24 THE ELEVENTH :WAR : CRIMEAN WAR. 



It is to maintain, a nation whose " Koran " says : " There is but 

 ,one law, and that law forbids all communication with infidels.'' 



Such a systeni of Governihent, with such a policy, is nothing but a 

 tyrannical despotism at once sanguinary and lawless. 



. In my opinion it is not the alliance of England, or the presence of 

 foreign arins on Turkish soil, that can secure the " integrity and inde- 

 pendence of the Ottoman Empire;" but only by a wiser Executive 

 Government, a better financial administration of its affairs, and 

 juster laws. 



2. To curb the aggressions of Russia. These are catching words, 

 and they served unhappily to blind the eyes of the English nation 

 thirty years ago. 



The Russians accused by England forsooth ! of being an aggran- 

 dising Power, that from the day of Pultowa in 1817, to the crossing of 

 the Pruth in 1854, the Government of Russia have been incessantly 

 advancing ! But in the meantime has England been idle ? If during 

 the last century, Russia has advanced, Great Britain has in the same 

 period, enlarged the bounds of Her Dominions. 



, Surely England, staggering under the weight of her vast Empire, is 

 not the Nation to preach to Russia a sermon on peace, based on the 

 Eighth Commandment ! 



To resist the aggression of Russia ! You might as well tell Mrs. 

 Partington to keep the Atlantic back with a Mop, or to bid Canute 

 say to the proud waves of the ocean, " Thus far thou shalt go, and no 

 further ! " You cannot dismeniber Russia, nor blot out her name 

 from the Map, nor her history from the records of Europe. 



Russia will always be there, always powerful, always watchful, and 

 lactuated by the same motives of an advancing civilisation. 



But supposing for one moment Russia had become possessed of 

 Constantinople, would not the consequences have been favourable to 

 humanity and civilisation ? 



We may answer with Mr. Cobden, instead of the seraglio of the 

 Sultan, we should have seen the Palace of a Christian Monarch : 

 instead of the harem, the presence of a Christian Empress ; and 

 instead of the chains of the slave, the voices of men and women of 

 exalted birth, and the sound of the footsteps of ambassadors, 

 merchants, and capitalists, from all the Capitals of Europe. 



Can anyone doubt that if the Government of St. Petersburg had been 

 transferred to the shores of the Bosphorus, that a splendid European 

 Capital would soon have sprung up, in the place of those miserable 

 hovels, which now constitute the Capital of Turkey, fiiat noble 



