( 19 ) 

 RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



" Nous prendrons d'abord Constantinople, et nous nous Moquerons apres du 

 reste de 1'Europe. BARONG STROGONOFF. 



ANOTHER year has rolled away, the last we fear of that long 

 interval of peace which has prevailed ever since the star of Napoleon 

 sunk upon the " king making field " of Waterloo. At the earliest 

 dawn of ] 834, the aspect of our political horison is marked by all 

 those fiery portents which in the natural world are the harbingers of 

 an approaching hurricane. The Turkish empire is at its last gasp 

 and though, on the score of humanity and morality, its downfall will 

 excite no sympathy, yet its final dissolution at this moment, viewed 

 as a political event, is pregnant with fearful consequences ; for the 

 nations of western Europe has more real danger to apprehend from 

 it than ever they had from that spirit of conquest and fiery energy 

 that marked its meridian height. 



Months ago we proclaimed that, before the Turkish question, 

 every other of our foreign policy sunk into absolute insignificance ; 

 threatening as it does to reconstruct the geography of the East upon 

 a new basis, not only fatal to the vital interests of this country, but to 

 those of every other state in Europe, Russia excepted. In fact, the 

 ambitious designs of the cabinet of St. Petersburg!!, their gigantic 

 views of territorial aggrandizement in the East, have long been the 

 Delenda est Carthago of our foreign policy. And now, if coming 

 events do cast their shadows before them, it would appear from the 

 note of warlike preparation ringing through our arsenals and our 

 dock-yards, that Ministers have at length awoke from their long 

 trance ; and viewing the impending danger in its true colours, and to 

 its full extent, have at last resolved to extend the protecting aegis of 

 England over the prostrate Ottoman. Happy would it have been 

 for this country had this tardy resolution been taken twelve months 

 ago ; for now, to retrieve the errors of our bungling policy it may cost 

 the nation torrents of blood millions of treasure. Exclusively 

 occupied with those great measures of internal reform and social 

 reorganization that have distinguished their administration, our foreign 

 policy has been singularly neglected. Patient endurance has assumed 

 the character of abject pusillanimity ; moderation has been mistaken 

 for downright impuissance, till our remonstrances are treated with 

 undisguised contumely and derision, and our once all-potent political 

 influence has dwindled away to an sbsolute nullity. Such are the 

 results of that pcdx a tout prix system which has rendered us the 

 laughing-stock of all Europe, and entailed upon the nation, at the 

 eleventh hour, the stern necessity of a war ; for even supposing that 

 the efforts of diplomacy may yet adjourn for a time the advent of a 

 collision between this country and Russia, sooner or later come it 

 must ; and if war be inevitable, if the vital interests of the country 

 inevitably call for an appeal to the sword, the longer we defer the 

 moment, the less probable will be our chances of success. We are 



