league been complete there is every reason to suppose, now that we have the results before us, that the calculations of Napoleon would have been crowned with success. It was no doubt an operation in which the difficulties were almost equal to the conception and the end. If we look to the counter operations of England, there appears a wonderful dearth of energy and resources; in fact, through the whole war, England's acts, where they were vigorous, were at least but a reflection of the genius of Napoleon; the pluck of her men, the equipments of her vessels, the spirit and capacity of her commanders, naval and military-these were England's riches; but in grasp and spring of mind she was narrow and weak. The presiding element of thought and combination was wanting, and as in the contest between Athens and Philip, the highest effort of her penetration was the spying out of the weakness in Napoleon's fortunes.

England did nothing to counteract the continental blockade; yet it failed. That failure has been set down to the credit of a suppositious British dexterity, or laid to the account of an equally suppositious presumption of Napoleon. But it arose from spontaneous acts of direct resistance at their own peril on the part of Potentates included in the French alliancethe Pope and the Sultan. With neither of these Governments did England entertain diplomatic relations. Their territories opened to English traffic the ports of the Central Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Levant, and the Black Sea, and gave entrance to those goods across their territories into the whole of Southern Russia, of Eastern and Southern Austria, of Piedmont and Switzerland, and thereby into France herself, and this broke the continental blockade, and furnished England with the pecuniary resources necessary for carrying on the war.

The first of these declared that to coerce his subjects in reference to trade, and that under the dictation of a Foreign Power, would be an infringement alike of rights, conscience, and independence. In consequence of this declaration, the Pope was confined at Savona. Supposing that there had been no act of premunire, or that a 'Diplomatic relations with Rome Bill" had been passed in 1806, or at an earlier period, would not this event have been appealed to as a triumph of British diplomacy? But would it ever have happened? At all events, factum valeat.

As to the second, the buccaneering expedition to bombard Constantinople in 1806 fortunately drove away the British Embassy from that capital, and we remained in a state of de facto war with Turkey down to the Treaty of the Dardanelles in 1809. No Government ever had such grounds of enmity, disgust, and abhorrence against another as Turkey then had against England. Nevertheless, despite these feelings, the endeavours and the menaces of France, and the fact of war, it allowed free entrance to our goods and free passage across its territory.

Thus, then, without our care, despite of our neglect, and in consequence of it, was England in that great struggle, furnished with allies by which to make the war, and the resources to carry it on. We know not which lesson is the more strongly inculcated, that diplomacy is useless, or that it is noxious. At all events, what aid England, in her need, has received, she does not owe to her representatives, and on a future occasion we will prove that need has never come upon her save by her representatives; that as she has escaped from the dangers of defeat and subjugation by spontaneous support coming to her from quarters unexpected, so has she been involved in those wars, solely by the inferiority of her own men, and the secrecy of her own system, which left her an easy prey to the designs of others.

We have, however, to add some more recent instances, before quitting this head. Our Indian empire is no small portion of Great Britain; it is a portion of it, just as much as Kent or the Isle of Wight. The lands included within these seas are especially coveted by no foreign power; none of them has ever planned or made preparations for detaching Yorkshire, Cornwall, or Wales. Not so Hindostan. We have considered the designs against that country, and their danger so great, that we have recently made a war in Central Asia, for its protection. This danger proceeds from Russia, and it consists in this, that if a Russian force were in presence on our north-west frontier, as it is upon the Pruth, all the power of the British empire could not preserve India for twelve months. The only reason why Russia does not stand in that position of menace is, that there are intervening nations and tribes. But this intervening population is not necessarily an obstacle: it may become a means. When the English forces landed on the coasts of Portugal, the distance

that intervened to the Pyrenees did not present obstacles to the advance of that force upon France; but, on the contrary, furnished armies. The whole depends on the dispositions of the people.

The intervening space, consequently, between the Caspian and the Indus, is a barrier only because those populations are hostile to Russia, and remains so only so long as they are thus minded. But if they are hostile to Russia, they are England's allies; and yet, up to the mission of Sir Alexander Burnes, we had remained even in geographical ignorance of the condition of those countries. It was remarked by an Indian Director, that at least one good result had been obtained by the Affghan War-that we had obtained extended information-we now knew something about the countries themselves, and of what Russia was doing there. A Dutchman, recently arrived in London, was asked, how they were getting on in Holland? He replied, He replied, "Well, thank God, for the moment Europe has forgotten us !" And so it is for Central Asia. England's barrier there has been maintained by her knowing nothing about it, and caring less for what Russia was doing. With such a system, and such men, there is no safety where there is knowledge and activity. If you will have agents, pray God at least that they may be smitten blind and dumb.

For Hindostan and for the Ottoman Empire there is one, and a mighty, protecting barrier. Against Russia, to the south and west, rises a gigantic obstruction, covering the field of all ancient greatness-the Caucasus. In our times we have seen this new people arise-a people alone upon earth, noble enough in mind and brave enough in person to scout the contaminating alliance of Russia, and to resist her hordes. This people is at WAR with Russia. Hear it, Europe! hear it, exhibitionary camps and parading squadrons!-a few tribes, on their own account, and without revenue, loans, equipments, arsenals, hospitals, pensions, make war on the Czar, your master! They continue that war year after year. They have no Parliaments for the eloquence of patriots, no Gazette for the renown of heroes, no press to inspire virtuous deeds; they have only hearts, and therefore they are as rich in their weakness as you are poor in your strength. While you are crouching at the feet of a Russian Ambassador, they are retaking the fortresses of which they have heretofore been despoiled; while you are studying Russian articles in your

free and independent journals, they are in the field; while you are considering whether you dare to allow your vessels to sail through the Dardanelles, and apprehending the dangers of war, they are beating her armies; but they are barbarians, and you are slaves. How is it that the Ottoman Empire cannot do what Circassia does? You have got there an Ambassador. How is it that Circassia is herself, and being herself, is actually the sole protector of Turkey, and Persia, and India? How is she Russia's foe and your ally ?* For the same single reason-you have there no representative, and she has no diplomacy.

THE HAPPY FAMILY.
September 7th.

This domestic circle, besides a Cat, an Owl, a Monkey, and a Guinea-pig, contains also a screeching Mackaw. The vociferations of the latter call the attention of passers-by to the wonderful harmony within, which it did not disturb, bringing pence to the keeper who feeds them, so mollifying their several natures, and exhibiting the superiority of man's reason to brute instinct.

The leading members of the Cabinet, who are concerned in our foreign relations, have not left town for a single day, and there cannot be a stronger proof of the entire unanimity prevailing in the Ministry, than the fact that at this important conjuncture Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston have returned to London to hold closer communication with Lord Aberdeen. Attempts to sow division in the Ministry and to shake the confidence of the country were never, in fact, more entirely out of place."

step in; see

Just see how I

So shrieks Mackaw. "Step in, gentlemen, what fine animals I have got all in one cage. It's no use your trying to make them quarrel, and as for telling the people that they are stuffed, it's all flam. make this sleepy Owl start, and how I rap the Tabby. All alive, all alive, gentlemen, and harmless." Wonderful times! tempora mutantur is an old story; will it ever be "et nos mutamur" also? The Conference at

"The dread of the Tartars has been long extinct amongst the Russian people, but every individual has heard of the Circassians." Haxhausen's Russia, vol. ii, p. 74.

Vienna has got "its own Ministers." Why should not the Times have its "own Cabinet," and its selected one, and why should it not exhibit its own property as it thinks fit to the world? What a juggler we have here. “His animals,”

he says, "have not one day been out of their cage," and yet he announces their return. The Monkey and the Cat have been roaming, but have got back to look after the Owl and the Guinea-pig-the happy Venetian "Four," whom we were scoring up on Pasquin's column at the very moment that the Times was printing them in large type on its play bill.

Let any man compare our article of yesterday with that of the Times, and he will not fail to draw the conclusion of a perfectly common apprehension of the subject, but of a diametrically opposite use of that knowledge. The Times is enchanted that the rest of the Cabinet is got rid of, and that affairs are left entirely in the hands of the "Four," equally implying a considerable degree of gratification at the Queen's being on her travels. It looks upon the unanimity of the "Four," as the point on which everything depends. Such is precisely the view which we took of the case in our impression of yesterday, the difference only being that we held that unanimity to ensure the sacrifice of British interests and the dishonour of the land. So much for the new internal distribution of power in England-for, in fact, a silent revolution has taken place.

دو

Now let us look to the subject matter. We separated that branch from the other, devoting an article to each. The Times has mixed them up together. We asserted that the answer, which will arrive probably to-morrow, would be on the face an acceptance, with a question of "compensation in the rear. The Times prepares the public for both contingencies; for the first, by making Russia's acceptance doubtful, so that it may be received with joy; for the second, by bringing forward the great sacrifices incurred by the Emperor, that the public may be inclined to pass over the little case of mortgage."

The document, on the whole, is a series of adjusted contradictions, in which everything that can be asserted against Russia, or for Russia, is exhausted, and by perusing which the reader is left in a happy state of mental suspense and bewilderment, to carry away the sense of enormous difficulties which attend judgment upon a subject where so much