palities. The question began, therefore, to be asked,-what, if Austria and Russia refused to move, should we have gained by war? We had destroyed Sebastopol, indeed, and a magnificent achievement we had gained-but beyond this all our reconstructive policy presupposed a certain degree of good faith on the part of Russia. We desired pre-eminently to restore freedom of commerce to the Black Sea. If Russia would not give up the territory in Bessarabia ceded by the terms of peace, what would become of the free navigation of the Danube? And if she gave the lie to her solemn territorial engagements, what expectation could we cling to for a fulfilment of her undertaking to foster the commerce of foreign nations in her own legitimate ports?

This reliance on the good faith of a power so recently assailed by arms for the grossest abrogation of political morality, indicated a singular change of opinion in regard to the policy of Russia, from the time when that government was declared by Lord John Russell, two years previously, "to have exhausted every form of falsehood." The truth remained to be evinced, that the stock of Russian duplicity was by no means at an end; and that as it was called into action to prevent the cooperation of the Western Powers in behalf of Turkey, so it was again to be resorted to with the view of preventing the accomplishment of the terms which that co-operation had theoretically enforced.

In order, however, fully to appreciate the Eastern question in all its bearings, as it has presented itself from the conclusion of the Peace of Paris to the present time-a period of nine months-it is necessary to give prominence to the anterior question of the Austrian occupation of two trans-Danubian Principalities. Into the original wisdom of that policy we do not propose now to enter at length. The arrangement was clearly effected under immense difficulties; and it was one in which eventual interests were sacrificed to immediate necessities. The forces of the Allies when the Crimean expedition was first designed were deemed insufficient-even under the misconceived extent of the Russian military strength-for the

double work of protecting the line of the Danube (or that of the Pruth), and of conducting the siege of Sebastopol. If the combined forces had relied upon the importance of their operations in the Crimea, for a combination of the Russian strength in that quarter, the Russians might have indirectly relieved Sebastopol by a sudden triumph on the Danube. The only means of being armed at all points were those of calling the Austrian forces into play, in the character of auxiliaries to the Western Powers and the only means, again, of gaining their assistance were those of granting to them the military occupation of the post of defence in the Principalities, while the Allies themselves took the post of attack in the Crimea. What, therefore, formed undoubtedly a species of strategic necessity, it may seem hard to designate as a political blunder.

But be this as it may, it is clear that a territory of considerable extent, and containing a population of between five and six millions, was surrendered to the Austrian military rule without any express stipulation for its restoration on the conclusion of peace, and without any such arrangement in the Treaty of Paris itself. There was, no doubt, an implied contract, invincible in its moral force, that this territory should be given back to Turkey immediately on the attainment of the temporary ends for which it had been designed. We have, however, lately witnessed the facility with which such a stipulation may be evaded, on even plausible grounds, until it becomes difficult to assign a period at which the execution of the terms of the peace can be calculated to take place.

When, therefore, peace had been concluded on the 31st of March last, and the Allied forces of Great Britain, France, and Turkey, had been withdrawn from the Russian territory in their occupation-there obviously remained three immediate questions of international concern to be settled, forming the basis of the new system of affairs in the East o Europe. These were first, the ces sion by Russia of the territory, bot!. in Europe and Asia, which she ha agreed to yield; secondly, the su render on the part of Austria of t Danubian Principalities; and third

the establishment of a new and semiindependent form of government for those two nationalities. This, we say, formed the basis of the arrangement shadowed forth in the treaty. The superstructure to be raised upon this basis was more gradual and less definite. Among the ulterior arrangements falling within this head, were the River and European Commissions for the commerce and navigation of the Danube; the undertakings of the Russian government for the abolition of existing restrictions upon commerce, and the like. All these elements of the new system we have characterised as an indefinite superstructure, both because their exact terms and character could not be prescribed or ascertained, and because it was not designed that they should be brought immediately into force. These questions we shall scarcely find space to discuss; and the three anterior questions forming the basis of the projected arrangement now justly claim an exclusive hold upon the public mind.

We propose, therefore, to deal with these three subjects in a certain degree seriatim.

Before the difficulties now presented by the questions of Bolgrad and Serpents' Island began to be seriously entertained, it was generally understood that the Austrian and Russian evacuations were reciprocally dependant each upon the other; and that the two governments were either playing into each other's hands, or that Austria had stronger grounds for the insincerity of Russia than what, in that period of the negotiation, had transpired. It is remarkable, indeed, to notice the change which has pervaded public opinion, not only in this country but in Europe generally, in regard to the conduct of Austria, during the last three months. During the summer the indignation against that power was extreme. She was held up as reaching in point of encroachment what Naples reached in point of domestic cruelty. Her military dominion extended from the frontiers of the two Sicilies nearly to the shores of the Black Sea. At once the Papal legations and the Principalities were hers; nothing but her own will or a European war could effect their surrender to their rightful sovereigns;

The apparent circumstances of the case at least were these :--Russia delayed to evacuate Southern Bessarabia because Austria delayed to evacuate the Principalities; and Austria postponed the evacuation of the Principalities because Russia postponed the evacuation of Southern Bessarabia. This political see-saw, proceeding ostensibly from reciprocal jealousy, possessed in reality much of the character of a secret understanding between the two powers. It was obvious that such a pretext might delay a settlement of the question quite indefinitely.

It is not yet publicly known what were the motives which served to dissever Austria from this obvious tendency towards a Russian alliance; nor indeed can it even now be confidently said whether that tendency be extinct or merely dormant. But it is clear that the further development of Russian designs upon the Danube has fully awakened the old jealousy of the Muscovite at Vienna. In all probability, the definite scope thus given by Russia to her violation of the terms of peace, in her claim upon the new and almost unknown Bolgrad,-which she now asserts to be the chief town of that name-may have had the effect of forming the alliance which now exists between the Courts of London and Vienna. It is true that we are without any assurance whether any definitive arrangement may have been entered into by the Austrian government for the evacuation of the Principalities. But it is not less certain that, in the present attitude of the question, no politician in the interest of Great Britain can desire to withdraw an Austrian army at present in our alliance, and thus to leave unoccupied by an adequate force a territory which the troops of Russia encompass both from the north and from the East. It is thus that the grievance of Austrian occupation has been withdrawn from the immediate topics of the day; and it is curious to observe how completely the relations of

Austria have become shifted, as between Russia and the Western Powers. If the Austrian government agree to withdraw from the Principalities as soon as the Russian army is withdrawn from the Danube, all will go well so far as they are concerned. If, however, it should unhappily prove otherwise, the reor ganization of those states will be a matter of further difficulty.

We now proceed, therefore, to the question of the Russian evacuation.

I. The only Turkish territory of which the Russians were in possession upon the conclusion of the peace, formed a very insignificant part of the territorial question involved in the treaty. In this instance, however, they manifested a determination to infringe a leading principle of international law in dismantling the fortresses which they evacuated. Here was an ample and clear indication that Russian policy had undergone no such alteration as it was common to ascribe to it. A new theory sometimes brings no change in an old practice. Having thus set at defiance one of the first principles that regulate the intercourse of states, according to the concurrent testimony of every publicist, the next act of the Court of St. Petersburg was a fulmination against the whole policy for which the Allies had taken up arms only two years before, in the shape of a circular signed by Prince Gortschakoff. This document, it will be remembered, issued at the very moment when Lord Granville and Count de Morny were representing their sovereigns at Moscow, on a mission expressly calculated to efface the memory of the recent war.

When these demonstrations became so rapidly succeeded by a full development of the Russian claims upon Serpents' Island and New Bolgrad, it became clear that Russia was far from indisposed to provoke a recurrence of the war, provided she could effect a change in the relations of the military powers. In this, however, she for once committed a signal diplomatic blunder. For, in sacrificing every other consideration to the attainment of a majority in the Congress of the Seven Powers, she was forced to conciliate Sardinia in a degree which brought the doubtful friendship of the Austrian go

vernment to the verge of positive hostility. Relying upon Prussia as her fidus Achates, and gaining the suffrage of the Court of Turin, a successful intrigue with the half-Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs at Paris seemed sufficient to enable her to carry her views in the Congress against Great Britain, Austria, and Turkey. The impolitic activity with which this daring scheme was set on foot consolidated the alliance of the three last-named powers so firmly, that Austria and Lord Palmerston for once became friends, and Turkey lent her sanction to the continuous occupation of the Principalities by Austria. To the unflinching firmness of these three powers we may partially refer the subsequent approximation of the French policy

to our own.

The real merits of the controversy upon which the question of peace or war has actually been turning are, however, very partially understood. The territorial question referring to Bolgrad, and the maritime question relating to the Isle of Serpents, are distinctly different. The former is essentially one of fact, the latter partially a question of law. But the fact and the law are nevertheless equally clear.

The Bolgrad question is capable of solution at once by direct circumstance and by indirect inference. It is now officially admitted by the Russian government itself that the difficulty experienced by members of Congress in deciphering the maps brought by Count Orloff from St. Petersburg, induced them finally to adopt the last French map of Turkey and Russia, published by the government at Paris. The testimony of that map is conclusive against the Russian claims.

We take the following statement of the line of frontier prescribed by the Treaty of Paris from a map of the province of Bessarabia, specially published some years ago by the government at St. Petersburg. It was published before the Russian government had any view of distorting Bes sarabian geography. We select this testimony in preference to the maps of Arrowsmith and others, which perpetually conflict with each other.

Three great difficulties have, in our view, caused the lamentable ig

norance that has prevailed in Western Europe with regard to the geography of this quarter. In the first place, the province of Bessarabia, from the successive dominations that it has undergone, the effects of which have scarcely in any instance died out, possesses two or even three names for nearly every town or village that it contains. In the second, during the forty-four years that have intervened since the peace of Bucharest (1812,) it has been in Russian hands; and if we refer to the numerous books of travels on the Lower Danube that have been written during that period, we shall find that, while they nearly all treat of Moldavia and Wallachia, scarcely one of these travellers was adventurous enough to penetrate to the Russian side of the Pruth. Thirdly, the extraordinary conflict between different geographers as to the inland waters of Bessarabia may arise from the fact, that the lakes and estuaries of that province partake largely of the character of lagunes, and present consequently very different aspects in different seasons of the year.

Following, therefore, the geographical authority to which we have referred, the line of frontier first includes all the lakes on the sea-board of the Euxine. The terms of the article defining the frontier are in substance"that the boundary shall be drawnfrom the sea to the Akerman Road, at a distance of one kilometre north of the Lake of Bourna Sola; that it shall thence follow the Akerman Road to the River Yalpuck, though passing to the south of Bolgrad; that it shall ascend the Yalpuck to the heights of Saratsika; and that it thence be terminated by a line drawn from Saratsika to Katamori on the Pruth."

Between the mouths of the Danube and the mouth of the Dniester several lakes, of which that of Bourna Sola is the most northerly, intervene. These lakes, erroneously marked as estuaries in some of our maps, are in fact similar to those on the French coast of the Mediterranean, near Montpellier. It was the object of the treaty, in order to deprive Russia of all proximity to the Danube, even along the sea-board, to include these lakes in the Turkish territory. The frontier, here falling into and following the Akerman Road, runs from this point

nearly parallel with an ancient wall, now in ruins, and which has given occasion to some ludicrous errors in this country. It has not only been termed "the Roman wall," although its Roman origin is quite hypothetical, but even Trajan's wall," which is in Bulgaria and forms the southern boundary of the Dobrutska! The confusion probably arises from the "via Trajana," which the frontier bisects near Bolgrad.

The line of frontier was, in our view, dictated by several concurrent considerations, of which three were ancillary to the main object of restraining Russia from the Danube. In addition to that of retaining in Turkish hands the lakes on the seaboard of Bessarabia, to which we have already adverted, there was the still more important consideration of fencing off the inland lakes and estuaries which communicated more or less directly with the river. It was with this view that the Akerman Road, which runs nearly at right angles with, and immediately to the north of, these lakes, was fixed as the boundary of the two empires, so far as the Val de Trajan. This formed the second of these ancillary objects. The third, scarcely less important, was that of walling off Russia from any immediate contiguity with southern Moldavia, by making the course of the Yalpuckwhichever be decided on by the congress-the Bessarabian boundary on the east, so far as Saratsika. This arrangement was admirable in theory. It excluded Russia from any coasting interest in Bessarabia: it exIcluded her from all riverine communication with the Danube; and it excluded her from pursuing, with the same facility as heretofore, her intrigues in the government of Moldavia.

It is singular, perhaps, that the obvious determination of Russia to resort to the most unscrupulous evasions of the treaty of peace should have developed itself, so far as the boundary is concerned, in reference to two points only. We know not, however, what other quibbles are yet to be raised in the new conference. Possibly we have yet to hear that there are two lakes named Bourna Sola, two heights known as Saratsika, and two villages on the Pruth pos

ssing the name of Katamori. We vill, not, however, anticipate fresh complications, but address ourselves to the points raised on this head by the Russians.

With regard, therefore, to the two Bolgrads, it will be remembered that it was stipulated by the treaty that the frontier should pass to the south of the only town then known as bearing that name. As it happens that the ruined wall, which would itself, perhaps, have made a better frontier than the nearly parallel Akerman Road, runs to the north of Bolgrad, it may be well to state that the line was thus drawn as a concession very important to the legitimate interests of the Russians in the territory which yet remained to them, while the acquisition or retention of this town by Turkey was a very inferior consideration. Bolgrad had become not only the Bessarabian capital, where the Russian local government had been conducted for forty years, but it owed nearly all its commercial activity to the Russian settlers who had migrated thither during that period. If, therefore, a safe frontier could be devised, which should leave this Bolgrad in Russian hands, it was only just to Russia that it should be so left. But we believe the assertion of the Russian government, that the political relations of the Old Bolgrad have been transferred to New Bolgrad, to be wholly untrue.

As the daily journals have effected but little to inform the public of the exact and true topography of this town, which forms, as it were, the pivot of the whole question, it may be desirable to express the testimony of the chart which we have been following, with as much clearness as possi

ble. This Bolgrad, then-the old Bolgrad is situated within about half a mile to the east of the river Yalpuck, and about three miles above its confluence with the lake of the same name. The river and the lake similarly flow from north to south in a straight line towards the Danube, which runs, consequently, at right angles with either. The lake is in effect a vastly widened continuation of the river, and is nearly twenty miles in length. This lake communicates with the Danube, both by means of a second lake, much smaller in extent and circular in form, and by a

winding but usually navigable channel. The total distance from Bolgrad to the Danube is something less than thirty miles. This Bolgrad has been improperly called "Bolgrad Tabak ;” whereas its former name was Tabak or Tabakie, that of "Bolgrad" simply being now substituted; and at a distance of half a mile is the hamlet of Tabakshaia. On the shore of lake Yalpuck, and therefore commanding a navigable communication with the Danube, is the New Bolgrad set up by the Russians as being the Bolgrad within the meaning of the treaty.

Two paramount considerations are here perfectly clear. The one, that a line passing almost immediately to the south of Old Bolgrad would do no more than effect the great object of cutting off the Russian communications with the Danube; the other, that a line surrendering New Bolgrad to Russia would wholly defeat that paramount consideration. It is of the utmost concern that the Russian dominion should never be allowed to extend to the shore of Lake Yalpuck. We are by no means certain that we have not overstated the distance from Old Bolgrad to the head of the lake, in computing it at three miles. But conceding that distance, a boundary allowing to the town a decent margin of Russian dominion on its southern side, would afford but from one to two miles of Turkish or Moldavian territory to secure the shore at the head of Lake Yalpuck.

We have adverted the more emphatically to these considerations, because it has become frequently the habit of diplomacy to settle contending claims by means of compromise. The Russians, once opposed in their claim to New Bolgrad, immediately set up a proposal for what was ostensibly a mean between our position and theirs. But in this case, as we have shown, any compromise would be wholly ineffectual. The question here at issue is a mere geographical illustration of "to be, or not to be." It is not so much the town of New Bolgrad that the Russians claim, as a position commanding a navigable communication with the Danube; and they would soon repair the loss of New Bolgrad by building a newer Bolgrad within their territory, if it were allowed to