ENGLAND, RUSSIA, AND THE EAST.
Letter from the Author of “Elpis Israel” to Viscount Palmerston, with a copy of the work.
LORD PALMERSTON:
Sir—I have taken the liberty of presenting your lordship with a copy of a work recently published, not for the purpose of attracting to myself the notice of men in “high places,” but that your attention may be arrested to the destiny predetermined for the governments of which you and your contemporaries are the incarnations for the time. I have selected you as the especial recipient of Elpis Israel, because, being the Foreign Secretary of State, you are the organ of the government through whom its policy in relation to the Continental Powers finds expression. And not only so, but because also a copy of the book is on its way to be put into the hands of the Russian Autocrat. Like Alexander of Macedon, though through a different interpreter, he will learn what has been written by the Almighty in relation to the future magnitude and power of his dominion. I know not whether your lordship like king Agrippa believe the prophets; be that as it may, you will find in their writings that a power, which can only be that of Russia, as I have shown, is to over-run Turkey and Europe, and to supersede Austria, preparatory to the reconstruction of society, not upon a republican and socialist, but upon a divine basis, such as the world has already witnessed in the original constitution of the nation and kingdom of Israel. If your speech be correctly reported in “The Times” the imperial Russian Chief of the Greeks in Turkey seems to have completely succeeded in persuading you of his sincerity and pacific intentions! You are made to say in reply to Mr. Anstey, “I have no apprehension of that attack which he seems to think intended by the Russian Government. I am persuaded—a persuasion founded on assurances given by the Russian Government—that that Government entertains none but friendly feelings towards the Turkish empire.” Yes, its feelings are so friendly, so affectionate, that very probably during your lordship’s tenure of office, Nicholas will take it under his most especial patronage, and infold it in his most ardent embraces. The policy of Russia since Peter the Great has been uniformly aggressive; and its rulers are deeply imbued with the idea that their “Sacred Russia” has “a mission” to perform. This notion is a divine truth. Russia’s mission is stupendous. According to its Autocrat it has “twice saved Europe;” that is, in plain English, has twice thrown it back into the arms of drivelling superstition and cruel and infatuated despotism: and his policy plainly shows itself in every move he makes, that he is preparing to avail himself of its distractions to plant the Greek Cross on St. Sophia, and to establish its ascendancy over the enfeebled dynasties of the West.
I have thought it right that your lordship should know what kind of ideas will be put into the Autocrat’s mind by Elpis Israel. God has appointed Britain to be the political antagonist to Russia; and if your lordship be in office when she makes her grand move you will be the instrument by which that antagonism will be brought to bear against her. I have shown the part to be enacted by Britain in the terrible strife which is approaching with a giant’s tramp. Let me intreat your lordship to read the hand writing which is upon the wall—Europe has been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; God hath numbered its kingdoms, and is about to finish them—and the Autocrat and Britain will contend for the dominion of the East.
Your lordship’s policy already begins to illustrate the correctness of my interpretations. On page 392, I say, “Britain will, doubtless, make extensive seizures of the isles of Greece, to strengthen itself in the Mediterranean, and to antagonise as much as possible the power of the Autocrat in that direction.” This was written in 1849, and in February, 1850, you have startled the world by a reclamation of the isles of Cabrera and Sapienza from the Russo-Bavarian kingdom of Greece. But your lordship is wise. If Russia overshadow Europe and Turkey, England must stretch out her wings over maritime Greece, Egypt and Syria, if she would prevent the Autocrat enacting over again the part of Selim in 1509 by cutting off the British Isles from all communication with Hindostan via the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. With Russia in the Old World and the United States in the New, Britain can only perpetuate her commercial and marine ascendancy by making the highway from England to India by the isthmus of Suez peculiarly her own.
In conclusion, a very considerable and influential portion of the public are deeply interested in the topics treated of in Elpis Israel, of which 1100 copies have been sold unaided by advertisement or review. I trust that your lordship may prove to be one of this number. The future is a brilliant inspiration to the believer; but dark, ominous, and terrific to those whose horizon is bounded by the empirical and unstable policy of “the powers that be.” The destiny of our race is glorious, but the probation of the nations in advancing to that consummation calamitous and severe.
That your lordship may continue to be the exponent of a policy evincing to the world the profound feeling of this nation, that the time is passed away in which “the right divine of kings to govern wrong” will be tolerated here, or witnessed abroad without expostulation, or more formidable protest; and that you may long retain office in the exercise of this ministry, is the unfeigned and earnest hope of your lordship’s well-wisher, who subscribes himself,
With all due consideration and respect,
JOHN THOMAS,
Author of Elpis Israel.
London, February 8th, 1850.
REPLY.
Viscount Palmerston to the Author.
Foreign Office,
February 15th, 1850.
SIR:
Viscount Palmerston desires me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 8th instant, and to express to you his thanks for the very interesting work which you have been so good as to send him.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
SPENCER PONSONBY.
JOHN THOMAS, Esquire.
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Coins have come down to us that are said to have been struck two hundred years before Sappho, who flourished about six hundred years before Horace and the Christian era. There are metallic coins, or coins bearing portraits of the Macedonian kings, and the successors of Alexander—a complete series of Roman Emperors, from Caesar to the Goths—a variety of heads of eminent persons, not princely, both of Rome and ancient Greece; and a shoal of semi-barbarous heads that reigned in the district comprising modern Hungary, Prussia, and Turkey, and upon which no civilised eye would ever have looked, but for the help of this representative brass.
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