RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND BULGARIA. 7 1 



of her subjects in the Province of Oude ? The Chiefs of the revolt 

 fastened, living, to the mouths of the cannon and blown into the air, 

 not only as a terrible retribution, but to strike terror throughout the 

 Empire ! 



What, too, shall we say of Russia and of the Government which sways 

 the destiny of the Empire? Europe has not forgotten, nor forgiven, the 

 wicked dismemberment of Poland, nor the appalling massacres which 

 followed, and the crushing for ever of the liberties once breathed by 

 that heroic and patriotic people. We might go from Poland to the 

 Caucasus, from the Caucasus to Central Asia, and array a terrible 

 catalogue against Russia of cruel massacres and writhing oppression 

 inflicted by the conqueror on the conquered. But enough, for it is 

 aidark chapter in the history, and a foul blot on the escutcheon, of 

 the Romanoffs. 



By such precedents and lights as history offers, we ask the question 

 whether England, whether Russia herself, whether any of the Great 

 Powers in Europe, are dignified examples to be displayed before the 

 Government of Turkey, which we are so often informed is both 

 barbarous and infidel ? Barbarous ! Give the Turk then the lessons 

 and the example of a nobler civilisation. Infidel ! Give him then 

 the lessons and the example of a purer and a holier faith ; but do 

 not let Russia or England, or any other nation, and we might men- 

 tion others, preach to Turkey of civilisation, humanity and religion, 

 when they themselves, under similar trying circumstances, and often 

 with less provocation, failed so sadly to display these rarest of 

 national virtues. 



Now this war against Turkey by Russia in 1876, was ostensibly a 

 war of coercion, under the pretext of promoting reforms and amelio- 

 rating the condition of the Slavonic Christians. But this ghastly 

 gospel of coercion was a war of invasion and of military occupation 

 which brought not only ruin wherever its bloodstained track was 

 seen, but has placed great, if not insurmountable, obstacles to 

 all progress, all reform, all prosperity and peace, in that most terribly 

 distracted country. 



Moreover, this war of invasion inevitably changed into the 

 fatal policy of conquest, and excited the envy and aroused the 

 jealousy of the Great European Powers. 



It was so in 1859 when France invaded Italy, to assist the Italians 

 in driving out Austria from the Quadrilateral, for at the close of the 

 war France claimed the two Italian provinces of Savoy and Nice, and 

 annexed them to the Empire. 



