 extent ; and, however we may be inclined to disregard a territory so 

 remote, yet it rises into importance when we look to its influence ori 

 our Colonies in the Pacific. A Russian naval force from the north-east 

 of Asia, or north-west of America, would be within a few weeks' sail 

 of our settlements in New South Wales, and the various positions of 

 our commerce among the islands ; while it would take as many months 

 for an English expedition to reach them for their defence. 



But the truth is, that a commercial people has its territory near to 

 every other that borders the sea. The waters are its territory ; and a 



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