No. CCXLIV.

In our last number we took occasion to lay before the public a more full and detailed relation of the Prusso-Germanic Custom house League, its contemplated objects, its probable prospective operation, with the fraudulent pretences on which it was based, and by which it was sought to be justified, than had hitherto appeared. With the evidence of facts and figures, in their main conclusions unimpeachable, the utter groundiessness of the charge which has been the eternal theme of half-witted economists at home, and designing statesmen abroad, imputing the restrictive rigours of foreign commercial systems to the illiberality of our own, was, in the case of Prussia at least, for our labours extended no farther, decisively demonstrated.

Dismissing the chimerical conceits of war-hunting philosophy, we turn to matter more worthy our consideration. There is scarcely any question of foreign policy into the solution of which the concerns of foreign commerce do not largely enter. There is no nation upon earth so purely commercial in its character and pursuits as this, and none with so large a stake of material interests risked upon the issue of every political movement. We have no dreams of restless ambition to be indulged-no conquests save those of industry to pant after-of the resplendent trophies of succesful war and national glory we have enough and more than enough for

VOL. XXXIX. NO. CCXLIV.

immortality in the page of history. Rich, however, as we are, in all that constitutes a nation's honour, safety, and happiness, our stored up treasure may not be idly played with or dilapidated. It is the half ruined gamester only that puts all to hazard on one throw in a paroxysm of blind passion, and the forlorn chance of revenge; it is Quixote redivivus alone that would range the world to redress the wrongs of kingdoms or of peoples. We cannot afford to sacrifice sense to sensibility, nor to squander national resources for the sole object of succouring the oppressed of other realms and crushing a heartless oppressor-wealthy though we be, and powerful as wealthy. Deeply as we sympathize with the wrongs-profoundly as we venerate the patriots-dearly as we love the gallant people-of Poland, we would not have counselled war with the Autocrat and his powerful neighbours leagued against her in her ill-timed though holy insurrection, because it becomes not the rulers of an empire to hazard its permanent welfare for the gratification of sympathy and feeling alone. Nor would we have warred to impose compulsory freedom on Belgium, Portugal, and Spain. No state may safely dissolve the bonds of various alliance, and abandon the interests of self for such indulgence. But when the necessity of self preservation combines with the generous sentiments of nature, then may the statesman

K

unlock the treasured-up remembrance of the injuries of a noble race, and, whilst he stretches forth the arm of might to avenge them, solace himself with the grateful reflection that he is exacting also a merited retribution for insult offered or damage caused to the land with whose destinies he is specially charged. That moment may, or may not be fast approaching-portentous signs are abroad-let us in that case pray for a pilot skilled and courageous to weather the storm, under whose guidance we may confidently dare the raging elements, without fear of the quicksands and shallows on which it has been our luckless fate so often to have latterly grounded.

Whilst, therefore, as our preceding observations are intended to demonstrate, we disclaim all communion with the agitators who proclaim a crusade of principles or of chivalry; whilst we maintain with earnestness that our policy ought to be eminently peace and conservation abroad, no less than at home, it is impossible to dissemble the fact that the designs of Russia, scarcely disguised, combined with her past usurpations, seem so closely to threaten the continuance of the social and material prosperity of the empire, that it is time to familiarize our minds with the possibility of closer conflict than the interchanges of diplomacy. The British minister that should stand quiescently by whilst she possessed herself of Constantinople, and finally closed the Dardanelles against our marine, commercial or royal, would deserve to expiate on the scaffold his treachery or imbecility. We have now, indeed, and we have had, men of state that have bid high for the penalty; for no man, whatever his feelings of party, with a spark of patriotism in his breast, will deny that the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi is a monument of eternal disgrace to Earl Grey and Lord Palmerston, as it is of dishonour and degradation to their country. The facts, well known as they are, may, for the sake of connexion, be simply repeated. After the victory of Koniah in 1832, Ibrabim Pacha was advancing upon Constantinople. The Porte applied to England as to its oldest friend for suc

cour or mediation, with ample offers of commercial privileges for indemnity; a threat would have stayed the Egyptian in his career-twomenof war off the coast of Syria or the port of Alexandria would even, in the case of recusancy, have enforced obedience; nor threat, nor mediation, nor succour was yielded to rescue the Turkish empire from impending destruction. On Wednesday, the 29th August, being the last day but one of the Session 1833, the explanation, shameful as snivelling, of Lord Palmerston to Parliament was, that "without giving any very detailed explanation of the matter, he would only remind the House that then we were embarked in naval operations on the North Sea, and on the coast of Holland, and were under the necessity of keeping up. another naval force on the coast of Portugal;" therefore we had not a ship to spare. We were blockading or observing two petty states, with which, but for silly intervention, we could have had no relations but those of amity, and out of our vaunt. ed naval force could not find wherewith to furnish a commodore's pennant for a service more vitally important to our interests than Holland, Belgium, and Portugal in the lump. This was not all; the secretary farther stated that, so far even from "Russia having expressed any jea lousy as to granting that assistance, the Russian Ambassador officially communicated to him, while the request (of Turkey) was still under consideration, that he had learned that such an application had been made, and that from the interest taken by Russia in the maintenance and preservation of the Turkish empire, it would afford satisfaction if they (the Grey Ministry) could find themselves able to comply with the request." Could folly go farther than this avowal? Could the nakedness of the land or its rulers be more ingenuously exposed? Yet the Reformed House cried "Hear, hear!" and the Birmingham patriot was "thankful" to the noble Lord. The fact was, that the cunning Egyptian had thrown the dust of the desert into the eyes of the man of State; under the tutelage of Bontenieff, dazzling offers were made on his part, and thence the disinterested

proffer of Lieven, and the complimentary rejection of aid by Palmerston. Ships of war there were rotting in harbour in plenty; there wanted recently no application to Parliament to job Lord Durham and his suite to St Petersburg in two men-of-war. Individually and generally our inclination leads us to speak as to think of Earl Grey with respect as an honourable man and a consistent statesman; age had impaired his faculties, and the clamours of a family brood, interminable in its ramifications, preyed upon his weakness, if not upon his affections. Under cover of the Reform mania, he had gorged them with place and sinecure to an extent such as Minister never before had dared towards kinship; a show of public economy was deemed necessary to coat over the extravagances of nepotism; maritime succour to Turkey, therefore, was refused on the ground of expense, when one year's salary of all the Greys would have defrayed it twice over. The sequel is soon told. Upon our refusal the Sultan, en dernier resort, threw himself into the arms of Russia. Soon from Sevastopol a fleet and army anchored in the roadstead of the Seraglio; Ibrahim retired at the Muscovite command, and the grateful Ottoman was but too happy to get rid of his hated Russian guests, by sign ing any thing and every thing. By a secret article of the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, the passage of the Dar. danelles to the ships of all nations was made contingent on the good pleasure of the Czar; and of that secret article, so excellently well was the Foreign Office administered abroad as at home, that Lord Palmerston was not ashamed to declare, in the face of the Commons of England, that he was indebted for the knowledge of it, not to the undeceivable penetration of an ambassador, but to the masterly correspondence of a newspaper (the Morning Herald) from the Turkish capital. In the official manifesto of the Government, entitled the "Reform Ministry, and the Reformed Parliament," published at the close of the Session 1833, the whole of this disgraceful business is skimmed over in two paragraphs, one of which admits that the Eastern question was one which the "Governments of

Europe were entitled to look upon as a matter in which their own interests were directly involved," and the other winds up the allusion to the departure of the Russians from Constantinople, and Ibrahim Pacha from Kutaich, with the bombastic announcement that "it is the business of the British Government to take care that neither shall return again." Magnificent bravado! Bella, horrida bella, should the Autocrat again presume to accept an invitation contemptuously declined by us; and nothing less than war, with its expenditure and horrors, is to be visited upon us on the recurrence of an event, the primary occurrence of which might have been averted by a message to Grand Cairo, and its echo to Asia Minor, borne by two of the men-of-war which were ingloriously tossing to and fro in the fogs off the Scheldt, or riding for months at anchor, under one Captain Grey, in the pleasant bay of Naples, whilst Lord Ponsonby was perfecting his preparatory studies for Turkish diplomacy amidst the Neapolitan witcheries of " opera, play, and ball." The war and the waste of war is only in prospect as yet; but we have a foretaste already of its sweets, and an apt illustration of the economy of "candle ends and cheeseparings," in the usual Whig fashion of abolishing a score of place patronage and originating commissionerships by hundreds. For whereas the navy of Great Britain was ransacked in vain in 1832 for a brace of war boats, in 1834 and since we have had whole squadrons parading it in the Levant, now peeping into the Dardanelles, now careening at Smyrna.

It is not our object in this paper to enter upon an examination of the designs of Russia, or into a disquisition upon the course of policy or of action by which she has, with no unskilled hand, advanced them. The former indeed require no illustration, since their gradual accomplishment forms no small portion of the history of Europe and Asia for the last sixty years. Neither of one or the other have we any fresh revelation to make at present, whatever hereafter we may purpose on more We may, convenient occasions. however, previous to commencing the second branch of our subject,