1830.] The Year 1830. 125 



had paralyzed Russia ; that the extraordinary tardiness and palpable 

 inefficiency of our efforts at the Russian and Turkish courts, had been 

 occasioned by that overflowing sagacity, which knew that Russia could 

 never break down the vigour of the Turk in arms ; and that British help 

 would be only a showy superfluity in a strife where the victory must so 

 inevitably fall to the Ottoman ! 



Accordingly, nothing was done the field and the seas were left to 

 themselves. But the government papers, and the government reviewers, 

 made up for this pacific resignation, by a double portion of activity. 

 The papers scoffed at the idea that Russia could ever make head again ; 

 and recommended the Turk to give his enemy a merciful opportunity 

 of retiring from the negociation, in terms not too severe for Russia's 

 former feelings of fame. The government reviewers scoffed at the mere 

 idea of a Russian army showing its face in the field against a Turkish 

 standard ; " the rout was indescribably ruinous ; a Moscow retreat on a 

 minor scale ; the complete dismembering of the army !" And Colonel 

 Evans, who had ventured to say that, "notwithstanding the Russian 

 losses by the inclemency of the season, they still had the superiority, 

 still kept possession of the Danube provinces, and still kept possession 

 of every fortress which they had taken ;" was unhesitatingly pronounced 

 a blockhead. This was the language of government : not of the mere 

 writer in a review, but of the Administration, availing itself of an organ 

 of extensive publicity. And it is notorious to those conversant with 

 the opinions of the higher London circles of political life, that, Admi- 

 nistration, military as it was, looked to the passage of the Balkan as an 

 exploit altogether beyond the power of the Russian army. 



But the Balkan was passed, and with an ease which shows how vehe- 

 mently even a Cabinet of quarter-masters-general may blunder in their 

 own matters. And from the summit of the mountains the invaders poured 

 down upon Constantinople, with no more obstruction than one of their 

 own torrents. Where, then, were our fleet, where our troops, where our 

 lazy strength, to drive back the enemy from the feeble barriers of our 

 ally ? Where? The majesty of the state was reposing itself on the cushions 

 of the Treasury, or pheasant shooting about the country. The Turkish 

 empire was conquered. The capital alone was saved. Did the vigour 

 of English alliance effect this? Or was there such a commanding 

 might about the presence of Lord Aberdeen's brother caracoling on a 

 caparisoned horse, with a pelisse on his ambassadorial shoulders, as to 

 startle back the grim warriors of the Caucasus and the Ural ? It would 

 be the broadest burlesque to make the assertion. The Russian emperor 

 stopped because he had gone as far as he desired, because the Ottoman, 

 in Constantinople, would be his best viceroy for the few years which it 

 might suit his policy to reign by deputy ; because the seizure of Con- 

 stantinople was not worth a rush without the possession of the Bos- 

 phorus and Dardanelles, which its seizure then might render liable to an 

 European blockade ; and because, with the possession of those passes, 

 Russia must hourly .grow to a height of commercial opulence, physical 

 force, and military power, that will make Constantinople the conquest 

 of a moment. 



But the boast of the Cabinet is, that our ally was saved by negocia- 

 tion ! And is it come to this ; that to secure a point of the very first 

 importance to the general European system, our only hope is in the 

 expertness of the tongue? That to save the Mediterranean from being 

 turned into a Russian dockyard, and every nation of Europe from being 



