20 UUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



well aware, that among a very numerous class of politicians in this 

 country, it is blindly imagined that a mere demonstration on the 

 part of Great Britain will scare the Russian from his prey and their 

 theory is based upon the popular fallacy that by damming up the 

 only two outlets Russia possesses for her commerce, we can at any 

 time stir up discontent and revolt in every one of her provinces. 

 Never did a nation foster a more fatal delusion than this one to 

 which even the Leviathan of the press only so lately as the last week 

 gave a place in its columns. If this were done with the laudable 

 intention of preventing a panic in the money market, and that 

 consequent rapid decline in all our public securities that would 

 inevitably follow the certainty of an approaching war, it was worthy 

 of that consummate skill and sagacity which so eminently distinguishes 

 the administration of that paper ; but if, on the other hand, it were 

 written with an intimate conviction of the correctness of such a view 

 of the question, it betrays a gross ignorance of the views and feelings 

 of the Russian nation, and of its power and resources, too, that we did 

 not expect to find in a paper that arrogates to itself the title of the 

 " leading journal of Europe." It is by timely foreseeing an impending 

 danger that its consequences are tobeaverted. LetMinisters, therefore, 

 be prepared for the worst; for if they think by a mere demonstration 

 to overawe the cabinet of St. Petersburgh, they may save the nation 

 the expense, and themselves the ridicule, of making it; for as well 

 might our Foreign Secretary attempt to arrest with the palm of his 

 hand the descending waters of Niagara, as to check the onward roll 

 of Russian ambition by the miserable tactique of a mere military 

 demonstration. In advancing this much, we seek not to magnify the 

 power and resources of the Russian empire neither, on the other 

 hand, are we disposed to underrate them : this would be inculcating 

 a fatal error. " Nee Timere, nee Spernere" is a salutary maxim both in 

 war and in politics. 



By carrying into execution the designs of the great Catherine, it 

 must be recollected that her grandson Nicholas will not only consult 

 his own glory, but advance the interests of his people ; he will 

 consummate a policy which has come down recommended to him by 

 every great name that Russia has ever produced. From the White Sea 

 to the Black, from the shores of the Baltic to those of the distant 

 Pacific, there is upon this point but one universal feeling among every 

 class of his subjects. Constantinople to the Russian is the Land of 

 Promise even in perspective ; the conquest of the ancient Byzantium 

 gilds the ambitious visions of the army, gratifies the pride of the 

 noblesse, largely administers to the pious aspirations of the clergy, 

 lightens the chain of the serf, solaces the dreary existence of the 

 Siberian exile while to be buried on the road leading to it robs even 

 the grim tyrant death of its terrors.* 



To propagate such a doctrine is, as we said before, to foster an 

 illusion calculated to inspire an overweening confidence in the nation, 

 and to lull it into a belied security fatal to its best interests. No ! 



* A Roman general officer who died at Adrianople left orders for his body to 

 be buried on the road leading to Constantinople. 



