J829.J Politics and Prospects of Russia. 601 



already in the strongest degree Russian. We might discover this, even 

 from the tone of the Prussian journals during the Turkish war. Russia 

 was the theme of perpetual panegyric. Her defeats were " victories," 

 and her policy " consummate in abihty and vigour." 



But a tangible temptation is ready to be offered, and it is one that 

 once before won the Prussian heart. Hanover, and the mouths of the 

 Elbe and Ems, would give her a manufacturing and commercial wealth, 

 and Hanover she could have to-morrow. With Austria and Prussia 

 thus at her controul, as a barrier against France, if France too were not 

 drawn into the snare by the easy promise of Egypt ; Russia would have 

 leisure for her operations to secure the supremacy of the Mediterranean, 

 and but one rival to oppose, — England. It is not with the desire to 

 depress the spirits of our country, that we write our decided opinion, 

 that with a cabinet constituted like the present, that supremacy could 

 not be long contested by England. The enormous public sacrifices 

 which must be required in the first instance for a contest, forced upon 

 us by the feebleness, irresolution, and ignorance of such men, would be 

 felt so deeply that the nation must either be relieved by the patching up 

 of a temporary peace, or the cabinet must be flung from their places. 



But this is a consummation to which the Wellington cabinet will not 

 submit, while they can grasp at a quarter's salary. And the temporary 

 peace will be patched up. The cry of the Treasury then will go only 

 a little further than it has now gone. And as we now hear its orators and 

 journals proclaiming that we have nothing to do with the Russian over- 

 throw of Turkey, they will then, with equal truth, scoff at the assertion 

 that we have any thing to do with the Russian proceedings in the Me- 

 diterranean. " What is it, but the seizure of a Turkish island or two, 

 which will be much better off by its change of masters ?" 



If the Ionian Islands are starved or stormed, " what is it but the relief 

 of England from the heavy expense of establishments on a few barren 

 rocks of a distant sea, good for neither commerce nor conquest, and of 

 which we know nothing but by their yearly biUs on the Treasury ?" 

 The pressure of the old taxes, and the threat of new will make this 

 poltroonery popular with the rabble, and the Duke of Wellington and 

 his menials in the cabinet will be able to di-aw another quarter's 

 salary. 



If we are to be told that the overthrow of Turkey was foreseen, and 

 formed a part of the cabinet wisdom, we demand, will the Duke of Wel- 

 lington dare to say this, in the teeth of his own recorded declaration, 

 " that the absolute independence of the Porte was essential to the inde- 

 pendence of Europe.^" Will Lord Aberdeen, also, solemn as he is, dare 

 to say, that his ambassador, ]Mr. Gordon, was not sent with the strongest 

 assurances of English assistance? WiU, in short, any man of this cabinet, 

 cabinet of ciphers as it is, dare to lisp out, that they were not to a man 

 disappointed, puzzled, nay, thunderstruck by the result of the Russian 

 campaign ? — that they were not overwhelmed by the contrast of their own 

 contemptible inactivity with the vivid pi'ogress of the Russian designs ? — 

 of their own perplexed and misty councils with the fierce and resolute 

 will of the Russian cabinet, — and of the alternate boasting and meanness 

 of their own applications through Lord Heyteslnny and Mr. Gordon, — - 

 with the haughty contempt and laughing scorn that characterised every 

 step of the Russian diplomacy, wliile, with the British envoys creeping at 

 its heels, it trod proudly on to the walls of Constantinople ? 



]\LM. New Series.— Voh. VIII. No. 48. 4 H 



